In the Apocalypse, which has a strong Jewish colouring, we find the same high conception of the Father and the Son. As conqueror over Satan and Saviour of the saints, Jesus sits in Divine glory, adored and praised as omniscient (2**), omnipresent, and eternal (128 28 321 5% 14 712 115 20° 221-8), He is the Son of Man, in heaven with the Ancient of days (Dn 78, Rev 144), while judge of all men on earth (2% 12° 19"), His face shines as the face of God (15) ; and before Him the prophet falls down as before Jehovah (12). He is King of kings and Lord of lords (174 191%), nay, He is Lord God Almighty (15°). Weiss concludes (p. 560) : ‘ It is certain that the Messiah appears here as an original: Divine Being,’ side by side with the Father.
(6) Of the Holy Spirit and His relation to the Father and Son, St. John says little ; but his constant presentation of Christianity as life, birth from God and a birth to holiness, presuppose the Comforter. He makes the full teachings of Jesus on the Holy Spirit (14-17, cf. 7”) his own ; and says the Ayos- tolic experience and testimony through the Holy Ghost, after the glorification of Christ, were as rivers to drops, compared with what they were before (7°). The water of life is from the Spirit as from the Son (77). Jesus taught the Spirit as Paraclete on earth representing the Father and Son (cf. rapdcAnors of bei Ghost, Ac 9%!) ; St. John adds the doctrine that the Son is a corresponding Paraclete in heaven with the Father, representing men (1 Jn 2). The ‘new birth’ is mentioned five times in the NT. It is a radwyeveoia of the whole creation through Christ (Mt 19%), and of a single | soul in conversion through the Spirit (Tit 3°); St,
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James (118) sees Christians ‘come into the world’ (dmoxveisOa) begotten of the Father 3; and St. Peter twice speaks of God begetting us again (1 P 13-23), St. John has the further conception that the birth from God takes place through the Holy Ghost (12°, 1 Jn 2° 39 47 51: 4), for there is no doubt that by born of God he means by the Holy Spirit (3°). In two passages he shows that the indwelling of the Father and the Son depends upon the Spirit (1 Jn 433 3%), He presents religion also as a command of the
‘ather to believe on the Son (1 Jn 374), and then Says that this obedience of faith is possible only through the indwelling of the Father and Son by the Spirit. The only way to keep out evil spirits is to be possessed of the Holy Spirit ; and we know, he says, which is the Holy Spirit, by its testifying to the incarnation of the Son of God (1 Jn 4% 3 55. 8) and to nothing else (16%). In the passage on the Three Witnesses (1 Jn 5® 8) the Holy Spirit testifies to the Son as Divine Redeemer, (a) because from Him flows the double stream of life-giving, cleans- ing water (Jn 7° 19%4) and atoning blood ; (6) because the witnessing Spirit is ‘the truth’; and (c) because the Father testifies also to the Son (1 Jn 5°),
(c) St. John touches here a thought which runs through the whole NT. God, who is transcendent, incarnate, and immanent as F ather, Son, and Holy Ghost, establishes His kingdom in opposition to the god of this world, who is the devil and Satan (Rev 12° 207). The kingdoms of light and dark- ness run in growing opposition through the Fourth Gospel (67 720 g#- 4 107 132), St, John knows of demoniaes (ef. ‘signs,’ ete., 4 20°), but the only man he describes as possessed of the devil (132-27) is Judas, the son of perdition, who betrayed the Son of God. To deny the incarnate Son is to join the ranks of Antichrist, to deny the Father also (1Jn 274), and to show that the new birth from God has not taken place (1Jn 3°). That is, the only way to oppose the devil is to be born of God by the Spirit (1 Jn 5%). Christians are sons of God through the Son of God (1 Jn 3'£), who came to destroy the works of the devil (v.8); and they prove both their sonship and their opposition to the devil by obeying the Spirit in them, testify- ing to the incarnate Son. Thus both the begotten beginning and the triumphant end of the Christian life are inseparable from Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (1 Jn 5" 6), Amid the OT imagery of the Apocalypse we move upon the same high plane. It opens with a benediction (1+ >), like that of St. Paul (1 Co 13), in which salvation is set forth as coming from God, the seven spirits before His throne, — evidently the sevenfold, perfect revelation of the Spirit promised the Sou (Is 11?),—and from Jesus Christ. Salvation is ever ascribed to God and the Lamb (7?° 4"), and is mediated by the Spirit to the Churches (27-11 37.29 36, 13, 22 1413 22%), The rapt Christian ‘in the Spirit’ hears the voice of Jesus saying, ‘Hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches.’ As in the Gospel, so here, the Spirit appears both as between Jesus and the Father (14), and as possessed by Christ (3!). The Son and the Spirit are so identified that what one says is from the other (27-® 12.17 35.6) The glorified Christ and the prophetic Spirit are here actually at work as foreshadowed in the OT view of the Word and the Spirit of God. The Paracletes in heaven and on earth are also here. The glorified Christ says, ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,’ and the responsive Spirit replies, < Yea, that they may rest from their labours’ (141), The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come’; that is, ‘Come to Jesus’ (2217 0); and Jesus is the only way to the Father.