Bible Commentaries

V. Sinless Aim of the Guileless Spirit—Provision for Its Continued Sense of Sin

"My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father."— 1 John 2:1

TO obviate, as it might seem, an objection against his doctrine of confession, that it was liable to be turned into an allowance of sin, the Apostle first makes a most emphatic protest as to his real design in setting forth that doctrine; and secondly, puts the manner of restoration, through the advocacy of Christ, on a footing that effectually shuts out all licentious and latitudinarian abuse of it, in the line of practical antinomianism.

His first desire is to make clear the sinless aim of the guileless spirit, about the production of which he has been so much concerned.

And here his appeal is very affectionate: "My little children?" It is the appeal of a loving master to the good faith and good feeling of loving pupils; beseeching them not to misunderstand him, as if he meant to indulge or excuse them in sin. Nay, it is more than that. It is an appeal to their highest and holiest Christian ambition. Far from tolerating sin, I would have you to aim at being sinless. "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not;" that you may make it your express design and determination not to sin.

That is the full force of the Apostle's language, when he says, "I write these things unto you that ye sin not."

I. Let that be your aim, to "sin not." Let it be deliberately set before you as your fixed and settled purpose that you are not to sin; not merely that you are to sin as little as you can; but that you are not to sin at all.

For there is a wide difference between these two ways of putting the matter. That in the business of your sanctification absolute holiness is to be your standard, you may admit. A sinless model or ideal is presented to you; and you acknowledge your obligation to be conformed to it. But is not the acknowledgment often accompanied with some sort of reserve or qualification? The measure of conformity that may be fairly expected must be limited by what your infirmity may hope to reach; nay, you even venture to add, by what God may be pleased to give you strength to reach. This is scarcely honest. It is not equivalent to an out and out determination not to sin. You do not really mean to be altogether without sin; but only so far as your own poor ability, aided by the Divine Spirit, may enable you to be so. Or, with reference to some specific work or trial that you have on hand, you do not really mean not to sin in it, but only not to sin in it more than you can help. Is it not 1 John 2:1-2

THE manner of our restoration, if we fall short of the sinless aim, not less than the sinless aim itself, is fitted to guard against any abuse of John's doctrine of forgiveness. It is through an advocacy altogether incompatible with anything like the toleration of evil. This will appear if we consider the three things here mentioned as qualifying our advocate for his advocacy;—I. He is "Jesus Christ the righteous;" II. He is "the propitiation for our sins;" III. He is the propitiation "not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

I. He is "Jesus Christ the righteous."

Jesus! The name is as ointment poured forth; fragrant, precious. He is called Jesus because he saves his people from their sins. Jesus, my Saviour! My Jesus! Saving me from my sins, from myself! Art thou indeed my advocate with the Father—standing by me, pleading for me—by thy Spirit pleading in me—when, in spite of my firmest purpose not to sin, and my closest clinging to thee that I may not sin, I must still, under the pressure of sin besetting me, cry, Unclean, undone! Then indeed may I hold on walking in the light, and with a sinless aim, if thou art with me. Jesus, save me from my sins! Christ! the Anointed! whom the Father anoints through the Spirit; whom I also, through the Spirit, in sympathy with the Father, humbly venture to anoint! his Christ and mine!—with thee, O Christ, as my advocate with the Father;—with thee, True Mediator,—Revealer, Reconciler, Ruler,—Prophet, Priest, and King;—I will not, amid all that is discouraging in the experience of ray remaining darkness, despair of yet becoming all that he who is light and who dwelleth in light would have me to be; all that thou art, O Christ!

But the emphatic word here is not the proper name Jesus, nor the official name Christ, but the adjective "righteous."

This term may possibly be understood as referring to the righteousness which he has wrought out on our behalf, as our substitute and surety, and which he brings in and presents before the Father as the ground of all his pleading with him as our advocate. For his advocacy is not a mere ministry of persuasion; working as it were on the placibility and fond facility of an angry but weak potentate, an offended but infirm and indulgent parent. It is his submitting to God the Father, as the righteous governor, such a service and satisfaction as may warrant, in terms of strictest law and justice, the exercise of mercy towards his guilty but penitent children. All that is true. But it is not, I think, what John principally has in his mind. For, in the first place, the efficacious and meritorious condition of our Lord's advocacy is sufficiently brought out in the clause which follows, "he is the propitiation for our sins." And secondly, it is awkward to understand the word "righteous" in two distinct senses, as it is used in the same passage, and within the compass of a few verses, first of the Father ( 1 John 1:9), and now of the Son ( 1 John 2:1). I take it therefore as pointing, not to the legal righteousness which Christ has—or rather which Christ is—but to the righteousness of his character, and of his manner of advocacy with the Father for us. That other meaning need not be excluded, for the two are by no means inconsistent. But when John commends our advocate with the Father as "Jesus Christ the righteous," it is surely upon his benignant equity that he would have us to fix our eyes.

Such an advocate becomes us; and such alone. If we rightly consider the relation to God into which the gospel message, as John has been putting it, is designed to bring us; the footing on which it places us with God.; the sort of divine insight, sympathy, and fellowship for which it opens up the way; and the sort of walk on which it sets us; we may well feel that none other than such an advocate could meet our case.

In any court in which I had a cause to maintain I would wish to have a righteous advocate. Not less than I would desire a righteous judge would I welcome a righteous advocate. I do not want an advocate who will flatter and cajole me. I do not want one to tell me smooth things and lead me on the ice; disguising or evading the weak points of my plea; putting a fair face on what will not stand close scrutiny, and touching tenderly what will not bear rough handling; getting up untenable lines of defence, and keeping me in good humour till disaster or ruin comes. Give me an advocate who will tell me the truth, and tell the truth on my behalf; one who will deal truly with me and for me, and fairly represent my case. Give me an advocate who, much as he may care for me, cares for honesty and honour, for law and justice, still more. Give me an advocate not afraid to vex or wound me for my safety, for my good. Whatever his name, let him be the honest, the upright, "the righteous."

Such an advocate is Jesus Christ for us in the high court of heaven; for he is "Jesus Christ the righteous." In the presence of the righteous John 16:26-27). It should be so; and we seek to have it so. But the home is so holy, and the light is so holy, and he who is in the light is so holy; and we are so sinful, so fain to shrink from the light and court the darkness again, that we cannot stand upright. We cannot keep our ground; we cannot move on; we cannot meet the Father's eye; we stumble; we fall. Ah! we need that elder brother still. We need him to be our advocate with the Father. He must not quit our side. He must not let go our hand. He must be ever leading us in to the Father, and presenting us to the Father, and speaking for us to the Father, and putting us anew right with the Father. And so he is. He is never far off. "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." "The righteous!" For now what sort of advocate with the Father would we have? And what would we have his advocacy to be? The time has been when, if we cared to live at home in the Father's house at all, we would have been glad of the good offices, say of some upper servant, not very scrupulous and not over strict, who might be disposed to take our part when any breach occurred. It might be convenient to have a friend at court, an advocate with the head and master of the family, ready always to intercede for us; to hide our faults or apologise for them; to come in between us and the angry glance or the uplifted arm; to put a specious colouring on the cause of offence, and get us off, no matter how, from dreaded vengeance. But no such advocacy will be welcome now. No such advocate will our elder brother be. For he is our advocate with the Father, as "Jesus Christ the righteous." Yes! in dealing with us, as well as in dealing with the Father for us, he will deal righteously, truly, justly. He will so ply his office, and travail in his work, of advocacy between the Father and us, as to preserve the right understanding which he has himself brought about, and obviate the risk of renewed separation. He will make it all subservient to our more thorough cleansing from sin, and our closer walk with God;—our being "holy as he is holy." For—

II. "He is the propitiation for our sins." He is so now. He is present with us now as our advocate with the Father; and it is as being the propitiation for our sins that he is present with us.

It is not needful to settle in what precise aspect of the sacrificial service Jesus is here spoken of as the propitiation; whether with reference to the sacrificial victim slain, or the altar on which it was burned, or the mercy-seat on which its blood was sprinkled. Jesus is all three in one; the lamb slain, the altar of atonement, the blood-baptized mercy-seat. The important lesson is this, that it is as the propitiation for our sins that Jesus Christ is oar advocate with the Father. Whenever he acts as our advocate, whether to satisfy the Father anew or to pacify our consciences anew, he acts in virtue of his being—not having been but being—the propitiation for our sins. The two, in fact, are one; his advocacy with the Father is his being the propitiation for our sins. In every instance in which it is exercised, it is simply a new and fresh application to our case of the virtue of his being the propitiation for our sins.

For what does he do when, in some dark hour, he ministers to me and in me as my advocate with the Father? He draws near; the Spirit so taking of what is his and showing it to me as to bring him near. He is beside me, with me, at my right hand. He is here with me now, the propitiation for my sins now, precisely as he was on Calvary. I see him, invisible as he 1 John 2:3-5

THIS is a more literal explanation of the divine fellowship, considered as a fellowship of light, than has been given before. The light which is the atmosphere of the fellowship, or the medium of vision and sympathy through which it is reaslised, is the light of knowledge, the light of the knowledge of God. For the fellowship is intelligent as well as holy—intelligent that it may be holy.

But of what sort is that knowledge? And how is it to be got hold of and made sure of? These are the questions with which John now proceeds to deal. And in the verses that form our text he introduces them very emphatically, as questions personally and practically affecting us, with reference to our claim and calling to be walkers in the light.

For, first, he would have us to "know that we know God" ( 1 John 2:3). He raises the question of the trustworthiness of our knowledge of God. It is as if you asked me about one of my familiars, whose name I am fond of using, whose opinions I am apt to quote, whose patronage I rather boast of;—"But do you know that you know him? Are you sure that you understand him?" The abrupt question takes me somewhat aback. I think I know him. But your doubt startles me. I must inquire and see. Again, secondly, John would have us to "know that we are in God" ( 1 John 2:5). This suggests still more hesitancy. I have had the idea that I am in him, in the sense of being united to him in the bonds of faith, fellowship, and friendship. But you raise misgivings. Do I indeed know that I am in him?

The two inquiries may be treated as one; requiring the same examination and admitting of the same proof.

There comes in, however, thirdly, an intermediate thought: "whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the is the love of God perfected" ( 1 John 2:5). This expression denotes a fact accomplished. The word "is perfected" points to something done; and the word "verily" or "truly" marks the reality and thoroughness of what has been done and of the doing of it.

Now it is love that is said to be thus perfected; the love of God. This can scarcely mean here the grace or affection of love; as the love of God to us, or our love to God; but rather the fellowship of love between him and us. "In the keeping of his word" that fellowship of love, so far as we are concerned, finds its completion, or "is perfected."

Most fitly does this thought come in between the other two. I. To know God; II. To have his love verily and indeed perfected in us; III. To be ourselves in him; that is our thrice holy standing, our thrice blessed privilege, in his Son Jesus Christ. If we would make sure of it, in our experience, it must be by keeping his commandments, keeping his word.

I. There were those in John's day who affected to know God very deeply and intimately, in a very subtle and transcendental way. They laid great stress on thus knowing God; so much so that they took or got the name of knowing ones, or Gnostics. All about the essence of God, or his mysterious manner of being, they knew. All his attributes, and inward actings, and outward emanations, they knew. The forthgoings from everlasting of all his thoughts and volitions they knew so familiarly, and by so sublime an insight, that they could give to every one of them a local habitation and a name. They knew how heaven swarmed with these divine effluences or outgoings, as it were, of God sterner nature; to which they ascribed a sort of dreamy personality; associating them into a spiritual or ghostly hierarchy, in whose ranks they dared to place the very Son of the Highest himself. So they, after their own fashion, knew God. And through this knowledge of him, they professed to aspire to a participation of his godhead; their souls or spiritual essences being themselves effluences and emanations of his essence; and being therefore, along with all other such effluences or emanations, ultimately embraced in the Deity of which they formed part. So they "knew God."

But how did they know that they knew him? Was it because they kept his commandments? Nay, their very boast was that they knew God so well as to be raised far above that commonplace keeping of the commandments which might do for the uninitiated, but for which they had neither time nor taste. Their knowledge of God was too mystical and ethereal—too much of a rhapsody or a rapture—to admit of its being tested in so plain and practical a way. It was a small affair for them to keep the commandments, and a small affair also to break them. They were occupied with higher matters. Their real life was in a higher sphere. They cared for nothing but "knowing God."

John denounces strongly their impious pretence—"He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." The language is more forcible than ever. He not merely "lies" ( 1 John 1:6); but "is a liar." Not merely does he "not do the truth," but in that man "the truth is not." To affect any knowledge of God that is not to be itself known and ascertained by the keeping of his commandments,—to dream of knowing God otherwise than in the way of keeping his commandments—is to be false to the heart's core.

For, in fact, the question comes to be, Do I know God as a mere abstraction, about whose nature I may speculate? Or do I know him personally, as a man knows his friend? This last is the only kind of knowledge of God which John can recognise and own. It is what he starts with; his fundamental position; his postulate or axiom. God is known through or in the incarnate Word of life, as he was heard, looked upon, handled, by those who lived familiarly with Jesus. Whosoever hath seen him hath seen the Father. "No man knoweth the Father but the 1 John 2:3).

II. For while "he that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" ( 1 John 2:4); "whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected" ( 1 John 2:5).

The change of expression here is surely meant to be significant. "His commandments," which may be many and various, are reduced to what is one and simple—"his word." The meaning is doubtless in substance the same; but there is a shade of difference. This keeping of his word 1 John 2:5). This, as it would seem, is the crown and consummation of all; first, to be in him; and, secondly, to know that we are in him. First, to be in him; in a God whom we know, and between whom and us there is a real and perfect covenant of peace and love;—that must be an attainment worth while for us to realise; worth while for us to know or be sure that we realise.

To be in him! This cannot mean to be in God in any mystical sense of absorption; as if we were to lose our distinct personality, and be swallowed up in the ocean of the divine essence. All such ideas are precluded by the clear and unequivocal recognition of personal dealings, as between one intelligent being and another, implied in our knowing God, and in his love being truly perfected in us. But short of that wild and impious dream, it is not easy to urge too far the almost literal significance of the expression,—"we are in him." Certainly it is something very different from merely being in what is his; as in his church, his house, his family, his kingdom. It is being in himself. What, on his part, that implies is among "the things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived, but which God hath prepared for them that love him." Even to them it cannot be described beforehand. It transcends all that in imagination they could previously grasp. It is so prepared for them that love him that only in loving him can they apprehend and prove it. To be in him! What a covering of them with his wings—what a wrapping of them round with his own divine perfections—what an identifying of them with himself, of their interests with his, their triumph with his, their joy with his; what an identifying of himself with them, his grace with their guilt, his strength with their weakness, his glory with their salvation! To be in him! What a surrounding of them on all sides as with eyes innumerable and arms invincible; clothing them, as it were, with his own omniscience, his own omnipotence! Truly "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people." They are in him. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

But it is rather what on our part this phrase implies that we are led to consider. What insight! What sympathy! What entering into his rest! What entering into his working too! What a fellowship of light!

We are in him! We are in his mind. He lets us into his mind. If I have a friend whom I know, and between whom and me there is a truly perfected love, I long to enter into his mind; to be partaker with him in all his mental movements and exercises, as he reads, and meditates, and studies; as he lays his plans and carries them into effect. I would be so in him that there should be, as it were, but one mind between us. Oh to be thus in God, of one mind with God!

We are in his heart. He lets us into his heart,—that great heart of the everlasting Father so warmly and widely opened in his Son Jesus Christ. To be in him, so that that heart of his shall draw to itself my heart, and the beating of the two shall, as it were, be in unison, and the throbbing of the two shall be blended in one;—and the Father's deep earnestness shall be mine and the Father's holy wrath shall be mine; and the Father's pity shall be mine; and the Father's persuasive voice shall be mine; as I plead with my fellows;—"Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?"—what a thought! To be thus in God through our knowing him, and through his love being perfected in us! Surely that is about the highest reach of our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

And therefore, secondly, to know that we are thus in God cannot but be a matter of much concern. Who, on such a point, would run the risk of self-deception—nay, of being found "a liar, not having the truth in him"? To have some tolerable confidence, tolerably well grounded, that my being in God is a reality; that surely is desirable if it can be attained. And how am I to seek it? How am I at once to aim at being in him, more and more thoroughly and unequivocally, and also to aim at verifying more and more satisfactorily and surely my being in him? For these two aims must go together; they are one. Keep his word, is the reply. Is that then all? I may be tempted to ask. Am I to look for no clearer token, no more decisive mark and proof of my being in him? Is there to be no tangible evidence in my experience, no sign from heaven, no voice, no vision, no illapse or sliding into my soul, I know not how, of some sensible assurance, I know not what, to attest my being in him? Nay, to have such confirmation might only mislead me. I might content myself with the sign, instead of striving to realise more and more what it signifies. Better, safer, is it, that I should be directed, to a humbler method, the keeping of his word. But is that enough? Yes; for in the keeping of his word his love is truly perfected in us who thereby know him.

Let us keep his word in that view of its power and virtue; as the seal and bond of a perfect understanding and a perfect state of peace between him and us. Let us cultivate what is the vital element of all intelligent and loving fellowship between him and us, the spirit which prompts the cry, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." In that spirit let us keep his commandments; the commandments in which his word is broken up in detail; the commandments which assure us of his love to us; the commandments which exercise our love to him. Let us keep the commandments of his word; which, in our keeping of them, assure us of his love to us. " 1 John 2:6 (See foot-note, pp77 , 78.)

TO "walk as Christ" walked is essential to our "abiding in God;" not merely "being in God," as it is put in the previous verse, but being in him permanently; continuing or abiding in him. It is therefore the test of our truth when we "say that we abide in God;" it is the very means by which we abide in him. Jesus tells us ( John 16:10-11) that he continued or abode in the Father's love by keeping the Father's commandments. That was his walk, by which he abode in God. If we would abide in God as he did, we must walk as he walked, keeping the Father's commandments as he kept them. Thus this verse fits into those that go before, and completes, so far, the apostle's description of the divine fellowship, viewed as a fellowship of holy light, and transforming, obedient knowledge.

The walk of Christ, abiding in God, is therefore to be considered as our study and our model.

I. It is sometimes said of Christ simply that he walked, without anything to define or qualify the expression. "After these thing Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him" ( John 7:1. He says it of himself; "Nevertheless I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the third day, for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem" ( Luke 13:33). Again he says, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night he stumbleth, because there is no light in him" ( John 12:9-10).

Jesus then walked. His life was a walk. The idea of earnestness, of definiteness of purpose, of decision and progress, is thus suggested. Many men live as if they were not really walking, but lounging and sauntering; or running fitfully and by starts, with intervals of aimless, listless sloth; or musing, or dreaming, or sleep-walking. Some are said to be fast-livers; their life being not a walk, but a brief tumultuous rush of excitement, ending soon in vacancy, or something worse. Others again live as if life were to be all, instead of a walk, a gay and giddy dance; alas! they may find it the dance of death. It is something to apprehend and feel that life is a walk; not a game, or pastime, or outburst of passion; not a random flight, or a groping, creeping, grovelling crawl, or a mazy labyrinthine puzzle; but a walk; a steady walk; an onward march and movement; a business-like, purpose-like, step-by-step advance in front; such a walk as a man girds himself for, and shoes himself for, and sets out upon with staff in hand, and firm-set face, and cap well fixed on the head, and holds on in, amid stormy wind and drifting snow; resolute to have it finished and to reach the goal. Such a walk is real life; life in earnest. Such a walk pre-eminently was the life of Jesus. No dilettante trifler was he; nor a visionary; nor a loiterer; nor a runner to and fro; nor a climber of cloud-capped heights; but a walker; a plain pedestrian walker; a determined walker, whom nothing could turn aside or turn back. It is said of him, on one occasion, that he "stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem." That was his way, his manner always. He walked. He stedfastly set his face to walk. On, still on, he walked, unflagging, unflinching; he walked right on. It is a sublime spectacle to gaze on; this Jesus, Son of God, Son of John 3:13);—not which was, but which 2 Corinthians 5:18). It was not that he so identified the world around him with God as to reckon devotion to the world equivalent to devotion to God; making the world's business God's worship. It was rather that, abiding in God, he so identified himself with God, that every object, every event, presented itself to him in its relation to God. What is it in God's point of view?-what does it mean as regards him?—what are its aspects towards him?—what is his estimate of it and his mind concerning it?—that is always the uppermost, the only question. And it is the same with persons as with things and circumstances. No man is known after the flesh ( 2 Corinthians 5:16). The young Mark 10:21), is yet not known after the flesh; Jesus will know him only in God, in whom he himself abideth. Even though he has to let him go away sorrowful,—himself more sorrowful still for having to let one so lovable go away,—he will walk towards him as himself "abiding in God." Neither the youth's great possessions, nor his all but resistless winning qualities, will counterbalance in Christ's mind what is due to the paramount claims of God and his kingdom. His walk is still not manward at all, however strong the temptation to decline a little, a very little, in that direction, but Godward alone, Godward altogether. It is still always God and not man who is in all his thoughts. Is a woman who has been a sinner behind him, washing his feet with her tears?—or before him alone, abashed, all her accusers having gone out? Not a thought of what men may think or say is in his mind; but only how his Father will feel, and what his Father will have him to do. So he walked, abiding in God. And "he that saith he abideth in God ought himself also so to walk."

2. He ought to walk as one subordinating himself always in all things to God; submitting himself to God; committing himself to God. Abiding in God, he ought to walk as being himself nothing; God, in whom he abides, being all in all. So Christ walked. He did not seek his own glory, or do his own will, or find his own meat, or save his own life, or plead his own cause, or avenge his own wrong. Self is never a consideration with him, but always God his Father, in whom he abides.

It is not that he is either a mad fanatic, prodigally reckless of God's gift of life and of life's loving comforts; or a mad enthusiast, dreaming of one knows not what absorption of individual personality in some vast and vague idea of the Godhead. He shared the joy of the marriage-feast and the hospitality of the common meal. In the home of Bethany he loved to be with Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. He was ever, as the Psalm 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:7-10).

To walk in this respect as Christ walked, abiding in God as he did, is indeed to be emptied of self. But it is not that only. It is to be filled with God. It is to walk humbly, meekly, patiently, cheerfully—"seeking not our own, not easily provoked, bearing all things, enduring all things"—not as being insensible to pain and grief, or as if we affected the stoical pride of indifference to such things; but simply as "learning obedience," where Jesus learned it, in the school of suffering and submission.

3. "He that saith he abideth in God" ought to walk in love. If we abide in God, we abide in the great source and fountain of love: in the infinite ocean of pure and perfect benevolence.

It was thus that Jesus, "abiding in God," walked abroad among men; the very impersonation of benevolence; "a man approved of God, who went about doing good." His whole walk was one continuous manifestation of good will to men. And it was of the Father's good will to men that his walk was the manifestation; for he was ever abiding in God. No good will to men's principles and practices, while at enmity with God, did his walk manifest: no such good will as would have their principles and practices tolerated and indulged at the expense of the honour and the law of that God and Father in whom he was continually abiding. But good will to their persons, to themselves,—ah! how intense, how unwearied, how inexhaustible,—was that walk of his incessantly exemplifying!

Can we say that we "abide in God" as Jesus did, if our walk is not what his was; a walk of active benevolence, practically proclaiming our Father's good will to men as our brethren? Ah! let us not forget to do good, to distribute, to be kind, to carry food to the hungry, healing to the sick, comfort to the sorrowful, hope to the sinful; to speak a word in season to the weary; to visit the fatherless and widow in their affliction, while we keep ourselves unspotted from the world.

4. "He that saith he abideth in God ought," in a word, to walk in unity with God, as being of one mind with God, and of one heart. So Jesus walked. For with reference to his human walk on earth quite as much as to his divine nature, or his being in heaven, he could say "I and my Father are one." He had no separate interest from his Father; no separate occupation; no separate joy. Whatever touched the Father, equally and in the same way affected him. "The zeal of thine house," he cried, "hath eaten me up." He pleased not himself; but, "as it is written: The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." This harmony of sentiment, this conscious unity of desire and aim between him and the Father who appointed his lot,—the result of his "abiding always in God,"—made his life a walk indeed. It was not a walk through pleasant places. It was no holiday excursion; no easy ramble. And yet the sense of a high and intimate community of motive, means, and end between him and the Father, which his abiding ever in God must have inspired, could scarcely fail to invest the scenery through which he passed, at its very wildest and darkest points, with a certain charm of divine majesty and awe; as well as also to impart to his soul, in passing through it, I say not equanimity only, but a measure also of deep and chastened joy.

For in fact, with all its trials and terrors, its agonies and griefs, I cannot imagine that even to the man of sorrows his walk through life was what could fairly be called unhappy. When the road led through Bethany's peaceful shades, and allowed a night's tarrying in the home he loved so well, the hallowed repose of that familiar friendly circle must have been very sweet to his taste; all the sweeter for the thought that, abiding in him who put so welcome an entertainment, so congenial a solace, in his way, he was not solitary in the enjoyment of it; the relish of it being common to the Father and to him. And even when in his walk he had to "tread the winepress alone;" yet not alone, for the Father was with him; when flesh and heart fainting would have moved him almost to put the cup away from him;—is it conceivable that, abiding in God, he could ever lose the apprehension of the unity of counsel between them in the great design for which he came into the world? It could not be with any other feeling than that of relief, of acquiescence, I will say of intensest satisfaction, that, overcoming in the Spirit the weakness of the flesh, he gave himself up to him in whom, in that dread hour, he was abiding, if it were possible, more closely, more intimately, more lovingly than ever;—"Father, thy will be done;"—"Father, glorify thy name;"—"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!"

So he walked. And so it is our privilege to walk,-abiding, by the power of the Spirit, in God as he did; saying always, "Not my will but thine be done."

"Who then is among you that feareth the Lord, and yet walketh in darkness, seeing no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God" ( Isaiah 1:10-11). Walk on still, in darkness if it must be 1 John 2:7-8

WHAT commandment does John mean? Is it the same commandment throughout? If 1 John 1:1), which the apostle says he and his fellow-apostles had from the beginning heard and seen and handled, and which, he adds, we declare unto you. Is not that what he means here by "the word which ye have heard"?

It is not new but old, as old as the first preaching of the gospel. I am no setter-forth of novelties or strange doctrines. What I write (1.) concerning the fellowship of light and joy with the Father and the Son into which your believing knowledge of the word, through the teaching of the Spirit, introduces you; (2.) concerning the indispensable condition of that fellowship, your walking in the light as he is in the light; (3.) concerning the sacrifice and advocacy of Jesus Christ, as meeting that sense of sin and shortcoming which otherwise must be ever fatally dimming the light, and marring the joy, of the fellowship; and (4.) concerning the obligation of a sinless aim, an obedient heart, a Christ-like walk, if you would really know God, and have his love perfected in you, and be in him;—all that, which I am writing to you, is old. It is no new discovery, no new despatch from heaven. It is "an old commandment, which ye had from the beginning."

But what of the intimation that follows; "a new commandment I write unto you"? It is not merely a thrice-told tale that I am writing about. There is something fresh and new about it. And what is that?

It is the realising of this fact, or this thing, as true, first in Christ and then in yourselves, that "the darkness is past," or is passing, "and the true light is now shining." For so this clause really runs. It is not a reason for the thing which is true; it is the very thing itself;—"which thing is true, in him and in you; this, namely, that the darkness is past, or is passing, and the true light now shineth."

This is what constitutes the newness of the old commandment. It is a new thing to have this fact becoming matter of consciousness;—the fact of its being true, in Christ and in you, that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining. The obligation to make this goad is emphatically a new commandment. It commands, or commends, what must ever be felt to be a novelty.

Thus viewed, this new commandment may bring out a singularly close parallelism or identity between Christ and all who, abiding in God, walk as Christ walked.

I. In Christ personally this is true, "that the darkness is passing and the true light is shining." In so far as this is a continuous process, or progressive experience, it is true of Christ only as he walked on earth. Look at him, then, in his human life.

A new commandment is given to him, a new charge or commission from above. Something new is given to him to be learned as a message or lesson. It is the message or lesson of its being true in him that the darkness passeth, and the true light now shineth. He is placed in new circumstances. He is plunged into the very thickest of the fight that is evermore waged here below between the two. On the one hand, darkness—the darkness that is opposed to the light which God Psalm 123:2).

Thus it is "true in him and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light shineth." And it is ever a new oracle of divine grace. It will always be so to the pilgrim on his way through the dark wilderness to divinely lighted Canaan. It will always be 1 John 2:9-11

"HE that saith he is in the light" is one who professes to obey the "new commandment;" to realise in himself, personally, the new position or state of things implied in its being "true in Christ and in him,"—in him as in Christ,—"that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining." He says he is in the light which is now shining and chasing the darkness away. But he hateth his brother; one who says the same thing; one in whom, as in Christ and in him, the same thing is true. He refuses to recognise him as a brother, or to regard him with brotherly love. And that is enough to prove that he cannot really be himself one of those in whom, as in Christ, "this thing is true, that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining."

On the other hand, "he that loveth his brother,"—he that loves as his brother one in whom, as in Christ and in himself, "this thing is true, that the darkness is passing and the true light is now shining,"—not only shows thereby that he speaks truth when he says he is in the light, but takes, moreover, the most effectual means for securing his continuing in the light; so abiding in the light that there shall be in him nothing to occasion stumbling.

But let him be warned. If he is destitute of this brotherly love, he cannot be in the light, the true light which is now shining. He is in darkness; the darkness which, in all that are Christ's, as in Christ himself, is passing. And according to the darkness in which he Psalm 59:15). Into this darkness, into the thick of it, one plunges himself, who has no affinity with it, and over whom it has no power. But he is in it; acquainting himself with all its terrors and sounding its utmost depths. He ransacks the chambers of the darkness. Its powers and principalities he defies; its works and ways, its poor expedients of relief, its miserable comforters, its refuges of lies, he remorselessly lays bare. But more than that he does. He marches straight up to the fountain-head of the horrid stream that has made so vast a desolation. That shutting out of God, which is the real blackness of this darkness, he deals with. To make reconciliation, to make peace, he takes upon himself my dark death, in order that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life and light, may quicken and gladden me in him.

Yes! the darkness is upon him. Its death is upon him; the death in which there is sin's dark sting and God's dark curse.

But it is passing; and already the true light is shining. The eclipse is over; and lo! a bright cloud! a glorious Shechinah! The righteous God glorified! The loving Father well pleased! The Son himself,—yet not for himself, but as "seeing his seed,"—rejoicing and giving thanks!

Now it is with us as with Christ, when in us, as in Christ, "this thing is true, that the darkness is passing, and the true light is shining."

For, first, in Christ, our position with reference to that darkness is changed from what it naturally is. It is reversed. The terrible flood is not now carrying us away; we stem it holding him—he holding us. We see it passing.

Yesterday it was hurrying me along in its strong deep tide, to what ocean I knew not, and scarcely cared, or did not venture, to ask. Shutting my eyes, I was content to follow the stream. Or if at times some rude shock or some eddying whirl gave me pause, and a momentary alarm seized me as I saw signs of wreck and ruin on every side, I could but catch convulsively some frail stem or slippery rock; or desperately toss and struggle like some "strong swimmer in his agony."

Now all is changed. By grace in Christ, I am in a new way. My head is turned up the stream, and against it.

At first it is a fearful struggle. What waves and billows go over me. No breath, no life is in me. I am lost, I perish!

But lo! Christ is with me; HE who "liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore." He grasps me, and I grasp him. Together we rise, through such a death as I never thought I could survive, to such a life as—how shall I describe it? How but in inspired words, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of 1 John 1:5), the light in which God is ( 1 John 1:7). It is the light which is at once his nature and his dwelling-place.

First, the light is the divine nature; "God is light." If I am in the light, I am a partaker of the divine nature; my moral nature becomes the same with that of God. This identity is very specially realised in the department of the affections, in the region of the heart. I cannot be in the light—meaning by the light the nature of God, or what God is—without my heart being like his. To be in the light is to be in a high sense Godlike in our preferences, as Christ showed himself Godlike in his preferences when he was here. We know what his preferences were; they were the same as his Father's. Could it have been said truly of him that he was in the light, if they had been otherwise? Can I say truly that I am in the light if mine are otherwise? What then are my preferences? Whom do I prefer and choose? Is it they whom Christ would have preferred and chosen? Is it they whom his Father and mine prefers and chooses? Are the same persons, and the same qualities in persons, likeable and lovely to me that would have been likeable and lovely to Christ,—that are likeable and lovely to God? If not, let me beware lest, though I say I am in the light, I may be in darkness even until now.

Again, secondly, the light is God's dwelling-place; "God is in the light." If therefore I am in the light, then I have the same medium of vision, as well as the same nature, with God. Objects appear to me as they appear to God. And so also do persons. This world's darkness obscures features and confounds distinctions. The "ruler of its darkness," the "prince of the power of its air," makes that air of such a dense thickness and of such an artificial hue, that men and things look different from what they are: softened, shaded, subdued; or else distorted and discoloured. If I am in the light, that darkness is passing. I am as Christ was, in whom, even when he was in the midst of that darkness, it was passing, and the true light was shining, showing him men and things in the light in which his Father sees them. Is it so with me? Does that poor God-fearing man appear to me as he would have appeared to Christ, as he appears to God? Do I look at the same things in him that Christ and his Father look at? Do I fasten upon the same characteristics of the man that Christ, if he were in my place, would fasten upon, that his Father and mine is fastening upon? Do the same qualities or adjuncts of the man bulk in my eyes that bulk in theirs? His rags, his unwashed limbs, his sores, as I see him lying a beggar at the rich man's door; or his ungainly aspect and uncouth manners, as 1 John 2:10). Two benefits are here.

First, positively, by means of brotherly love we abide in the light. The law of action and reaction is here very noticeable. Being in the light begets brotherly love, and brotherly love secures abiding in the light. For this brotherly love is simply love to the true light, as I see it shining in my brother as it shines in Christ. And such love to the true light, wherever and in whomsoever it is seen shining as it shines in Christ, must needs cause me to grow up more and more into the true light myself; to grow up into Christ, and God in Christ.

There is a well-known principle in ethics that may furnish an illustration here. It is that of sympathy; according to which it is found that our moral instincts, judgments, and emotions, are largely developed by our putting ourselves in our neighbour's place, so as to see with his eye and feel with his heart. It is a most wholesome corrective of our sentiments on all questions of duty that is thus obtained. But it is more. It is a stimulus and incentive impulse also. If I wrap myself up in myself, becoming a sort of isolated being, bent chiefly or exclusively on the preservation of my own virtue and the cultivation of my own character; my sense of obligation, however sound and alert originally, will be apt to get warped or to grow torpid. Keeping thus aloof from my fellows—self-studious, self-contained,—not only is my conscience towards man dwarfed and dimmed, but my conscience also towards God. I am by no means so sensitively alive to what he claims and what I owe, as when, even in imagination, I associate with myself a brother, and make his mind and soul, as well as my own, my standing-point.

Within the domain of spiritual light and love, a similar fact is to be noted; a similar law or principle holds good. A selfish religionist is sure to become either morbid or stupid. It is by sympathy and brotherhood that the fire of personal Christianity is fanned. For one thing, it is always refreshing to see how the gospel works in others after it has been working, say for years, in us. To observe the process of fresh conversion or quickening, simply as a spectacle,—to watch it as an experiment,—is both interesting and edifying.

We look on, in a time of general and remarkable awakening. We read or listen to the details of some well marked missionary movements. Here are new and fresh specimens of people born of the Spirit; men and women created anew in Christ Jesus the Lord. Surely it is good for us to have such specimens presented to us; especially if at any time we have been beginning to lapse into a low and languid apprehension of what living Christianity 1 John 2:11).

The case put must be viewed as that of one who is so far in earnest as to be really aiming heavenward. He may be even a most painstaking seeker of the heavenward way, and a plodding walker in whatever way he takes to be it. Such was many a Pharisee, like Paul in his days of elaborate self-righteousness. Such was many a Gnostic, or knowing one, among those whom 1 John 2:12-14

THESE verses form, I think, a break or interruption in the apostle's line of argument. There 1 John 2:13); "ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one" ( 1 John 2:14). As good soldiers of Christ, I would remind you of your high vocation; of what is committed to you; of what is expected of you. Your sphere is the field of battle. The quiet of contemplative study may best suit aged saints, advanced disciples, "fathers;" who may best serve the cause by enlarging, under the Spirit's teaching, their own and the Church's knowledge of the Eternal Word; elevating their own and the Church's views of the Son in the bosom of the Father. But the vigour of spiritual youth points to the never-ending conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, as your special department. For you are called to wage war with the wicked one. And you have every encouragement to do so. You have overcome him already in Christ, for he has overcome him. You have but to follow up and follow out the conquest. You are strong, and the word of God abideth in you. And through that word which testifies of Christ's victory abiding in you, the foe is already vanquished. You have overcome the wicked one.

To believers of all ages, to Christians in every stage of advancement, the apostle thus appeals. He first urges arguments and considerations applicable to all alike as little children; and then such as are proper to fathers, and such as are proper to young men. By these various and accumulated motives, he conjures us to give heed to his teaching in this epistle. It is a very solemn, as well as a very full and comprehensive appeal. And the place in which it stands in the epistle renders it still more emphatic.

II. It stands between two opposite precepts; the one positive; the other negative; "Love the brotherhood" ( 1 John 2:9-11); "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" ( 1 John 2:15). To love the Father, and the brethren as the Father's family;—not to love the world lying in the wicked one;—these are the contrasted commands between which the apostle's earnest and affectionate appeals occur. Doubtless these appeals cover the whole epistle; all that John is writing; all that they to whom he writes are to regard him as having written, when the writing reaches them, perhaps after the writer is no more. But they bear immediately on loving the brethren, and not loving the world.

The distinction is created by what John has just been dwelling upon; the "thing which is true in Christ and in you, that the darkness is passing, and the true light is now shining." For light is a divider. It was so at the first creation ( Genesis 1:3-4): "God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness;" he divided between the light and the darkness. It is so in the new creation. The entrance of the light into the world: its entrance into the hearts of as many as are in Christ; necessarily causes a division. It unites by a new bond of brotherhood the children of the light among themselves. And it separates between them and the world. The separation, or distinction, is not of their own making, but of God's. He is in the light. He is himself the light. It is he who is the divider, and not they. Nor is the distinction of such a sort as to feed or nurse vain-gloriousness on our part, or to be invidious as regards the world. Far otherwise. It is fitted to humble us in the very dust, as often as we think,—and when do we not think?—of what we are in ourselves, and but for sovereign mercy must ever have been' of what many, very many, around us are; less guilty, by many degrees, than we; and more likely than we to win, not only earth's approval, but, one would almost say, even heaven's favourable regard too. What am I? And what are they?

Ah! it is in no spirit of supercilious self-complacency, or self-congratulation, that we associate together as brethren in the Lord, if indeed the true light is shining in us as in Christ, so as to show us the blackness of the darkness that is passing, and in its passing is hurrying to a fatal shipwreck so much that is fair and generous and lovely. No! nor is it with cool indifference that we look on and see its victims struggling in its fierce tide, or sinking lethargic in its quieter and deadlier eddies—feeling, as we do, that there is not one among them who deserves the horrid doom so much as we; and knowing as we do that there is not one whom grace may not make, as grace alone makes any one of us, a member of the brotherhood of light. The division which the light occasions assuredly affords no ground of boasting or of disdain. Nevertheless, it is to be recognised and realised; we must apprehend and feel it. One great design of 1 John 1:1-3). It is your being taught and enabled, by the Spirit, to trace up what you experience in time—when as little children you receive forgiveness of your sins for the Son's name's sake and so know the Father,—to its source in the eternal counsels of the Godhead; in what the Son is to the Father from everlasting. For now you not merely look to Jesus as accomplishing for you a great work, effecting on your behalf a great deliverance, and ministering to you a great benefit. You delight to connect all this with his being from the beginning; with the love with which the Father has from the beginning loved him; and "the glory which the Father giveth him because he loved him before the foundation of the world." You rise to a believing apprehension of the ultimate ground and reason of the whole vast economy of redemption in the deep, unfathomable, unchangeable nature of Jehovah; in the purpose of the Father's good pleasure to constitute the Son heir of all things; in the covenant securing from of old to the 1 John 2:15-16

THE love of the world is here declared to be irreconcilable with the love of the Father. "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" ( 1 John 2:15). And the declaration applies to "the things that are in the world," comprehending "all that is in the world." These are represented under three categories or heads, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" ( 1 John 2:16). They are afterwards reduced to one, "the lust of the world" ( 1 John 2:17); but in the meantime we have to consider them as three. And, in that view, the sixteenth verse is to be regarded, not as giving the reason for the commandment the fifteenth, but rather as explanatory of its nature; bringing out the contrast between the two incompatible objects of love, the Father on the one hand, and on the other hand the world, whatever form its lust may take.

Plainly the world is here represented as an order of things very thoroughly complete in itself; self-contained and self-developing. "All that is in the world" is "of the world." No foreign elements are suffered to intrude; or if they do, the world speedily accommodates and assimilates them to itself. For the world,—what is it? Fallen human nature acting itself out in the human family; moulding and fashioning the framework of human society in accordance with its own tendencies. It is fallen human nature making the ongoings of human thought, feeling, and action its own. It is the reign or kingdom of "the carnal mind," which is "enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Wherever that mind prevails, there is the world.

"The things that are in the world" correspond in character to the world itself. The love therefore of any of them is equivalent to the love of the world.

I may seem to be, and may suppose that I 1 John 2:17

THE expression here used concerning the world and its lust, is the same as that used in the eighth verse concerning the darkness: it is "passing away." The world, with its lust, is in this respect identical with the darkness. They partake at least of a common quality or property; they pass, or are passing.

There is more meant here than merely that "the things which are seen are temporal." The fleeting nature of this whole earthly scene is doubtless a useful topic of reflection; but it is not exactly what is suggested in this verse. The idea of the darkness being a vanishing element is still the leading thought. The prince of darkness, though he may keep up appearances for a while, is like a beaten foe, drawing off from the disputed territory. Through the shining of the true light, the darkness is passing; and in the same sense "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." "But he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever," for he is one in whom, as in Christ, "the darkness is passing, and the true light now shineth."

I. The characteristic of the world is that it does not "do the will of God;" it is the sphere or region in which the will of God is not done. The lust of the world is not doing the will of God. Take it in any of its forms. Let it be the lust of the flesh; as "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," you are doing your own will and not God's. Let it be the lust of the eyes, envying others who prosper more than you; then it is the thwarting of their will, not the doing of God's will, that your mind is bent on. Let it be the pride of life, hanging on opinion's idle breath; you have no freedom to do the will of God, for you are at the mercy of the will of your fellow-men.

As not doing the will of God, the world and its lust must pass away; for it is identical with the darkness which is passing. Passing! Whence? and whither? Whence, but from off the stage of this redeemed earth, the final blessed meeting-ground of all the Lord's children? And whither? I cannot tell. This only I know, it must be to where it shall do no harm any more for ever. I read of everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Is that the final restingplace of the darkness?—of the world and its lust? There it is to be no longer passing, but permanent, abiding. "The worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."

O ye lovers of the world, or of what is in the world, have you considered what the end is to be? It may well move you to be told that the whole of that economy with which you are mixed up is fleeting, transitory, evanescent. "What shadows you are and what shadows you pursue!" It is a deep knell that is rung over the grave of all merely temporal prosperity, all earthly hope and joy; "the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." But it is a knell that, ringing out life's present and precarious dreams, rings in a terrible reality. The world, with its lust, is passing here; passing and changing always. But it is passing to where it will pass no more, but stay; fixed unchangeably for It is not annihilated; it does not cease to be; it only be passing.

Have you ever thought how much of the world's endurableness; I say not its attractiveness but its endurableness; depends on its being a world that passes, and therefore changes? Is it not, after all, its being changeable that makes it tolerable even to you who like it best? Can you lay your hand, your memory's hand, on any one feeling you have ever had of intense worldly gratification, and say that you could be content, with that feeling alone, to spend eternity? Is there any sensation, any delight, any rapture of worldly joy, however engrossing, that you could bear to have prolonged, indefinitely, for ever, unaltered, unalterable?

But I put the case too favourably. I speak of your finding the world with its lust, not passing but abiding, in the place whither you yourselves pass, when you pass hence. True, you find it there. But you find it not as you have it here. There are means and appliances here for quenching by gratification, or mitigating by variety, its impetuous fires. But there you find it where these fires burn, unslaked, unsolaced; the world being all within, and the world's lust; and nothing outside but the Holy One.

Again I ask—Have you ever thought how much of the world's endurableness depends on the fact that, with its lust, it has its seat for a while here in the midst of a transition process, as it were, which is going on, "the darkness passing and the true light shining?" What keeps this earth from being, at this moment, hell, or a part of hell? What but its being a place of preparation for heaven; destined ere long to become to myriads of the saved heaven itself?

When in that heaven where the angels dwell, sudden it will ever ceases to Have darkness sought to dim the light, and wilful creatures would not do the will of God, not an instant was lost. Swiftly, summarily, the world is cast out, and its lust. There is no room for it there, no, not for an hour. The lovers of it, and of its lust; the doers of another will than God's; their own, or their leader's; are no more found there; but somewhere else in the universe of God, where they are "reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgement of the great day." That holy heaven is full of light alone, and in it is no darkness at all. The will of God is always done there.

We are taught to pray that his will may be done on earth as in heaven; and we believe that it shall be so. But the time is not yet. The darkness is only passing, not past; "the world is passing away, and the lust thereof." For it has pleased God not to deal with this earth where we dwell, as he dealt with that heaven where the angels dwell. If he had, he must have left it empty. The darkness must needs be tolerated; the world, with its lusts, not doing the will of God, must be allowed to continue; till the race for whom the earth was made, the family of man meant to fill it, is complete. But all is not to be darkness; a world lusting its own lust and not doing the will of God. There is to be light; there are to be children of the light. For the light and its children, as well as for the darkness and its world, the earth is to be adapted. Its order and. laws; its arrangements and accommodations; must be such as suit its present mixed occupancy. And such also must be God's general providence over it. Hence you who love the world and its lust, and do not the will of God, find yourselves in a position here, under these conditions, which does not give the world and its lust full swing; or, as it were, "ample scope and verge enough."

Not to speak of the direct shining of the light, in gospel means and ordinances, which tells upon you in spite of yourselves, in some vague way, for your partial respite from the pangs of conscience; I point to the elements of good that there are in the institutions which God has sanctioned, and which he blesses, for alleviating pain and giving happiness on this earth on which he suffers you to dwell for a season with the righteous; healthy labour, alternating with such sleep as God gives his beloved; family relationships; social ties; domestic endearments; spheres also of public activity and usefullness and generous ambition; outlets for native energy and amiability, and lofty thought and fine feeling, and the stirrings of kind pity, and the flights of genius. Do not imagine that these form part of the world or its lust, which you are to carry with you when it and you together pass hence. This earth is not furnished with these conveniences for your sakes, but for their sakes who find in them the choicest apparatus and machinery for doing the will of God. You have the use, you have the benefit of them, for a brief space. Your world, with its triple lust, is permitted for a little to have to do with these contrivances of God for making earth a school for heaven, Alas! what harm does it often work among them; blighting what is pure, blasting what is peaceful, desolating hearths and homes and hearts. Still your loved world, and you who love it, are the better and the happier for your contact with what on earth is even now allied to heaven.

But have you ever thought what it will be to pass hence and go where nothing of all that can follow you? No holy beauty; no virgin innocency; no guiltless, guileless love of parents, spouse, child, brother, friend; no virtue; no decency even; none of the decorum which at least serves to make vice less hideous; no soothing balm of pure hand laid on the fevered brow; no faintly-whispered hope or wish of pure lips blessing you in your despair; nothing of the sort of comely veil which, down to the last breath of the dying sinner's godless career, may hide the real truth from his view.

Let that real truth burst upon you. Place yourself, with your loved world and its cherished lust, where you and it and God are alone together, with nothing of God's providing that you can use or abuse for your relief. Your creature comforts are not there with you. nothing of this earth, which is the Lord's, is there; nothing of its beauty or its bounty; its grace or loveliness or warm affection; nothing of that very bustle and distraction and change which dissipates reflection and drowns remorse; nothing but your worldly lust, your conscience, and your God. That is hell; the hell to which the world is passing, and its lust; and whence it never passes more; a dreary monotony of banishment from all that God has made to be chosen and enjoyed. It is yourselves, ye lovers of the world, filled with the lust of the world, its vulture appetites and stormy passions; shut up for ever in the darkness, as it were, of empty space, the desolate unfurnished prison-house of eternal justice.

II. But now let us turn to a brighter picture. "He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." Suppose that the world has passed away and the lust thereof. Does it follow that the earth is dissolved or perishes? Nay, it remains. And whatever in it or about it is of God remains. There may be a temporary baptism of fire, to purge away the pollution contracted while the world has been tolerated in it and the world's lust; to regenerate it and transform it into the "new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." But the earth thus cleansed and renovated does not pass away. It surely must continue, under the condition of the petition, at last fully answered; "Thy will be done in earth as in heaven." For surely that is a petition which is yet to be fully answered; and not in time only, but for eternity. This abode of men is to be assimilated thoroughly to yonder abode of angels, in respect of the will of God being alike done in both. That at all events is the heavenly state, let its localities be adjusted as they may; that is its eternal crown and joy; angels and men together doing the will of God; they in their heaven, we in our earth. That is the blessed consummation to which the apostle would have us to look forward when he urges this encouragement and motive: "he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

But the precise point of his statement is not adequately brought out unless we connect and identify the future and the present. It is not merely said that he who doeth the will of God may hope to be hereafter in a place or in a state in which he shall abide for ever. It is plainly implied that he is in it now. The world, with its lust, is passing; but he is in possession. The world, as it were, has forfeited its title, and is tolerated on sufferance merely, for a time and for a temporary purpose; he is a proprietor, having a good and valid right to remain for ever. The world must go, he stays; it has notice to quit, he abides. Doing the will of God, therefore, you are already in your abiding state; in the state in which you are to abide for ever. No essential change is before you. There may be stages of advancement and varieties of experience; a temporary break, perhaps, in the outer continuity of your thread of life, between the soul's quitting the body to be with Christ where now he is and its receiving the body anew at his coming hither again. But substantially you are now as you are to be always.

For there is this difference between you in whom the love of the Father 1 John 2:18-20

"YE have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." This is represented as our security against such apostasy or desertion as John has occasion to lament. We live, he says, in perilous circumstances. What has been foretold as characteristic of the last time may be seen virtually realised in our own day. The warning against anti-Christ need not be put off to a distant date. Already, in too many instances, the spirit of anti-Christ is discovering itself. To all practical intents and purposes, it is even now the last time to us. It is proved to be so by the prevalence of the very sort of opposition to Christ which in some gigantic shape is to signalise that era. We need not be setting up the phantom or ideal of a coming anti-Christ that is to torment and try the church of the future. We have enough of anti-Christs around and beside us now. And they are very near and close;—almost of kin with us. But yesterday they were among us; one with ourselves in privilege, profession, and outward character. The keenest eye could not discriminate between us and them. True, their having gone out from us is a presumption, and indeed a proof, that they were not really of us. That very fact, however, making it plain that they who are still among us are not all of us, may not unnaturally cause uneasiness as to our own standing. But it need not. For there is a difference; "Ye have an unction from the Holy One," which they have not," and ye know all things."

I do not at this stage inquire either into the nature and character of the coming anti-Christ, or into the common feature identifying all anti-Christs. I wish rather to dwell upon the ground of confidence here indicated, with special reference to trying times; and in that view I notice these four particulars: I. The anointing or unction; II. The knowledge connected with it; III. The nature of the connection; and IV. The security afforded by the unction and the knowledge against heresy and apostasy.

I. I begin with the anointing: "Ye have an unction," or the unction, or generally, unction. The term may literally denote anointing oil; so that having unction may mean being anointed with oil. This anointing, or being anointed with oil, you have "from the Holy One;" from Christ Jesus our Lord. For it is he who is meant. The title indeed of "the Holy One" may with all propriety be applied to God absolutely rote the undivided Godhead, Father, Mark 1:24). In his exaltation Peter preaches him as such ( Acts 3:14). And indeed, before his incarnation, the people worshipped him in his divinity, and the prophets foretold him in his humanity, as the Holy One; the Holy One of God; the Holy One of Israel ( Psalm 16:10, etc.) The same application of the term best suits the present text. The Holy One is Christ; the unction or anointing is from Christ, who is himself, as Christ, the anointed One.

There is great significance in the unction thus viewed as coming from this Holy One. Anti-Christs are spoken of. These are antagonists to Christ; to the anointed One; to him who is anointed to be the Holy One. You, on the other hand, have anointing from him. The unction which he himself receives, he communicates to you; consecrating you to be holy ones, as he is the Holy One. Thus you are joint-Christs with him, while they are anti-Christs. They are against the anointed Holy One: you share with him in his anointing as the Holy One. They set at nought the unction which he has as the Holy One: you have this very unction from him. Such really is the antithesis. They are anti-Christs, you are joint-Christs; for you have an unction from him as the Holy One, making you "holy as he is holy."

The holiness here meant is consecration. It is what the Lord indicates in his farewell prayer: "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world; and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." This is the unction which you have from the Holy One; from him whom "the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world."

The anointing is with the Holy Spirit. He is the anointing oil; the oil of gladness with which God has anointed Christ above his fellows; the precious ointment poured out upon him, as the head, that runs down over all his body, even to the skirts of his garments. The unction therefore which "you have from the Holy One" is his own unction; it is identically the same with what was his. He sheds forth upon you and in you the very same presence, power, and influence of the Holy Spirit that was shed forth upon and in himself, when he was about the business for which, as the Holy One, he was consecrated.

In his case that unction was real, sensible, manifest. If we have it from him, it must be so in ours also. It was in him and to him the seal of his acceptance, and the witness of his Sonship; for when the voice from heaven proclaimed him to be the Father's beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, "the Spirit descended on him like a dove." We have acceptance in him, and the adoption of sons. And the unction which we have from him is our being sealed, as justified ones, by "the Holy Spirit shedding abroad in our hearts the love of God;" and our receiving, as sons, "not the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,—the Spirit witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God."

In Jesus this unction was, on the one hand, his having always the Holy Spirit helping, comforting, and strengthening him; imparting to him, amid all his toils and tears, such fresh communications out of his Father's heart, such assurances of his Father's love and his Father's nearness to him, as never failed to nerve his soul for its utmost trial; to keep him trusting still in God; and to turn every prayer of nature's prompting: "Father, if it be possible, let the cup pass," into the resignation of filial obedience: "Nevertheless, Father, not my will but thine be done." The unction which we have from him as the Holy One, is our being in the same way upheld by the Holy Spirit in all our goings; our being enabled therefore to show "the meekness and gentleness of Christ;" our making it thus manifest that "the same mind is in us that was also in him."

Again, on the other hand, in Jesus the Holy One, this unction was his constant and abiding apprehension or realisation of the Spirit moving him to the work for which he was sent into the world. That work was to do the will of him that sent him; to preach glad tidings to the meek; to bind up the broken-hearted; to fulfil all righteousness; to suffer, the just for the unjust; to give his life a ransom for many. The unction which we have from him, that we may be consecrated to be holy ones as he is the Holy One, is our feeling and owning the inward call of the Holy Spirit, moving us in our sphere to give ourselves to the same lifework that always occupied him; to carry out the great design of his coming into the world; to be his wholly and unreservedly, as he was always and altogether the Father's.

Thus, in all that it can be held to imply of consciously apprehended and sensibly enjoyed favour and fellowship with God, as well as of sacred destination and devotion to God, we share with Christ his own very unction. Whatever is implied in his being anointed with the Holy Spirit we are to realise in ourselves, as having "an unction from the Holy One." Thus we are Christs, as he is the Christ; anointed ones, as he is the Anointed One;the Lord's anointed, the Lord's Christs, in somewhat of the same sense in which he is so. For we share his anointing; we "have unction from the Holy One."

II. As thus anointed, we "know all things." This is not of course omniscience; but full and complete knowledge of the matter in hand, as opposed to knowledge that is fragmentary and partial. The question is between Christ and anti-Christ; between the truth of Christ and the lie of anti-Christ. That lie is a denial of Jesus as the Christ; and therefore a denial of him as the 1 John 2:22-23). But we know the truth; we "know all things" about it. The whole truth concerning Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Father, in all its relations to the divine character and counsels as well as to human experience and hope, we know. We have mastered it, not piecemeal, but entire; or it has thus mastered us. Not a corner of the field, but the field itself, is ours. We know Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, in all the rich and ample significance of these titles or designations. So we know all things; all things concerning the truth that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the living God."

This, in one view, may not be knowing much; but it is knowing what we do know well and thoroughly. And much depends on our knowledge being of that sort; not universal in its range; but, be its range ever so limited, universal in its kind, so far as it goes; universal—full-orbed, as it were, and all round,—as opposed to what is one-sided. The anointing of Jesus, his being the Christ,—what it 1 Corinthians 2:9-12), although "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of 1 Corinthians 2:13). It is only "he who is spiritual" who "judgeth all things," who can know them so as to judge them. For he alone is in a position and has the capacity to form a fair estimate or judgment of the relations among the things of God. And it is by their mutual relations that things are really known and judged.

This is a maxim true in all sciences; and not least manifestly so in the science of divinity. If, in the science of astronomy, we would know all its things, all its truths, to any satisfactory end, theoretical or practical; we must get, not the eye of a clown or vulgar stargazer, nor that of Chaldean sage or poetic dreamer, nor that of one to whom the clear calm midnight sky is a confused galaxy of bright gems, a brilliant shower of diamonds shed in rich disorder on the dark brow of nature's sleeping beauty, but the eye of Newton's scholar and Laplace's, who has learned of them to calculate planetary magnitudes and distances and forces, and to bring the whole splendid chaos under the sway of the one simple law that reigns supreme throughout all space. Matthew 11:25-26).

For how does that Holy One, the John 17:17-25).

IV. The security which our "having an unction from the Holy One and knowing all things" affords, in trying times, must now surely be seen to be very ample and firm. Others may "go out from us;" it being thus "made manifest that they were not of us;" and may become anti-Christs, or the prey of anti-Christ. But "will ye also go away?"—ye who share the very unction and the very knowledge which the Holy One himself has? Is not this your preservative against all error and apostasy? Is it not a sufficient preservative? "To whom will ye go? He has the words of eternal life; and you believe and are sure that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God." And you are joint-Christs with him; and joint-sons with him; and joint-heirs with him. What have you to do any more with idols?—or with the husks of the swine-trough, to which citizens of the far country may be for sending you?—or with seducing lies and doctrines of devils to which you may be tempted to give heed?—or, in a word, with any of the modifications of the way of grace and salvation,—any of the readjustments of the terms of acceptance,—any of the devices for pacifying conscience,—any of the new lights, mystical or rationalistic, sacramental or sentimental,—by which men would fain seek to be wiser than God, and even holier than God, and better than God? Ye who have found Christ, or whom Christ has found; ye who have the same anointing that Christ had; ye who taste and see how good his Father and yours 1 John 2:21-23

THE last part of the23d verse, although considered doubtful by our translators, and therefore put by them in italics and within brackets, is now admitted to be genuine. It completes the sense of the passage. To deny the Son is not to have the Father; to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father. And this is the ultimate difference between an anti-Christ and a joint-Christ; between those who are against the Anointed One, and you who share his anointing; "having unction from the Holy One and knowing all things." By that unction or anointing, which passes to you from the anointed Holy One, you know all things; all the truth; the truth in all its bearings; and therefore you can discriminate between the truth and every lie. If it were not 1 John 2:22). The denial, indeed, so far at least as the Father is concerned, is not express and avowed, but virtual rather and by implication. The lie touches immediately the Son alone; and reaches the Father only through the Son. It is not, however, on that account, less really a denial of the Father as well as of the Son. For the Father and the Son are one; and therefore, he that "denieth the Hebrews 10:10).

Yes! it is a living person who is now before you; showing himself to you; addressing you. You see him as he was when Pilate brought him out, his head all bleeding from the crown of thorns, and exclaimed, Behold the man! or when John saw his side pierced, and blood and water coming forth; or when the Roman soldier gazed on his meek pale face of agony, and murmured, "Truly this was the Son of God;" or when the dying thief prayed, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." The same now as then, he draws near to you; bleeding still; his freshly-pierced side still giving forth fresh blood and water; his face as woeful as when he cried, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? his voice as calm as when he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, and said, It is finished. He draws near, "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." And you deny him. He tells you he is the Son in all this, doing the Father's will, carrying out the Father's purpose of infinite compassion and benignity toward you a miserable sinner. And you deny him; you deny the Son. He stands still beside you, knocking at the door of your conscience, of your heart; assuring you that he is the Son; that at the Father's bidding he takes your place, and bears your sin; that for the Father's love to you he is with you to take you home with him to the Father; now; immediately; this very instant; as you are; altogether vile and polluted, and helpless in your guilty state. He pledges himself to you that you have nothing now to fear; that a full pardon is freely yours; and a perfect peace; and a new heart; and a right spirit. And you deny him; you deny the Son. How can you have the Father? Is it not in the very nature of things an impossibility? It is no abstract truth that you deny; but the true and living Son; and that too in the very execution of his commission from the Father on your behalf. It cannot be that so denying the Son you can have, or ever hope to have, the Father.

2. "But he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also." He hath the Father; how surely, how fully, may partly appear, if we consider, not only what Jesus is to us, as our anointed Saviour, but also what he is to the Father as his beloved Son.

For whatever is implied in his being the 1 John 2:24-25 (It is the same word in the original that is differently rendered in our version,—"abide," "remain," "continue" (ver24). This is an instance of the sacrifice of exactness to variety, not to be justified.)

THIS practical appeal, concluding the previous argument, has a singularly close resemblance to the opening statement of the epistle. The same remarkable phraseology prevails. There is a "hearing from the beginning," and a "declaration" or promise connected with it. "That which was from the beginning," "that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you;" so the apostle speaks of the apostolic position and commission ( 1 John 1:1-3). "That which ye have heard from the beginning"—"the promise which he hath promised;"—so he speaks here of the standing of those to whom he writes. And as, in the former passage, it is the Word of life that is seen and heard and handled; it is "the life," "the eternal life," that is "manifested" and "declared;" so here, "this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life." The appeal runs exactly thus: "You, therefore, what ye have heard from the beginning, let it abide in you." For you must now perceive that "if what ye have heard from the beginning shall abide in you," then, and only then, shall ye "abide in the Son and in the Father." And this is the secret of your having fellowship with us in what is common to both of us: "the promise of eternal life" ( 1 John 2:25).

I. "Let that therefore which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you." The phrase "from the beginning" must here refer to the first preaching of the gospel. It cannot be understood in the same absolute sense in which it is used in the opening of the epistle. And yet 1 John 1:3). We would have you to be upon the same footing with us; in the same boat, as it were; the boat tossed on the Galilean sea, to whose troubled crew no phantom ghost but the living Jesus appears and says—"It is I be not afraid." It was given to us to see, to hear, to touch and handle, "that which was from the beginning"—"of the Word of life." And this is that which we have declared unto you, and which "ye have heard from the beginning." Let it abide in you.

For this end, that it may abide in you, let "that which ye have heard from the beginning" be not only known but felt; not only known as a matter of fact or doctrine, but felt as a matter of experience. Let it so lay hold of you, that it shall be the nature of God becoming in a sense part and parcel of your nature; the great heart of the Father entering in a measure into union with your heart.

The nature of God is light; the heart of the Father is love. Light, pure and unsullied, is the essence of God, and his dwelling-place. He is light and he dwells in light. It is light which no darkness can invade. It is light, moreover, in which nothing but love can be at home. It is light before which,—the true light shining,—the darkness of the world, and all that is in it, must be passing away, and only he that doeth the will of God can abide for ever. It is in Christ that this true light now shines. Without him you cannot come to the light, or dwell in the light, or walk in the light; without his blood which cleanseth from all sin, without himself as your advocate with the Father, the righteous one, the propitiation for your sins. This is what "you have heard from the beginning" and have believed; and have found experimentally to be true. Let it so "abide in you;" let it be "Christ dwelling in your hearts by faith" ( Ephesians 3:17).

For otherwise you cannot face the light; you cannot meet with clear and open eye the light of that clear and open eye of God; you quail beneath its truth and love. If at any moment you in any measure lose Christ, you so far lose both truth and love, the truth and love which alone can bear the light. You fall into darkness again, and come under its power, the power of its untrue and unloving ways. The old dark doubts and fears of guilt beset you: the old dark refuges of lies tempt you; the old dark devices of self-justification return upon you; the old dark habit of tampering with the world's lusts, and listening to the world's palliations of them, seduces you; and the old dark disquietudes of a peevish and angry discontent with yourselves, with your God, and with your fellow-men, begin again to rankle in your bosom. Instead of the light of truth, there is dark guile in your spirits. Instead of the light of love, there is dark suspicion and enmity and alienation.

Ah! if you would have all to be always clear and bright in the spiritual atmosphere around you; all open between your God and you; open truth and open love; "let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you" Let all of Christ you have ever known, seen, heard, handled, tasted, "abide in you." Let all you have learned of Christ,—as being with the Father, from everlasting, in his bosom,—as coming forth from the Father to reveal and reconcile,—as purging your sin with blood, and bringing you to be all to the Father that he is himself to the Father,—let it all "abide in you;" always, everywhere.

II. So "ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father."

First, "Ye shall abide in the Son." What the Lord elsewhere enjoins as in itself a duty, "Abide in me" ( John 15:4), the apostle describes as the consequence of another duty being rightly discharged. He points out the condition or the means of our abiding in the Son; as indeed Jesus also may be held to do when he says, "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will" ( John 15:7). The meaning clearly is—"Ye abide in me through my words abiding in you"—the Lord's expression, "my words," being equivalent to the apostle's, "that which ye have heard" of the word of life "from the beginning." Thus it is by faith that we "abide in the Son;" for it is by faith that what we have heard of him from the beginning abides in us. The manner, therefore, of our abiding in the Son is neither sacramental on the one hand, nor mystical on the other—neither physically ritual, nor metaphysically transcendental.

We do not "abide in the Son" by any sacramental act on our part, or any sacramental grace or virtue on his. The Lord's Supper may be a help to our abiding in the Son; but only indirectly, through its being a help to our having "that which we have heard of him from the beginning abiding in us." It is the expressive sign and sure seal of it, and therefore may contribute to its abiding in us, and so to our abiding in the Son. But that is all. There is no charm or efficacy in the rite itself to secure our abiding in the Son. The relation described by our abiding in the Son is not of such a sort as can be kept up by any act or process apart from intelligence, consciousness, and volition.

And therefore this abiding in the Son cannot be mystical or transcendental, any more than it can be ritual or sacramental. It cannot be such as the visionaries of John's day imagined in their splendid dreams; in which abiding in the Christ, or in the John 17:3).

Hence we need inquire no farther at present into the nature of eternal life; nor need we conceive of it as an unknown boon held out in dim and distant prospect before us. We have only to work out what is implied in our "knowing the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent." We have only to prove and realise more and more, in our experience, what it is to "abide in the Son and in the Father." And that is the promise already fulfilled. That is "eternal life." It is in a real and valid sense, the very life of God himself made ours.

For the life of God alone can be truly said to be life at all; it alone can be "life eternal." All other life is but death; either death possibly impending, or death actually inflicted. At the very best, the life of an intelligent and responsible creature John 15:7): "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." To ask; to be ever asking, and asking freely, confidently, boldly; is one way in which "eternal life," or "abiding in the John 15:5): "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit;" for he partakes of my life; and my life is fruitful, abundantly, richly fruitful. The life which I have with God my Father is fruitful in all good works, to the praise of his glory. And if that very life is yours, through your abiding in me and in my Father; if your life is hid with me in God; then it must now be fruitful in you, as it was in me when I was as you now are; fruitful in all the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

XVII. The Guileless Spirit, Through the Abiding Messianic Unction and Illumination of the Holy Ghost, Abiding in Christ, so as to Have Confidence at His Coming

"These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him; that when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming." 1 John 2:26-28

THE discourse is still about abiding in God, in the Son and in the Father. And the special lesson taught Psalm 77:10).

3. This anointing is sufficient in and of itself; its teaching needs no corroboration from any one; it has a divine self-evidencing power of its own that makes him who receives it independent of human testimony: "ye need not that any man teach you." The gospel is its own witness; it carries in itself, as apprehended by this anointing, its own credentials. Like its author, it speaks as having authority, and approves itself experimentally to all who make trial of it. All this is through the anointing Spirit. It is by the Spirit that we are moved to make trial of the gospel; it is by the Spirit that the gospel is so applied and brought home to us,—in its sovereignty, as God speaking, and in its special and pointed adaptation to our case, as God speaking to us,—that we cannot but say in our hearts, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." This is "the anointing which we have received of him;" it is the Holy Spirit causing us to "taste and see how good he is." And this is the real ground and evidence of our faith; that faith which realises the fulfilment of the great covenant promise, "They shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."

4. The teaching of this anointing is complete and thorough, all-embracing, all-comprehensive; "it teacheth you of all things." It is not partial, or one-sided, as human teaching on divine subjects is apt to be; but full-orbed, well-rounded, like a perfect circle. It is not, of course, all things absolutely that this anointing teaches; but all things about the theme or subject of the teaching: about him from whom you receive it, and whose it is. Of the very best of human systems, I suppose that every spiritual man will feel and confess, that it is not on all points satisfying; it cannot but bear the marks of man's confined standing-ground and restricted range of vision. This is no disparagement of such human systems, when used as helps to the orderly understanding and right arrangement of the several parts of the truth of God. But it indicates the limit to their use. They cannot come in place of the Holy Spirit's teaching us the words of Christ. Even at the best, when the intellect is most pleased with the symmetry and beauty of a finished theological scheme, the spiritual mind, or rather the spiritual heart, feels that all is not there; that there is something wanting of what passes between the living God and the living soul when peace is made between them; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in man's best divinity. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew them his covenant." It needs the divine anointing of which we speak to teach, to unfold, to exhaust, all that is in the song of the angels, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

5. Finally, this anointing "is truth, and is no lie." It carries with it, and in it, an assurance not to be called in question or shaken; an assurance, one may say, infallibly sure.

But you ask, Though I may be assured of the anointing itself that "it is truth and no lie;" how may I be assured that my having it is truth and no lie? And without this last assurance what will the other avail? Nay, it avails much. Even apart from the question of your assured personal interest in it, and your assured personal experience of it, is it not much to know and believe assuredly that in itself, in its own proper nature and working, this anointing is very truth, and verily is no lie? Is it not something to be told that there is such an oil of gladness, such a precious ointment, poured out upon the High-Priest's head, and running over upon all his members; the oil, the ointment of the Spirit, teaching of all things, and teaching of them with absolute certainty? You know what the things are of which his anointing teaches; they are the things, which belong to God's glory and your peace. But you will not he content with knowing them merely as discoveries of your own, or as communicated by others. Know them as taught to you and attested to you; above all, as wrought out and acted out in you; by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Proceed upon the faith of your thus knowing them, in the expectation of your thus knowing them, more and more. And do 1 John 2:26). And not otherwise can you be proof against them; for not otherwise can you abide in him. "Abide in me," he says, "and I in you." Abide in me; and that you may abide in me, let me abide in you. Let my word dwell in you richly; and my Spirit, giving to my word fragrance to fill the whole heart with the sweet savour of my name, as well as also penetrating power to reach every hard corner of the heart with the softening influence of my grace. Yes; let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith. Let the anointing Spirit infuse into your whole inner man the holy beauty, the meekness, the gentleness of Christ. Let his anointing mould and mellow your whole moral nature into a real identity with that of Christ. Thus becoming assimilated to him, growing up into him, you more and more closely and surely abide in him, and so are safe from "all them that would seduce you." No other security, in fact, will suffice; not your utmost vigilance against their lies, but the full indwelling in you of the truth, and the Spirit of the truth.

II. The motive urged for your abiding in Christ is the hope or prospect of "his appearing," "his coming." It is urged very earnestly and affectionately. There is a tender emphasis in the appeal "And now, little children!" Nor is the change of person, from the second to the first, insignificant—"that we—"

John might have kept to the mode of address which he has been using, and to which in the next verse he returns; as an apostle exhorting his disciples; a teacher instructing his scholars; speaking authoritatively or ex cathedra. But when the end of all comes in view, he cannot separate himself from them. We are to be together with the Lord, you and we; you disciples and we apostles; you scholars and we teachers. And for this end we would have you to abide in him, that we may have confidence together when he appears.

John had said at the outset, "That which we," who are apostles, "have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us," the same fellowship that we have, "with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." Our object is to make you joint partakers with us in what might seem to be our distinctive privilege as apostles, our having seen the Lord. That is our aim in all that we write to you. With a view to that we tell you of the light in which we may jointly walk together, and of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, which cleanseth us all alike from all sin. With a view to that we warn you against having any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. With a view to that we remind you of the anointing which you as well as we have received of Christ, the Holy One. With a view to that we counsel you to abide in him; that as there is no real difference now between you and us, there may be none hereafter, when it would be final and fatal; that when he shall appear, we may altogether appear with him in glory; that you and we alike "may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming." For we all alike need to be admonished of this risk.

And what a thought! what a contingency or possibility to be imagined! "To be ashamed before him at his coming!" It is a very strong expression. It carries us back to that old scene in Paradise when it was lost. The guilty pair "hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day." And they shrink with shame from him "at his coming." Is it thus that we should shrink at his coming now? Were he at this moment to appear, how would we feel? What would be our first impulse, our instinct? To run to meet him, or to shrink from him in shame? There are those who at the coming of the Lord shall "hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and say to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" Would we be among that terrified multitude, that woeful crowd. It is to have in it not a little of the pomp and fashion of the world; "kings of the earth, great men, rich men, chief captains, mighty men, as well as bond and free men, without number." They may know no shame or fear now; unused to blush, or be abashed, or tremble in any presence, however they may force others to blush, and be abashed, and tremble before them. But at the Lord's appearing, their brave, bold looks are gone. Ashamed, alarmed, despairing, they shrink from him. Surely we would not be of that miserable crew. Nay, fear apart, we who believe and love him would not wish to be found by him, at his coming, in any mood of mind, in any attitude of body, in any company, at any work, in any pleasure, over any book, that would cause even a momentary shrinking from him in shame. We would not choose to be so caught by him and taken by surprise; when we were not thinking of him, or serving him; when perhaps we were tempted to be ashamed of him, or of one of his saints, or of some things about his cause and kingdom, before those who happened to be our associates at the time;—so caught, I say, and taken by surprise, as to wish for a moment's delay, that we might get over our nervous flutter and confusion, and summon courage to bid him welcome.

Who is he who comes? And for what it is not "he whom our soul loveth," our Saviour, friend, brother, who has gone to prepare a place for us among the many mansions of his Father's house? And for what does he come? To take us to himself, that where he is we may be also. Can we tolerate the idea of being ashamed before him when he comes, and comes on such an errand? Ah! if we would be safe from any such risk then, let us "abide in him" now; "abide in him" always. 1 John 2:28 to 1 John 4:6)

XVIII. Ground or Reason of this Condition in the Righteous Nature of God—The New Birth unto Righteousness

"If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God."— 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:1

THE apostle passes to a new thought or theme; a new view of the fellowship in which he would have us to be partakers with himself and all the apostles. It is "fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." He has viewed it as a fellowship of light. He now views it as a fellowship of righteousness. "God is light,"—that is the key-note to the former view. "God is righteous,"—that is the keynote to the present view. It is introductory to the third,—"God is love."

For it is an indispensable condition of this fellowship with God that we realise in ourselves, and in our doings, what is in accordance with his nature. If therefore it is his nature to be righteous, it must be our nature to do righteousness. But that to us is a new nature. It implies that we are born of him to whose nature ours is to be conformed; that we are "born of God." (It is thus that the last verse of the second chapter is connected with what goes before; and thus also the abrupt change, as regards the person spoken of, between that last verse and the preceding one, may be explained. In the one (28th) it is Christ the Son; in the other (29th) it is God the Father. There could be no misunderstanding among John's readers, as if it was Christ that was meant in the latter verse as well as in the former; for not only would it be contrary to all gospel usage, and to the very gospel itself, to speak of believers us being born of Christ; but the very next verse () makes all plain. Besides, the verse in question (9th) is to be read in the light of one farther back (24th). Our abiding in the Son is there represented as carrying with it our abiding in the Father; it is our abiding in the Father as manifested in the Son. And the condition of this abiding in the Father is being born of him; that our righteous doing may be in harmony with his righteous nature. The doer of righteousness alone can abide in the righteous God. And the doer of righteousness is "born of God.")

"Born of God!" The idea seems to strike John's mind with fresh astonishment. Familiar as it Matthew 5:5-45, John 8:38-44). In both of these passages, but especially in the last, there is a general principle involved. A family likeness, in features of character as well as of countenance, will betray an evil paternity, and must prove a good one; "I speak that which I have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with your father." You say that you are Abraham's children. If that were true, you would do the works of Abraham. He would not like you have sought to kill me, for telling the truth which I have heard of God. But I will tell you whose children you are, and who is your father. It is he whose deeds you do. You reply, We have one Father, even God. Nay; if God were your Father, you would do the work of your Father, which is "loving me;" for he loveth me. But you reject me, and so prove that, in spite of your claim to be God's children, your actual paternity is very different; "Ye are of your father the devil."

John may have had these words of his Master in his mind when he wrote down the brief and pithy maxim, "God is righteous, and every one that doeth righteousness is born of him" His object is to supply a searching test by which our abiding in God may be surely tried. For our abiding in God is our abiding in the Son; and through our abiding in the John 15:9-10). It is by keeping his Father's commandments that 1 John 1:9). Jesus Christ is righteous as our advocate with the Father ( 1 John 2:1). But it is in the section on which we are now entering that righteousness bulks most largely.

"God is righteous;" that is his perfection. We are to "know that he is righteous." His 1 John 2:29 to 1 John 3:2 James 1:18); "we are born of God," by an inward communication of his nature to us. He must have us to be, not titular, but real and actual children; children by participation of nature as well as by deed of adoption; by a new creation as well as a new covenant; of one mind and heart, of one character and moral frame with himself; "doing righteousness," as we "know that he is righteous;"— John 16:32). All throughout he was constrained painfully to realise the fact that his mission from the righteous Father, and the righteous meaning of it, were but dimly apprehended by his closest friends, and were wholly set at nought by a world "that by wisdom knew not God."

That same world has not known God since, any more than it did before; his children have still to live in the midst of a world that knows not him, and therefore will not know them. This is their trial, as it was Christ's. And in one respect it is to them, if not a sorer or more painful, yet a more perilous trial, than it was to him. If the world knew not him, he in a corresponding sense knew not it. If the world had no sympathy with him in what he knew of the righteous Father, he had no sympathy with the world in what it thought of the righteous Father. If men, not knowing God whose only begotten and well beloved Son he was, could not enter into his deep views of God's righteous character and claims, he had no leaning toward their loose notion of all in God's government being made to bend and give way to them, that they might not die. That never could be his infirmity. But it is ours; it is our temptation. Children of God as we are called, and really are; "born of God," so as to be partakers of his nature, and to "do righteousness as he is righteous;" we are not so thoroughly rid of the old nature but that still we have too strong an inclination to think as the world thinks, and feel as the world feels, about the righteous God and his righteousness.

Especially when there comes to be a heavy strain upon us as God's children; and a strong case is made out for some concession; and we begin to doubt if we have not been too stiff and strict in refusing this or that compliance, or condemning this or that liberty and ask if we might not perhaps do more good, and better serve the cause of righteousness and a righteous God, by being a little less precise and more accommodating. Yes; we might in that way disarm somewhat the world's hostility, and win a character for amiable courtesy and a liberal spirit. The world might come to know us, so as to like us better than it does now; better than it likes our more scrupulous brethren. But would not its knowing us in that way be just in proportion to our ceasing so far practically to be God's children, "doing righteousness as he is righteous?" Let us be upon our guard against so great a danger. Let us lay our account with having to judge and act on principles which the world cannot understand. Let us be God's children indeed; though on that very account the world that has not known God should not know us.

III. For, whatever the world may think or say, "we are the children of God," his dear children; sharers of his divine nature; the objects of his fatherly love. It concerns us to bear this in mind; to apprehend and feel it to be true. It is our safety to do so. It is what is due to ourselves; it is what God expects, and has a right to expect, from us.

And it is especially on our community of nature with God, as being "born of him" and so "called his children," that we are to dwell. It is not so much with a view to heighten our sense of privilege, as to deepen our sense of obligation, that John so emphatically repeats this assertion;—"Now are we the children of God." It is our nature, as such, being born of God, to "do righteousness, as we know him to be righteous." That is a new nature in us, and it is to be cultivated, exercised, developed, ripened. The field in which it is to grow and be matured is not at all congenial or favourable. It is the world, which not knowing him who begets, cannot be expected to know us who are begotten of him. It is the world, whose influences are all hostile to what is the great characteristic of the new nature in us which our being born of God creates, our "doing righteousness as we know that God is righteous." Still that is our nature; our new nature: "Now are we the children of God." And be the world ever so unpropitious in its atmosphere and soil, we are here in it as "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord," to grow as his children, "that he may be glorified."

That is what is John's chief design, in reminding us, in this connection, that we are the children of God. Other views are not to be excluded. The high rank in God's kingdom; the intimate, familiar footing in his house; the warm place in his heart; which that wondrous manner of love bestowed upon us in our being called his children implies;—these all are animating and spirit-stirring motives to face the worst the world can do to us, through its not knowing us any more than it knows him whose children we are. It is a legitimate source of comfort and encouragement when, disallowed of men, we have to fall back upon "the witness of the Spirit, witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God; and if children then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." It John 17:25-26).

So Jesus, the first-begotten among many brethren, is teaching us now to know, as he knows, the righteous Father, through the love wherewith the Father loveth him dwelling in us, and himself dwelling in us. The school is ill-suited, in many respects, to the teaching; and the scholars are not so apt as might be wished. The school is but dimly lighted and badly aired; the atmosphere is too full of dust and smoke; the learners also are often drowsy; and the lesson-object is seen through a glass darkly. But lo! the hour comes when the benign master, the loving elder brother, leads us into the spacious, lofty, bright hall of his Father's many-mansioned house, and presents us to the Father, face to face, saying, "Behold I and the little ones whom thou hast given me." Then there is clear sight; unclouded vision; a full and perfect understanding of the righteous Father; a full and perfect understanding between him and us; as full and perfect an understanding as there is in the case of his own beloved Son himself. All that is dark or doubtful about his character and ways is cleared up. There is nothing anywhere to awaken a suspicion or suggest a question; nothing to give a partial or distorted view of what he is or what he does. We see him as he is; and so seeing him, we approve, and love, and are like him evermore!

Is not this a hope "full of glory"? And is it not a hope full of holiness too? Surely it must be true that "every man that hath this hope in God," the righteous Father,—the hope of being like him through seeing him as he is—"purifieth himself even as Jesus, the Son is pure."