Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 John 4:2
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
2. Hereby know ye ] Or, Herein ye know: the verb may be either indicative or imperative (comp. 1Jn 2:27; 1Jn 2:29). The indicative is preferable, in spite of the imperatives in 1Jn 4:1: comp. 1Jn 3:16; 1Jn 3:19 ; 1Jn 3:24, which are very closely parallel to this. ‘Ye know’ is literally ‘ye come to know, perceive, recognise’: ‘herein’ refers to what follows: see on 1Jn 3:19.
every spirit that confesseth ] This idea of ‘confessing’ one’s belief is specially frequent in S. John: Joh 2:23; Joh 4:15; 2Jn 1:7; Joh 9:22; Joh 12:42; comp. Rom 10:9.
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh ] See on 2Jn 1:7. This is the crucial test, and one which would at once expose ‘the spirits’ of Cerinthian and Docetic teachers. We are not to suppose that all other articles of faith are unimportant; or that to deny this truth is the worst of all denials (see on 1Jn 2:22); or that such denial involves every kind of doctrinal error. But against the errors prevalent in that age this was the great safeguard. The confession must of course be not with the tongue only but in truth, and in deed as well as in word (1Jn 3:18): non lingua sed factis, non sonando sed amando (Bede).
The sentence may be taken in more ways than one: (1) as both A. V. and R. V.; (2) more accurately, and with some difference of meaning; confesseth Jesus Christ as come in the flesh; (3) confesseth that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh. Remark that S. John does not say ‘come into the flesh’, but ‘ in the flesh’: Christ did not descend (as Cerinthus said) into an already existing man, but He came in human nature; He ‘ became flesh’. Moreover he does not say that the confession is to be of a Christ who came ( ), but of a Christ who is come ( ). This ‘coming’ is not an exhausted fact: He is come and abides in the flesh.
S. Paul gives almost exactly the same test: ‘I give you to understand that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit’ (1Co 12:3).
is of God ] Proceeds from Him as its source: comp. 1Jn 3:10. “To confess that Jesus the anointed is come in the flesh, is to confess that there is a medium of spiritual communications between the visible and the invisible world, between earth and heaven. It is to confess that there is one Mediator for all men” (Maurice).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hereby – Greek, By this; that is, by the test which is immediately specified.
Know ye the Spirit of God – You may discern who are actuated by the Spirit of God.
Every spirit – Everyone professing to be under the influence of the Spirit of God. The apostle uses the word spirit here with reference to the person who made the claim, on the supposition that everyone professing to be a religious teacher was animated by some spirit or foreign influence, good or bad. If the Spirit of God influenced them, they would confess that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh; if some other spirit, the spirit of error and deceit, they would deny this.
That confesseth – That is, that makes a proper acknowledgment of this; that inculcates this doctrine, and that gives it a due place and prominence in his instructions. It cannot be supposed that a mere statement of this in words would show that they were of God in the sense that they were true Christians; but the sense is, that if this constituted one of the doctrines which they held and taught, it would show that they were advocates of truth, and not apostles of error. If they did not do this, 1Jo 4:3, it would be decisive in regard to their character and claims.
That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh – Benson and some others propose to render this, That Jesus, who came in the flesh, is the Christ. But this is liable to serious objections.
(1)It is not the obvious interpretation.
(2)It is unusual to say that Jesus had come in the flesh, though the expression the Son of God has come in the flesh, or God was manifested in the flesh, would be in accordance with the usage of the New Testament.
(3)This would not, probably, meet the real point in the case. The thing denied does not appear to have been that Jesus was the Messiah, for their pretending to be Christian teachers at all implied that they admitted this; but that the Son of God was really a man, or that he actually assumed human nature in permanent union with the divine. The point of the remark made by the apostle is, that the acknowledgment was to be that Christ assumed human nature; that he was really a man as he appeared to be: or that there was a real incarnation, in opposition to the opinion that he came in appearance only, or that he merely seemed to be a man, and to suffer and die. That this opinion was held by many, see the Introduction, Section III. 2. It is quite probable that the apostle here refers to such sentiments as those which were held by the Docetae; and that he meant to teach that it was indispensable to proper evidence that anyone came from God, that he should maintain that Jesus was truly a man, or that there was a real incarnation of the Son of God. John always regarded this as a very important point, and often refers to it, Joh 19:34-35; Joh 20:25-27; 1Jo 5:6. It is as important to be held now as it was then, for the fact that there was a real incarnation is essential to all just views of the atonement. If he was not truly a man, if he did not literally shed his blood on the cross, of course all that was done was in appearance only, and the whole system of redemption as revealed was merely a splendid illusion. There is little danger that this opinion will be held now, for those who depart from the doctrine laid down in the New Testament in regard to the person and work of Christ, are more disposed to embrace the opinion that he was a mere man; but still it is important that the truth that he was truly incarnate should be held up constantly before the mind, for in no other way can we obtain just views of the atonement.
Is of God – This does not necessarily mean that everyone who confessed this was personally a true Christian, for it is clear that a doctrine might be acknowledged to be true, and yet that the heart might not be changed; nor does it mean that the acknowledgment of this truth was all which it was essential to be believed in order that one might be recognised as a Christian; but it means that it was essential that this truth should be admitted by everyone who truly came from God. They who taught this held a truth which he had revealed, and which was essential to be held; and they thus showed that they did not belong to those to whom the name antichrist could be properly given. Still, whether they held this doctrine in such a sense, and in such connection with other doctrines, as to show that they were sincere Christians, was quite another question, for it is plain that a man may hold and teach the true doctrines of religion, and yet have no evidence that he is a child of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God] We know that the man who teaches that Jesus Christ is the promised Messiah, and that he is come in the flesh, is of God-is inspired by the Divine Spirit; for no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He here gives them the general rule, both affirmative and negative, which would suffice them to judge by in their present case; this being the great controversy of that time with the Jews: Whether Jesus were the Messiah? And whether the Messiah were as yet come or no? And with the Gnostics: Whether he were really come in the flesh, in true human nature? Or were not, as to that appearance, a mere phantasm? And he affirms: They that confessed him so come, were of God; i.e. thus far they were in the right, this truth was of God. Of the two litigating parties, this was of God, the other not of God; this took his side, that was against him. Yea, and they that not only made this true confession, but did also truly confess him, i.e. sincerely, cordially, practically, so as accordingly to trust in him, subject and devote themselves to him, were born of God, his very children, acted and influenced hereunto by his own Holy Spirit, as 1Jo 5:1,5; Mt 16:16,17; 1Co 12:3.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. Hereby“Herein.”
know . . . the Spirit ofGodwhether he be, or not, in those teachers professing to bemoved by Him.
Every spiritthat is,Every teacher claiming inspiration by the HOLYSPIRIT.
confessethThe truth istaken for granted as established. Man is required to confessit, that is, in his teaching to profess it openly.
Jesus Christ is come in theflesha twofold truth confessed, that Jesus is theChrist, and that He is come (the Greek perfecttense implies not a mere past historical fact, as the aorist would,but also the present continuance of the fact and its blessedeffects) in the flesh (“clothed with flesh”: notwith a mere seeming humanity, as the Docet afterwardstaught: He therefore was, previously, something far above flesh). Hisflesh implies His death for us, for only by assumingflesh could He die (for as God He could not), Heb 2:9;Heb 2:10; Heb 2:14;Heb 2:16; and His death impliesHis LOVE for us (Joh15:13). To deny the reality of His flesh is to deny Hislove, and so cast away the root which produces all true love on thebeliever’s part (1Jn 4:9-11;1Jn 4:19). Rome, by the doctrineof the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, denies Christ’sproper humanity.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hereby know ye the Spirit of God,…. This is a rule by which believers may know whether a man professing to have the Spirit of God, and to be called and sent by him, and whether the, doctrine he preaches, is of him or not:
every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh,
is of God; or of the Spirit of God; that is, every doctrine which carries this truth in it; or every man that owns, and professes, and publishes this doctrine concerning Christ, is on the side of God and truth; and which contains several articles in it, respecting the person and office of Christ; as that he existed before he came in the flesh, not in the human nature, or as man, or as an angel, but as the Son of God, as a divine person, being truly and properly God; so that this confession takes in his divine sonship, and proper deity, and also his true and real humanity; that the Messiah was incarnate, against the Jews, and was God and man in one person; and that he was really man, and not in appearance only, against the heretics of those times: and it also includes his offices, as that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, the Messiah, which the Jews denied, and that he was the anointed prophet, priest, and King; and so is a confession or acknowledgment of all the doctrines of the Gospel, which came by him, as a prophet; and of his satisfaction, sacrifice, and intercession, as a priest; and of all his ordinances and commands as a King; and that he is the only Saviour and Redeemer of men. Now, whoever owns and declares this system of truth, “is of God”; not that everyone that assents unto this, or preaches it, is born of God; a man may believe, and confess all this, as the devils themselves do, and yet be destitute of the grace of God; but the spirit, or doctrine, which contains these things in it, is certainly of God, or comes from him; or whoever brings these truths with him, and preaches them, he is, so far as he does so, on the side of God and truth, and to be regarded.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Hereby know ye ( ). Either present active indicative or imperative. The test of “the Spirit of God” ( ) here alone in this Epistle, save verse 13. With the clamour of voices then and now this is important. The test ( , as in 3:19) follows.
That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh ( ). The correct text (perfect active participle predicate accusative), not the infinitive (, B Vg). The predicate participle (see Joh 9:22 for predicate accusative with ) describes Jesus as already come in the flesh (his actual humanity, not a phantom body as the Docetic Gnostics held). See this same idiom in 2Jo 1:7 with (coming). A like test is proposed by Paul for confessing the deity of Jesus Christ in 1Co 12:3 and for the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus in Ro 10:6-10.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Hereby [ ] . See on 2 3.
Know ye [] . Perceive. See on Joh 2:24.
Confesseth [] . See on Mt 7:23; Mt 10:32.
That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh [ ] . Lit., Jesus Christ having come, etc. The whole phrase forms the direct object of the verb confesseth.
Of God. Compare 1Co 12:3.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
MARKS OF FALSE TEACHERS
1) “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:” John asserts that one may know or recognize the Spirit of God, in contrast with the spirits of demons, as follows:
2) “Every spirit that confesseth”. Every spirit, or each spirit that confesses, acknowledges, or affirms the following is of the kind and nature of the Holy Spirit:
3) “That Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.” (Greek eleluthota) is having come, or has already come. (Greek en sarki) “in flesh” and any spirit or person that does not acknowledge, confess, or affirm that the (Jesus) Savior, (Christ) anointed one, has already come “in flesh” or “flesh likeness,” can not be of God. 1Jn 4:13; Heb 1:3; Joh 1:14-18. Christian truth and falsehood may be determined by one’s concept of who Jesus Christ was and is.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
2 Hereby, or by this, know ye He lays down a special mark by which they might more easily distinguish between true and false prophets. Yet he only repeats here what we have met with before, that as Christ is the object at which faith aims, so he is the stone at which all heretics stumble. As long then as we abide in Christ, there is safety; but when we depart from him, faith is lost, and all truth is rendered void. (82)
But let us consider what this confession includes; for when the Apostle says that Christ came, we hence conclude that he was before with the Father; by which his eternal divinity is proved. By saying that he came in the flesh, he means that by putting on flesh, he became a real man, of the same nature with us, that he might become our brother, except that he was free from every sin and corruption. And lastly, by saying that he came, the cause of his coming must be noticed, for he was not sent by the Father for nothing. Hence on this depend the office and merits of Christ.
As, then, the ancient heretics departed from the faith, in one instance, by denying the divine, and in another by denying the human nature of Christ; so do the Papists at this day: though they confess Christ to be God and man, yet they by no means retain the confession which the Apostle requires, because they rob Christ of his own merit; for where freewill, merits of works, fictitious modes of worship, satisfactions, the advocacy of saints, are set up, how very little remains for Christ!
The Apostle then meant this, that since the knowledge of Christ includes the sum and substance of the doctrine respecting true religion, our eyes ought to be directed to and fixed on that, so that we may not be deceived. And doubtless Christ is the end of the law and the prophets; nor do we learn anything else from the gospel but his power and grace.
(82) It appears that by “spirit” throughout this passage, we are to understand a teacher claiming, rightly or falsely, to be influenced by God’s Spirit. Nor would it be improper, but suitable to the context, to consider the spirit of God in this verse as meaning a teacher guided by God. The meaning of the passage might be thus expressed, —
2. “By this know ye the teacher of God; every teacher who confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh, is from God; and
3. every teacher who does not confess Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh, is not from God; and this is the teacher of Antichrist, (or, the Anti Christian teacher,) of whom ye have heard that he is coming, and he is now already in the world.” — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
2. Hereby First test of a true spirit. This test is aimed at the Docetist, who denied the flesh and body of Christ, and made him a phantom.
Every spirit of God The apostle’s language is seemingly sweeping. Is the spirit that confesses Jesus come in the flesh, and yet denies other truths, truly of God? Or, as Augustine (quoted by Wordsworth) asks: “Arius, and Eunomius, and Macedonius, and Nestorius, own that Jesus came in the flesh; are not they, therefore, of God?” To this Augustine answers: “Those heresiarchs did not, in fact, confess Christ come in the flesh, because, whatever they might do in words, they in their works denied him. (Tit 1:16.) They have not charity because they have not unity;” that is, unity with the Church. Wordsworth gives a different answer, which is in effect, that to confess Christ come in the flesh is to confess him as Messiah, with all that embraces; namely, his divine atonement for our sins.
Compare our notes on 1Jn 4:15 and 1Jn 5:1. Perhaps the apostle would say, that whatever error Arius or other heretic believed, he derived from a false spirit; but whatever truth he held, as the incarnation of Christ, came from a good spirit and was of God. The spirit, here, is not wholly the man, but the inspiration from good or evil in the man. But our own view is that the apostle is deciding between two claimants to being of God, the one denying and the other affirming that Jesus is come in the flesh; and he pronounces for the latter. So that of the two sides he that confesseth is of God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God, and this is that of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming. And now it is in the world already.’
So the spirits of the prophets had to be tested against revealed truth which would determine whether their spirits were inspired by the Holy Spirit. If the prophecy was of new, previously untaught ideas it was probably false. But it could easily be tested out. The Spirit of God at work through the spirits of the prophets (‘every spirit’) could be tested in this way. If they were true their Spirit-inspired spirits would testify that Jesus, came as a human being in the flesh, but was equally the Christ, the One Who was uniquely ‘the Son’ (1Jn 2:22-23). For that was the revealed truth as proclaimed by the Apostles, and prepared for in the Old Testament.
On the other hand those whose spirits do not prophesy of Jesus at all (but only speak of ‘the Christ’) are not of God, for what they teach is false. Rather they are that which is of antichrist, setting up false Christs instead of the true. The believers in the churches had heard that such were coming. Well, here they were, already in the world. Let them then listen carefully to what was taught before accepting a prophet.
The centrality of Jesus Christ to the Christian faith comes out here. Their view of Jesus Christ was of central importance. Christianity was Christ. All hinged on Him. To be wrong about Him was not to be a Christian at all. Teachers were thus to be tested by whether they proclaimed Jesus Christ, in His life, death and resurrection, as true man and true God.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Jn 4:2-3. Hereby know ye the Spirit, &c. Hereby you may discern, &c. Heylin. There are two ways of interpreting what St. John has here laid down as a rule by which to try the spirits: 1. Their acknowledging that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; or, 2. Their acknowledging that Jesus, who came in the flesh, is the Christ. In favour of the latter opinion, which is my own, and which coincides with that of some of the most eminent commentators, I would observe, 1st, The unbelieving Jews and Heathens would readily acknowledge, that Jesus, who is called Christ, came in the flesh, or had a real body, like another man; but they would not acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, or the Prophet and Saviour of the world. If therefore any of them had pretended to the Spirit of prophesy, their acknowledging that Jesus came in the flesh, would have been no proof of their prophetic mission. 2nd, The word signifies not only to confess, but to teach and defend: Act 23:8. Now not only to confess but to teach and defend that fundamental article of the Christian doctrine, that Jesus is the Christ; or so to confess it, as to stand by it in times of persecution and danger, was a proper mark of trial: whereas the proposition interpreted in the former sense, does not appear to be any mark of trial at all. 3rdly, The parallel places confirm the last interpretation. See 1Jn 4:15 ch. 1Jn 2:22 1Jn 5:1; 1Jn 5:5; 1Jn 5:12-13. Comp. with ch. 1Jn 3:23. 2Jn 1:7; 2Jn 1:9-10. Joh 8:24. 4thly, Those who continued cordially and firmly to hold and support that fundamental article of Christianity, that Jesus is the Christ, would have the Spirit abide with them; whereas those who denied and opposed that article could not possibly possess the Spirit of Christ, which is a Spirit of truth. St. John, throughout this epistle, seems to have had his eye upon the Docetae: for that reason, in the beginning of the epistle, he speaks of seeing, hearing, and handling Christ; and here, to the fundamental article of Jesus’s being the Messiah, he adds, that he came in the flesh. His having a body, and really suffering and dying, ought not to have offended them. From the latter clause of 1Jn 4:3 some have argued, that the Pope cannot be antichrist, (see on ch. 1Jn 2:22.) because he confesses Christ; and that it must necessarily be some entirely opposing person or sect, and which does not bear the Christian name. But it should be considered, that popery is an usurpation entirely inconsistent with a duehomage to Christ, and founded upon principles most opposite to those of his government and religion. It is said to have been already in the world, as the ambitious, imposing, persecuting spirit, which is the very essence of anti-christianism, did then very much prevail.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Jn 4:2 . Statement of the token by which the is to be recognised.
refers to the following sentence: . . .
is imperative, comp. , , 1Jn 4:1 .
] It is arbitrary not only to change the participle into the infinitive , but also to change into (so Luther, Calvin, Piscator, Sander); by the flesh, i.e. the earthly human nature, is stated as the form of being in which Christ appeared. The form of the object is explained by the polemic against Docetism; it is to be translated either: “ Jesus Christ as come in the flesh ” (Lcke, de Wette, Dsterdieck, Ebrard, etc.); or: “Jesus, as Christ come in the flesh;” the last interpretation has this advantage, that it not only brings out more clearly the reference to the Cerinthian Docetism , [254] but it makes it more easy to explain how the apostle in 1Jn 4:3 can designate the object simply by . It might, however, be still more suitable to take as one object = “ the Jesus Christ who came in the flesh ,” so that in this expression the individual elements on which John here relied in opposition to Docetism have been gathered into one; so perhaps Braune, when he says: “the form is that of a substantive objective sentence,” and “in . . it is not a predicate, but an attributive clause that is added.” That the apostle has in view not only the Cerinthian, but also the later Docetism, which attributed to the Saviour only a seeming body, cannot be proved from the form of expression used here. The commentators who deny the reference of the apostle to Docetism find themselves driven to artificial explanations; thus Socinus, who expands the participle by quamvis, and Grotius, according to whom refers to the status humilis in which Christ appeared, in contrast to the regia pompa in which the Jews expected the Messiah. [255] To exact unbelievers there can here be no reference, as, according to chap. 1Jn 2:2 , the false prophets had previously belonged to the Church itself. [256] That John brings out as the token of the Spirit, that is, of God, just the confession of this particular truth, has its ground in the circumstances that have been mentioned; while it is also so very much the fundamental truth, that, as Lcke on ch. 1Jn 2:22 with justice says: “every is contained in this and amounts to this, the denial of that truth in any sense.” [257]
[254] In the first interpretation the antithesis to the Corinthian Docetism lies not merely in the combination of as one name (Ebrard), but also in this, that this subject so described, which contains in it the idea , is more particularly defined as having come in the flesh.
[255] Socinus: Qui confitetur Jesum Christum i.e. eum pro suo servatore ac domino et denique vero Christo habet, quamvis is in carne venerit h. e. homo fuerit, non modo mortalis, sed infinitis malis obnoxius. Without any ground, Baumgarten-Crusius asserts: “If any force were to be assigned to the predicate: come in the flesh, the infinitive would have been used.” Brckner thinks that if in ver. 3 the shorter reading (without the apposition) be the correct one, the reference to Docetism is here uncertain and unnecessary; but the uncertain expression is plainly to be interpreted in accordance with the more certain, and not, contrariwise, the latter in accordance with the former.
[256] Comp. with this passage Polycarp, ep. ad Philipp.: , .
[257] Augustine peculiarly turns this sentence against the Donatists, whom he reproaches with a denial of their love, on account of their separation from the Catholic Church, when he says that John speaks here of a denial of Christ not merely by word, but also by deed: quisquis non habet charitatem negat Christum in carne venisse; so Bede: ipse est Spiritus Dei, qui dicit Jesum Christum in carne venisse, qui dicit non lingua, sed factis, non sonando, sed amando.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
Ver. 2. Hereby know ye the spirit ] Bring it to this test. Gold may be rubbed or melted, it remains orient; so doth truth. Whereas error, as glass (bright, but brittle), cannot endure the hammer of fire.
That confesseth ] That preacheth Christ crucified.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
2, 3 a .] Test, whereby the spirits are to be tried . In this (see above, ch. 1Jn 3:10 , &c.) ye know (apprehend, recognize. is taken as imperative, on account of the preceding and , by Huther, De Wette, Lcke (most Commentators do not touch it). But on account of the very frequent , I should let analogy prevail, and take it as indicative) the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit, present, inspiring, and working in men’s spirits). Every spirit which confesseth (“spiritui tribuitur actio qu hominis est per spiritum.” Schlichting. The confession is necessarily, from the context here, not the genuine and ascertained agreement of lips and life, but the outward and open profession of faith: see 2Jn 1:7-10 , where . is its equivalent) Jesus Christ come in the flesh ( . . primary predicate: , secondary predicate: = . . , 2Jn 1:7 . Cf. the same arrangement of predicates 1Co 1:23 , : 2Co 4:5 , . In all these cases it is important to observe, that the construction is not equivalent to an accusative with an infinitive, . . If it were, the confession, or the preaching, would be simply of the fact announced: whereas in each case it is the PERSON who is the object or primary predicate: the participle carrying the attributive or secondary predicate. This is abundantly shewn here, by the adversative clause, where it is simply . The confession required is, “Jesus Christ come in the flesh:” here standing midway between the of 2Jn 1:7 , which is altogether timeless, and the of ch. 1Jn 5:6 , which is purely historical. This perfect gives the present endurance of a past historical fact.
If we enquire what that fact is, we are met by two widely divergent interpretations. On the one side we have the Socinian view, which, while it keeps to the strict philological sense of the words, and (see below), distorts the meaning to bring the Apostle into accord with the tenets of that school: e. g. Socinus: “Jesum Christum, i. e. Jesum qui dicitur Christus, non modo mortalem hominem fuisse, sed etiam innumeris malis et denique ipsi cruent morti obnoxium:” and Grotius, “non cum regia pompa et exercitibus, sed in statu humili, abjecto, multisque malis ac postremum cruci obnoxio.” But no such sense of can be or has been attempted to be adduced. On the other hand we have many of the orthodox expositors, who strive to make the words not implicative only, but directly assertive of the Incarnation. So Piscator, who plainly asserts that = : so others who waver between and , e. g. Hunnius, “tunc venire in carne dicitur Jesus Christus, quando ex sua velut arcana sede prodiens assumta visibili carne se in terris manifestat:” so Bengel (apparently), al. And among this number must proximately be reckoned Augustine, who introduces in the train of the Incarnation the death and redeeming love of Christ, and makes the confession or denial depend on “caritatem habere:” “Deus erat et in carne venit: Deus enim mori non poterat, caro mori poterat: ideo ergo venit in carne ut moreretur pro nobis. Quemadmodum autem mortuus est pro nobis? Majorem hac caritatem nemo habet, quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis. Caritas ergo illum adduxit ad crucem. Quisquis ergo non habet caritatem, negat Christum in carne venisse.” As between these two, the recent Commentators, Lcke, De Wette, Dsterd., Huther, appear to have taken the right path, in keeping strictly to its proper meaning, ‘ in ,’ ‘clothed with,’ = , ch. 1Jn 5:6 ; and also to its proper meaning, to “ come forward ,” “ appear ,” “ prodire :” and in interpreting the words as directed against the Docet, who maintained that the Son of God had only an apparent, not a real human body.
I cannot however agree in Huther’s view, that is here to be taken alone as the object, and . together as predicate: Jesus as Christ come in the flesh. For first, it would be against the usage of our Apostle, see ch. 1Jn 5:1 , in this case, to leave out the article before : secondly, thus in conjunction, could hardly but express the joint Name so well known: and thirdly, the sense required, that Jesus is the Christ, is assumed, by the very juxtaposition of the names. The words imply the pr-existence and incarnation by their very terms: but they do not assert these doctrines, only the verity of our Lord’s human nature), is of God (has its origin and inspiration from Him by His Spirit):
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Hereby. See 1Jn 3:16.
know. App-132.
Spirit. App-101.
spirit. App-101.
that. Omit.
Jesus Christ. App-98.
is come = to have come.
the. Omit.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
2, 3 a.] Test, whereby the spirits are to be tried. In this (see above, ch. 1Jn 3:10, &c.) ye know (apprehend, recognize. is taken as imperative, on account of the preceding and , by Huther, De Wette, Lcke (most Commentators do not touch it). But on account of the very frequent , I should let analogy prevail, and take it as indicative) the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit, present, inspiring, and working in mens spirits). Every spirit which confesseth (spiritui tribuitur actio qu hominis est per spiritum. Schlichting. The confession is necessarily, from the context here, not the genuine and ascertained agreement of lips and life, but the outward and open profession of faith: see 2Jn 1:7-10, where . is its equivalent) Jesus Christ come in the flesh (. . primary predicate: , secondary predicate: = . . , 2Jn 1:7. Cf. the same arrangement of predicates 1Co 1:23, : 2Co 4:5, . In all these cases it is important to observe, that the construction is not equivalent to an accusative with an infinitive, . . If it were, the confession, or the preaching, would be simply of the fact announced: whereas in each case it is the PERSON who is the object or primary predicate: the participle carrying the attributive or secondary predicate. This is abundantly shewn here, by the adversative clause, where it is simply . The confession required is, Jesus Christ come in the flesh: here standing midway between the of 2Jn 1:7, which is altogether timeless, and the of ch. 1Jn 5:6, which is purely historical. This perfect gives the present endurance of a past historical fact.
If we enquire what that fact is, we are met by two widely divergent interpretations. On the one side we have the Socinian view, which, while it keeps to the strict philological sense of the words, and (see below), distorts the meaning to bring the Apostle into accord with the tenets of that school: e. g. Socinus: Jesum Christum, i. e. Jesum qui dicitur Christus, non modo mortalem hominem fuisse, sed etiam innumeris malis et denique ipsi cruent morti obnoxium: and Grotius,-non cum regia pompa et exercitibus, sed in statu humili, abjecto, multisque malis ac postremum cruci obnoxio. But no such sense of can be or has been attempted to be adduced. On the other hand we have many of the orthodox expositors, who strive to make the words not implicative only, but directly assertive of the Incarnation. So Piscator, who plainly asserts that = : so others who waver between and , e. g. Hunnius,-tunc venire in carne dicitur Jesus Christus, quando ex sua velut arcana sede prodiens assumta visibili carne se in terris manifestat: so Bengel (apparently), al. And among this number must proximately be reckoned Augustine, who introduces in the train of the Incarnation the death and redeeming love of Christ, and makes the confession or denial depend on caritatem habere: Deus erat et in carne venit: Deus enim mori non poterat, caro mori poterat: ideo ergo venit in carne ut moreretur pro nobis. Quemadmodum autem mortuus est pro nobis? Majorem hac caritatem nemo habet, quam ut animam suam ponat pro amicis suis. Caritas ergo illum adduxit ad crucem. Quisquis ergo non habet caritatem, negat Christum in carne venisse. As between these two, the recent Commentators, Lcke, De Wette, Dsterd., Huther, appear to have taken the right path, in keeping strictly to its proper meaning, in, clothed with, = , ch. 1Jn 5:6; and also to its proper meaning, to come forward, appear, prodire: and in interpreting the words as directed against the Docet, who maintained that the Son of God had only an apparent, not a real human body.
I cannot however agree in Huthers view, that is here to be taken alone as the object, and . together as predicate: Jesus as Christ come in the flesh. For first, it would be against the usage of our Apostle, see ch. 1Jn 5:1, in this case, to leave out the article before : secondly, thus in conjunction, could hardly but express the joint Name so well known: and thirdly, the sense required, that Jesus is the Christ, is assumed, by the very juxtaposition of the names. The words imply the pr-existence and incarnation by their very terms: but they do not assert these doctrines, only the verity of our Lords human nature), is of God (has its origin and inspiration from Him by His Spirit):
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Jn 4:2. ,[13] ye know) Respecting the heresies of that age there are recent and easily accessible writings: the Apostolic Church of Buddeus, and the Disputations of Lange, etc.-, every) The discourse is respecting the spirits of that time: for at other times false prophets also impugned other heads of doctrine respecting Jesus Christ.- , every spirit) The Spirit of God is one only: but from Him every true teacher has his own peculiar inspiration, which is called , spirit.-, confesses) with the assent of the heart and mouth. By this word the doctrine is presupposed as already ratified and confirmed.- , in the flesh) He Himself, therefore, is something more than flesh. The heresies, which deny the truth of the flesh of Jesus Christ, presuppose, and by this very thing confirm, His Deity, since they were not able to reconcile with this His flesh, as worthy of it.-, who is come) On this advent the whole doctrine respecting Christ depends; for that advent partly presupposes, partly embraces, and partly draws after it, this doctrine: 1Jn 4:15, note.
[13] The reading (is to be known), which in the margin of both Ed. is left to the decision of the reader, is preferred in the Germ. Vers.-E. B.
is read by Vulg. and Syr. of the oldest authorities; but , by ABC Memph. Theb. later Syr. Iren. and Lucifer, the weightest authorities.-E.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Every: 1Jo 5:1, Joh 16:13-15, 1Co 12:3
come: 1Jo 4:3, Joh 1:14, 1Ti 3:16
Reciprocal: Zec 13:2 – cause Joh 12:42 – they did not Rom 1:3 – according Rom 10:9 – That if Gal 4:4 – made Phi 2:11 – every Col 2:18 – no 2Th 2:2 – by spirit Heb 9:11 – Christ Heb 10:5 – but Heb 10:20 – his 1Jo 4:15 – confess 1Jo 5:20 – we know 2Jo 1:7 – who
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE INCARNATION AND THE INNER LIFE
Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
1Jn 4:2
Only too commonly the Incarnation is regarded as a doctrine which faith must accept, but which, except in its issues and results, has no immediate connection with the tenor of daily life. Yet it is plain enough from the text that to confess the Incarnation, in all its blessed fulness and reality of meaning, is to afford a proof of being a very son of God, and a recipient in the fullest measure of the inworking power of the Spirit.
I. Who is He of Whose Incarnation we are speaking?The immediate and instinctively given answer that each one of us would return would probably be the one wordGod. True, most true, most blessedly true, but yet not the suggestive and instructive answer which the Apostle who wrote the words on which we are meditating has enabled us to make. What St. John, under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, plainly reveals to us is this, that He Who was incarnate was He Who was in the beginning, ever with God, and Himself God. And the name that he gives to Him is the Word.
II. Why was this love manifested in a form so startling in its lowliness as that which is revealed to us in the gospel narrative?Could not the Word have become fleshcould not the Incarnation have been a true and real entry into our humanity and a veritable assumption of our nature, without the humble birth, the slow, silent years of growth, and the gradual increase of wisdom and experience? Though such questions will arise in the soul, there is a kind of presumption in entertaining them, and, to some extent, in endeavouring to answer them. This, however, may with all reverence be said, that, had it been otherwise, the conviction that the Son of God had verily and truly taken our nature upon Him would never have been felt with completeness and fulness in the human heart.
III. Does not the Incarnation with all its attendant circumstances bring home to us the vital truth that if such was the form and manner of the Lords assumption of our humanity, communion with Him here and hereafter must be a blessed reality on which the loving and believing soul may rely with the most unchanging confidence. If the dear Lord while here on earth verily did live in blessed union and communion with His chosen ones, as some of that holy number tell us plainly that He did liveif the Incarnation bore with it that boundless blessing to disciples and Apostles, what is there to lead us to doubt that to those that love Him and pray for His abiding presence with them, the Incarnation bears the selfsame privilege and blessing now?
IV. Our dear Lords Incarnation was not merely a holy mystery which faith must apprehend, but it carries to the soul convictions of the personal love of Christ toward each fellow-man which make it, what it seems now becoming more and more to us all, the, so to speak, practical doctrine of our own mysteriously moving and eventful times. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man are the two great truths which, year by year, modern religious thought seems more distinctly apprehending and realising; and that each of these great principles rests upon, as its basis, the Incarnation may be regarded as an almost self-evident truth. The revelation of God as our Father was made to us through the Son of His love. Our revelation of the Brotherhood of man can only come through the beloved One, Who made Himself our Elder Brother that He might die for us, and make us His brethren and His own for evermore.
Bishop Ellicott.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Jn 4:2. Nobody denied that a person lived on earth by the name of Jesus Christ, but some denied that He was divine in a body of flesh. That was equivalent to saying that He was not the divine Son of God. That would also mean that Christ had no authority or saving virtue. It was generally known that a person was predicted to come into the world to fulfill the law and the prophets, and to effect a plan of salvation on the merits of His blood. But it was denied by some that the person known as Jesus Christ was the expected one. Hence if a man acknowledged the divinity of Christ it was evidence that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Paul teaches this also in 1Co 12:3 where he says, “No man can say Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” or Spirit.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Jn 4:2-3. Hereby ye know the Spirit of God: that is, the voice of the one Holy Ghost in the various spirits proclaiming a confession. The personal faith must have its outward avowal; every teacher or spirit must teach on the basis of a confession of Jesus. In chap. 2 the test of antichrist was the refusal to believe that Jesus was the Christ or the Father and the Son: the divinity and Messiahship of our Lord. Here the true faith is that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: not into the world simply, not simply into the flesh, which might connote its fallen condition, but in flesh that is, in a true humanity He appeared who existed before as the Son of God, and so came that it may be said as of an abiding presence, He is come. The true reading of the antithesis, every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God, is most forcible in its simplicity: the name of Jesus is enough, for the confession of a man as come from God means nothing. With the next words, this is that of antichrist, that matter or that spirit of antichrist refers back to chap. 2; though ye have heard indicates a well-known doctrine. A remarkable reading of the Vulgate, which annulleth or dissolveth Jesus, points to the severance of Jesus from the Christ, a Gnostic notion, or the separation of Jesus into two persons, a Nestorian error; but this reading is not confirmed. It can hardly be denied, however, that this confession alluded to the Docetic heresy which denied the reality of the Lords human nature; though that was only a temporary form of opposition to an eternal truth, the sum and standard of all truth.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
In these words our apostle lays down a plain mark and rule of trial, how they might know a teacher that was acted and inspired by the Spirit of God, from one that was not; such a one as durst truly and openly in the face of danger own and profess, teach and preach, Jesus Christ in his person, nature, and offices, as the incarnate Word, or Son of God, sent from heaven ascribing virtue and efficacy to the sacrifice of his death, and attributing to him alone the whole glory of a perfect Saviour: this doctrine is of the Spirit, and this spirit is of God. But such teachers as will not hazard themselves, but for fear of sufferings and persecution, will deny either the Godhead or manhood of Christ, and disown either his incarnation, death, or resurrection: such teachers and such doctrines are not of God, but are the very spirit of antichrist, which, says he, you have been foretold should come, and is now already in the world.
Learn hence, That such a teacher as disowns either of the natures of Christ, or denies any of the offices of Christ; that either denies the divinity of his person, or the meritoriousness of his satisfaction, is not of God, he is antichrist, against Christ, and shall find Christ against him in the day that he appears before him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
1Jn 4:2. Hereby By the following plain mark; know ye the Spirit of God In a teacher. Every spirit Of a teacher; that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God Doddridge, with many other commentators, reads this clause, Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ, who is come in the flesh, is of God: that is, that confesseth him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and that both with heart and voice, sincerely believing him to be such, and behaving to him and confessing him as such, though this might expose them to the loss of all things, even of their property, liberty, and lives. This must be acknowledged to be a perfectly Scriptural and very proper mark of trial, proving those in whom it was found to be possessed of the Spirit of God and of Christ. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged, though the original words, , might bear this rendering, they much more favour the sense given them in our translation, signifying, literally and exactly, that confesseth Jesus Christ hath come in the flesh. This imports two things: 1st, That Jesus is the Christ, whose coming was foretold by the Jewish prophets, in opposition to the unbelieving Jews; a truth which those who confessed, whether in Judea or in the Gentile countries, exposed themselves to the danger of having their goods spoiled, and their bodies imprisoned, if not also tortured and put to death. So that those who voluntarily made this confession, manifested that they preferred Christ and his gospel to all other things whatever. The clause imports, 2d, That this great personage, the Messiah, the Son of God, had really come in the flesh, and had a real human nature, in opposition to a sect which arose very early in the Christian Church, called the Docet, who would not allow that Christ had a real body, and that he really suffered, died, and rose again. This sect St. John seems to have had in his eye throughout this epistle. Hence, in the very beginning of it, he speaks of seeing, hearing, and handling Christ; and here, to the fundamental article of Jesuss being the Messiah, he adds, that he came in the flesh; with which doctrine his atoning for sin by the sacrifice of himself, and his rising from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep, were closely and necessarily connected, and therefore the acknowledgment of it was a point of the greatest importance.
The Socinians indeed contend, that to confess Jesus Christ hath come in the flesh, means simply to confess that he was a mere man: and from this they infer that he had no existence before he was conceived of his mother. In proof of their sense of the clause, they cite Heb 2:14, where the writer says he partook of our flesh and blood. Now, though it may be true that these words import nothing more than that Christ was a man, like other men, St. Johns words, hath come in the flesh, have evidently a more extensive meaning. For, as Bishop Horsley observes, the sense of a proposition ariseth, not from the meaning of a single word contained in it, but from the union of the whole into one sentence, especially if that union suggests any circumstance by which the sense of the proposition is modified. This is the case of the clause, hath come in the flesh; words which, while they specify the manner of his coming, imply that he might have come in a different manner if he had pleased. Accordingly the apostle hath used the verb to come in that sense 1Jn 5:6. This is he who came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by the water and the blood. For his meaning plainly is, that Jesus came attested as the Christ by water and blood jointly, although he might have come attested by either of these separately; and that Jesus existed as the Christ before he came attested by the water and the blood. Thus the clause, hath come in the flesh, implies that he might have come in another manner than in the flesh, namely, in the form of God, as mentioned Php 2:6-7. It implies that he existed before he came in the flesh, and chose to come in that manner, rather than in any other; consequently that he is more than a mere man. That Jesus Christ might have come in another manner, was the opinion of Clemens Romanus, one of the apostolical fathers mentioned Php 4:3 : for in his epistle to the Corinthians, he saith, The sceptre of the majesty of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, came not in the pride of pomp and arrogance, although he had it in his power; but in humility, as the Holy Spirit spake concerning him. See Macknight, and Bishop Horsleys 5th letter to Priestley.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 2
Is of God; is true; teaches the truth.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
4:2 {2} Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: {b} Every spirit that confesseth that {c} Jesus Christ is come in the {d} flesh is of God:
(2) He gives a certain and perpetual rule to know the doctrine of antichrist, that is, if either the divine or human nature of Christ, or the true uniting of them together is denied: or if the least jot that may be, be detracted from his office who is our only king, prophet and everlasting high priest.
(b) He speaks simply of the doctrine, and not of the person.
(c) The true Messiah.
(d) Is true man.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Chapter 3
THE POLEMICAL ELEMENT IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF ST. JOHN
1Jn 4:2-3
A DISCUSSION (however far from technical completeness) of the polemical element in St. Johns Epistle, probably seems likely to be destitute of interest or of instruction, except to ecclesiastical or philosophical antiquarians. Those who believe the Epistle to be a divine book must, however, take a different view of the matter. St. John was not merely dealing with forms of human error which were local and fortuitous. In refuting them he was enunciating principles of universal import, of almost illimitable application. Let us pass by those obscure sects, those subtle curiosities of error, which the diligence of minute research has excavated from the masses of erudition under which they have been buried; which theologians, like other antiquarians, have sometimes labelled with names at once uncouth and imaginative. Let us fix our attention upon such broad and well-defined features of heresy as credible witnesses have indelibly fixed upon the contemporaneous heretical thought of Asia Minor; and we shall see not only a great precision in St. Johns words, but a radiant image of truth, which is equally adapted to enlighten us in the peculiar dangers of our age.
Controversy is the condition under which all truth must be held, which is not in necessary subject matter-which is not either mathematical or physical. In the case of the second, controversy is active, until the fact of the physical law is established beyond the possibility of rational discussion; until self-consistent thought can only think upon the postulate of its admission. Now in these departments all the argument is on one side. We are not in a state of suspended speculation, leaning neither to affirmation nor denial, which is doubt. We are not in the position of inclining either to one side or the other, by an almost impalpable overplus of evidence, which is suspicion; or by those additions to this slender stock which convert suspicion into opinion. We are not merely yielding a strong adhesion to one side, while we must yet admit, to ourselves at least, that our knowledge is not perfect, nor absolutely manifest-which is the mental and moral position of belief. In necessary subject matter, we know and see with that perfect intellectual vision for which controversy is impossible.
The region of belief must therefore, in our present condition, be a region from which controversy cannot be excluded.
Religious controversialists may be divided into three classes, for each of which we may find an emblem in the animal creation. The first are the nuisances, at times the numerous nuisances, of Churches. These controversialists delight in showing that the convictions of persons whom they happen to dislike, can, more or less plausibly, be pressed to unpopular conclusions. They are incessant fault finders. Some of them, if they had an opportunity, might delight in finding the sun guilty in his daily worship of the many-coloured ritualism of the western clouds. Controversialists of this class, if minute, are venomous, and capable of inflicting a degree of pain quite out of proportion to their strength. Their emblem may be found somewhere in the range of “every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” The second class of controversialists is of a much higher nature. Their emblem is the hawk, with his bright eye, with the forward throw of his pinions, his rushing flight along the woodland skirt, his unerring stroke. Such hawks of the Churches, whose delight is in pouncing upon fallacies, fulfil an important function. They rid us of tribes of mischievous winged errors. The third class of controversialists is that which embraces St. John supremely-such minds also as Augustines in his loftiest and most inspired moments, such as those which have endowed the Church with the Nicene Creed. Of such the eagle is the emblem. Over the grosser atmosphere of earthly anger or imperfect motives, over the clouds of error, poised in the light of the True Sun, with the eagles upward wing and the eagles sunward eye, St. John looks upon the truth. He is indeed the eagle of the four Evangelists, the eagle of God. If the eagle could speak with our language, his style would have something of the purity of the sky and of the brightness of the light. He would warn his nestlings against losing their way in the banks of clouds that lie below him so far. At times he might show that there was a danger or an error whose position he might indicate by the sweep of his wing, or by descending for a moment to strike.
There are then polemics in the Epistle and in the Gospel of St. John. But we refuse to hunt down some obscure heresy in every sentence. It will be enough to indicate the master heresy of Asia Minor, to which St. John undoubtedly refers, with its intellectual and moral perils. In so doing we shall find the very truth which our own generation especially needs.
The prophetic words addressed by St. Paul to the Church of Ephesus thirty years before the date of this Epistle had found only too complete a fulfilment. “From among their own selves,” at Ephesus in particular, through the Churches of Asia Minor in general, men had arisen “speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” The prediction began to justify itself when Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus only five or six years later. A few significant words in the First Epistle to Timothy let us see the heretical influences that were at work. St. Paul speaks with the solemnity of a closing charge when he warns Timothy against what were once “profane babblings,” and “antitheses of the Gnosis which is falsely so called.” In an earlier portion of the same Epistle the young bishop is exhorted to charge certain men not to teach a “different doctrine,” neither to give “heed to myths and genealogies,” out of whose endless mazes no intellect entangled in them can ever find its way. Those commentators put us on a false scent who would have us look after Judaising error, Jewish “stemmata.” The reference is not to Judaistic ritualism, but to semi-Pagan philosophical speculation. The “genealogies” are systems of Divine potencies which the Gnostics (and probably some Jewish Rabbis of Gnosticising tendency) called “aeons,” and so the earliest Christian writers understood the word.
Now without entering into the details of Gnosticism, this may be said of its general method and purpose. It aspired at once to accept and to transform the Christian creed; to elevate its faith into a philosophy, a knowledge-and then to make this knowledge cashier and supersede faith, love, holiness, redemption itself.
This system was strangely eclectic, and amalgamated certain elements not only of Greek and Egyptian, but of Persian and Indian, Pantheistic thought. It was infected throughout with dualism and doketism. Dualism held that all good and evil in the universe proceeded from two first principles, good and evil. Matter was the power of evil whose home is in the region of darkness. Minds which started from this fundamental view could only accept the Incarnation provisionally and with reserve, and must at once proceed to explain it away. “The Word was made flesh”; but the Word of God, the True Light, could not be personally united to an actual material system called a human body, plunged in the world of matter, darkened and contaminated by its immersion. The human flesh in which Jesus appeared to be seen was fictitious. Redemption was a drama with a shadow for its hero. The phantom of a Redeemer was nailed to the phantom of a cross. Philosophical dualism logically became theological doketism. Doketism logically evaporated dogmas, sacraments, duties, redemption.
It may be objected that this doketism has been a mere temporary and local aberration of the human intellect; a metaphysical curiosity, with no real roots in human nature. If so, its refutation is an obsolete piece of an obsolete controversy; and the Epistle in some of its most vital portions is a dead letter.
Now of course literal doketism is past and gone, dead and buried. The progress of the human mind, the slow and resistless influence of the logic of common sense, the wholesome influence of the sciences of observation in correcting visionary metaphysics, have swept away aeons, emanations, dualism, and the rest. But a subtler, and to modern minds infinitely more attractive, doketism is round us, and accepted, as far as words go, with a passionate enthusiasm.
What is this doketism?
Let us refer to the history and to the language of a mind of singular subtlety and power.
In George Eliots early career she was induced to prepare for the press a translation of Strausss mythical explanation of the life of Jesus. It is no disrespect to so great a memory to say, that at that period of her career, at least, Miss Evans must have been unequal to grapple with such a work, if she desired to do so from a Christian point of view. She had not apparently studied the history or the structure of the Gospels. What she knew of their meaning she had imbibed from an antiquated and unscientific school of theologians. The faith of a sciolist engaged in a struggle for its life with the fatal strength of a critical giant instructed in the negative lore of all ages, and sharpened by hatred of the Christian religion; met with the result which was to be expected. Her faith expired, not without some painful throes. She fell a victim to the fallacy of youthful conceit-I cannot answer this or that objection, therefore it is unanswerable. She wrote at first that she was “Strauss-sick.” It made her ill to dissect the beautiful story of the crucifixion. She took to herself a consolation singular in the circumstances. The sight of an ivory crucifix, and of a pathetic picture of the Passion, made her capable of enduring the first shock of the loss which her heart had sustained. That is, she found comfort in looking at tangible reminders of a scene which had ceased to be a historical reality, of a Sufferer who had faded from a living Redeemer into the spectre of a visionary past. After a time, however, she feels able to propose to herself and others “a new starting point. We can never have a satisfactory basis for the history of the man Jesus, but that negation does not affect the Idea of the Christ, either in its historical influence, or its great symbolic meanings.” Yes! a Christ who has no history, of whom we do not possess one undoubted word, of whom we know, and can know, nothing; who has no flesh of fact, no blood of life; an idea, not a man; this is the Christ of modern doketism. The method of this widely diffused school is to separate the sentiments of admiration which the history inspires from the history itself; to sever the ideas of the faith from the facts of the faith, and then to present the ideas thus surviving the dissolvents of criticism as at once the refutation of the facts and the substitute for them.
This may be pretty writing, though false and illogical writing is rarely even that; but a little consideration will show that this new starting point is not even a plausible substitute for the old belief.
(1) We question simple believers in the first instance. We ask them what is the great religious power in Christianity for themselves, and for others like-minded? What makes people pure, good, self-denying, nurses of the sick, missionaries to the heathen? They will tell us that the power lies, not in any doketic idea of a Christ-life which was never lived, but in “the conviction that that idea was really and perfectly incarnated in an actual career,” of which we have a record literally and absolutely true in all essential particulars. When we turn to the past of the Church, we find that as it is with these persons, so it has ever been with the saints. For instance, we hear St. Paul speaking of his whole life. He tells us that “whether we went out of ourselves it was unto God, or whether we be sober, it is for you”; that is to say, such a life has two aspects, one Godward, one manward. Its Godward aspect is a noble insanity, its manward aspect a noble sanity; the first with its beautiful enthusiasm, the second with its saving common sense. What is the source of this? “For the love of Christ constraineth us,” – forces the whole stream of life to flow between these two banks without the deviations of selfishness-“because we thus judge that He died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but to Him who for their sakes died and rose again.” It was the real unselfish life of a real unselfish Man which made such a life as that of St. Paul a possibility. Or we may think of the first beginning of St. Johns love for our Lord. When he turned to the past, he remembered one bright day about ten in the morning, when the real Jesus turned to him and to another with a real look, and said with a human voice, “What seek ye?” and then-“Come, and ye shall see.” It was the real living love that won the only kind of love which could enable the old man to write as he did in this Epistle so many years afterwards-“we love because He first loved us.”
(2) We address ourselves next to those who look at Christ simply as an ideal. We venture to put to them a definite question. You believe that there is no solid basis for the history of the man Jesus; that his life as a historical reality is lost in a dazzling mist of legend and adoration. Has the idea of a Christ, divorced from all accompaniment of authentic fact, unfixed in a definite historical form, uncontinued in an abiding existence, been operative or inoperative for yourselves? Has it been a practical power and motive, or an occasional and evanescent sentiment? There can be no doubt about the answer. It is not a make belief, but a belief, which gives purity and power. It is not an ideal of Jesus, but the blood of Jesus, which cleanseth us from all sin.
There are other lessons of abiding practical importance to be drawn from the polemical elements in St. Johns Epistle. These, however, we can only briefly indicate, because we wish to leave an undivided impression of that which seems to be St. Johns chief object controversially. There were Gnostics in Asia Minor for whom the mere knowledge of certain supposed spiritual truths was all in all, as there are those amongst ourselves who care for little but what are called clear views. For such St. John writes-“and hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” There were heretics in and about Ephesus who conceived that the special favour of God, or the illumination which they obtained by junction with the sect to which they had “gone out” from the Church, neutralised the poison of sin, and made innocuous for them that which might have been deadly for others. They suffered, as they thought, no more contamination by it, than “gold by lying upon the dunghill” (to use a favourite metaphor of their own). St. John utters a principle which cleaves through every fallacy in every age which says or insinuates that sin subjective can in any case cease to be sin objective. “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. All unrighteousness is sin.” Possibly within the Church itself, certainly among the sectarians without it, there was a disposition to lessen the glory of the Incarnation, by looking upon the Atonement as narrow and partial in its aim. St. Johns unhesitating statement is that “He is the propitiation for the whole world.” Thus does the eagle of the Church ever fix his gaze above the clouds of error, upon the Sun of universal truth.
Above all, over and through his negation of temporary and local errors about the person of Christ, St. John leads the Church in all ages to the true Christ. Cerinthus, in a form which seems to us eccentric and revolting, proclaimed a Jesus not born of a virgin, temporarily endowed with the sovereign power of the Christ, deprived of Him before His passion and resurrection, while the Christ remained spiritual and impassible. He taught a commonplace Jesus. At the beginning of his Epistle and Gospel John “wings his soul, and leads his readers onward and upward.” He is like a man who stands upon the shore and looks upon town and coast and bay. Then another takes the man off with him far to sea. All that he surveyed before is now lost to him; and as he gazes ever oceanward, he does not stay his eye upon any intervening object, but lets it range over the infinite azure. So the Apostle leads us above all creation, and transports us to the ages before it; makes us raise our eyes, not suffering us to find any end in the stretch above, since end is none. That “in the beginning,” “from the beginning,” of the Epistle and Gospel, includes nothing short of the eternal God. The doketics of many shades proclaimed an ideological, a misty Christ. “Every spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ as in flesh having come is of God, and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God.” “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, they who confess not Jesus Christ coming in flesh.” Such a Christ of mist as these words warn us against is again shaped by more powerful intellects and touched with tenderer lights. But the shadowy Christ of George Eliot and of Mill is equally arraigned by the hand of St. John. Each believer may well think within himself-I must die, and that, it may be, very soon; I must be alone with God, and my own soul; with that which I am and have been; with my memories, and with my sins. In that hour the weird desolate language of the Psalmist will find its realisation: “Lover and friend hast thou put from me, and mine acquaintance are-darkness.” Then we want, and then we may find, a real Saviour. Then we shall know that if we have only a doketic Christ, we shall indeed be alone -for “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.”
NOTE THE two following extracts in addition to what has been already said in this discourse will supply the reader with that which it is most necessary for him to know upon the heresies of Asia Minor.
1. Two principal heresies upon the nature of Christ then prevailed, each diametrically opposite to the other, as well as to the Catholic faith. One was the heresy of the Doketae, which destroyed the verity of the Human Nature in Christ; the other was the heresy of the Ebionites, who denied the Divine Nature, and the eternal Generation, and inclined to press the observation of the ceremonial law. Ancient writers allow these as heresies of the first century; all admit that they were powerful in the age of Ignatius. Hence Theodoret (“Prooem.”) divided the books of these heresies into two categories. In the first he included those who put forward the idea of a second Creator, and asserted that the Lord had appeared illusively. In the second he placed those who maintained that the Lord was merely a man. Of the first Jerome observed (Adv. Lucifer., 23) that while the Apostles yet remained upon the earth, while the blood of Christ was almost smoking upon the sod of Judea, some asserted that the body of the Lord was a phantom. Of the second the same writer remarked that St. John, at the invitation of the bishops of Asia Minor, wrote his Gospel against Cerinthus and other heretics -and especially against the dogma of the Ebionites then rising into existence, who asserted that Christ did not exist before Mary. Epiphanius notes that these heresies were mainly of Asia Minor ( ). Haeres., 56 (Pearson, “Vindic. Ignat.,” 2, 100, 1, p. 351).
2. “Two of these sects or schools are very ancient, and seem to have been referred to by St. John. The first is that of the Naassenians or Ophites. The antiquity of this sect is guaranteed to us by the author of the Philosophumena, who represents them as the real founders of Gnosticism. Later, he says, they were called Gnostics, pretending that they only knew the depths. (To this allusion is made in Rev 2:24, which would identify these sectaries with the Balaamites and Nicolaitans.) The second of these great heresies of Asia Minor is the doketic. The publication of the Philosophumena has furnished us with more precise information about their tenets. We need not say much about the Divine emanation-the fall of souls into matter, their corporeal captivity, their final rehabilitation (these are merely the ordinary Gnostic ideas). But we may follow what they assert about the Saviour and His manifestationin the world. They admit in Him the only Son of the Father ( ), who descended to the region of shadows and the Virgins womb, where He clothed Himself in a gross, human material body. But this was a vestment of no integrally personal and permanent character; it was, indeed, a sort of masquerade, an artifice or fiction imagined to deceive the prince of this world. The Saviour at His baptism received a second birth, and clad himself with a subtler texture of body, formed in the bosom of the waters-if that can be termed a body which was but a fantastic texture woven or framed upon the model of His earthly body. During the hours of the Passion, the flesh formed in Marys womb, and it alone, was nailed to the tree. The great Archon or Demiurgus, whose work that flesh was, was played upon and deceived, in pouring His wrath only upon the work of His hands. For the soul, or spiritual substance, which had been wounded in the flesh of the Saviour, extricated itself from this as from an unmeet and hateful vesture; and itself contributing to nailing it to the cross, triumphed by that very flesh over principalities and powers. It did not, however, remain naked, but clad in the subtler form which it had assumed in its baptismal second birth (Philosoph., 8:10). What is remarkable in this theory is, first, the admission of the reality of the terrestrial body, formed in the Virgins womb, and then nailed to the cross. The negation is only of the real and permanent union of this body with the heavenly spirit which inhabits it. We shall further note the importance which it attaches to the Saviours baptism, and the part played by water, as if an intermediate element between flesh and spirit. This may bear upon 1Jn 5:8.”
[This passage is from a “Dissertation-les Trois Temoins Celestes,” in a collection of religious and literary papers by French scholars (Tom. 2., Sept., 1868, pp. 388- 392). The author, since deceased, was the Abbe Le Hir, M. Renans instructor in Hebrew at Saint Sulpice, and pronounced by his pupil one of the first of European Hebraists and scientific theologians.]