In the part of the Gospel which we have now briefly considered, the author exjdains the series of events through which his convictions developed. We have therefore before us the idea of one « ho fulfilled the national expectation of a Messiah, but who, at the same time, identified Himself with the typology of the OT, spoke mysteriously of a deeper union with the Father, and who repre- sented union with Himself as the one neces-sary means of satisfj'ing human needs. These two latter points arc ilovclopeil at great length in the
* It Is usumad thAt th« Ptricopt AdiUUrm it out ol place Id tbls ctuipter.
Last Discourses (cf. 14'» »' 17' 14'"" 15'-" etc.). But the Discourses are delivered under a sense ol immediate departure, and therefore they deve\op, in language nij'sterious at the time but ex])laii;ed later by events, the close union of the Father and the Son, the future work of the Paraclete, and tlie ne^v commandment to tlie followers of Jesus. The questions of the apostles recorded from time to time in the course of these chapters show that they only partially understood then what was said to them. But the teaching is continuous with what had gone before, and could only have con- firmed the opinions already held by the apostles. We shall consider it more in detail further on.
One last sign is noted by St. John in the account of the Crucifixion — the eflusion of blood and water, and the bearing of jirophecy on the scene. This is mentioned with great eniplia.sis, and the presence of the author as eye-witne-ss is deliber- ately asserted (19"°). There then follows an account of the intercourse of the Risen Lord with \arious of His followers, and we then return to the passage mentioned before, in which St. John declares the purpose of his Gospel (20'''-").
It will be seen that the result attained by St. John is an evolution that starts from the idea of the Messiah, and rises tlirough the witness oi signs and the teaching of Discourses to a lofty and profound notion of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. It is this which is the fundamental idea of all St. John's theology, and it has been neces-sarj-, therefore, to put it first.
(2) It is obvious, however, that such a view could not be maintained without involving serious consequences upon the idea of God : or, to put the same thing in somewhat different language, the development in the notion of Jesus, from that of Messijih to that of the Son of God, will be found to rest upon tlieolo<;ical presuppositions. These are revealed in the Discourses ot the Lord, and in part drawn out by the author in the Gospel and Epistles. Vi'e have passed them by so far in order to display the historic movement of St. John's thought ; but we must now turn to them.
The first passage which calls for consideration is, of course, the Prologue. This contains, in summary, St. John's thcologj' of the Incarnation. It begins by describing the Person involved — the Word ; and of Him it asserts eternal pre-existence, eternal communion with God, and linallj' Divinity itself. The author then proceeds to "ive an account of the various functions of the Word of God.* The Word_ of God is the instrument of
• It is imposaible to discuss at Icnt^th the ori^n and ossocia- tions of this much disputed pxpresjjion^the U ord of God (s«e art. Logos). It must suttice here to say tliut there seems to be a ^reut dittlculty in conneirtir.g it, as would at Hrst si^lil appear natural, with Greek plulosopbic thought. It is true tliat the word xiytf in its earlier usage contained ideas which niifht have developed into such a conception as this of St. John, liut iu the history of Greek thought the development of the meaning of the word was governed by tlie particular interest of Greek philosophy. The idea of language or spei-ch Is complex. Speech conveys information (1) as to the mind of the speaker, (2) as to the sul>ject s]><>ken aliout. In the former case the uttered word appears as tlie representative of the person or character or act of the siK^aker ; its reference to fact may he of merely secondary importance, fn tlie other ca.se the word has a sort of substantive existence. It does not matter who uses it ; the im^xirtant thing is what It means. The more tliis aspect of the n.-Iatiun b einphasizefl the luoro the idea of a word tends towarrls that of abstract soienlillc delini- tion — it is a form conveying truth. Its ideal is to corres|>ond as nearly as may be with the reality it describes. The Greeks found the ideal correspondence Ix-lween thou^'ht and thing in univ'ersality ; and therefore, concurrently with the develop- ment in philosophic thouglit, the wiird >»yut took on more and more the associations of univervalily, and lost more and mors Uiose of tlie individual thing or i>erM)ii. With the Hebrews, on the other hand, the Word of G^kI meant alwa^'S God speakiinj or doing certain things ; the Wonl was the eniissarv' and rei>rt-. sentative of Gn<l. A doctrine of Incarnation in the Johannint sense is possible OQ the oofl line ot thought, and impoMible uo tile other.
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JOHN, APOSTLE
JOHN, APOSTLE