3. Its attihnh- In E.rh„iuh.,i:i piopcr.-Yet it has to be o1i-.ct\(mI, tuially, that, while the futur- istic element is not prominent in the Johannine Gospel, it is by no means eliminated. It may be felt, indeed, that the terms in which it is expressed involve a departure from (or, at any rate, a trans- formation of) the objcUlce standpoint of the Syn-
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optics. The last three words of the phrase, ' the hour Cometh ami iwtv is' (S"-'''^'). suggest a state of mind in which thii thought of a future radically or incalculably different from that which is already present to the vision of faith, is no longer keenly operative. The same is still more obvious in tlie Supper discourse (chs. 14-16), in reading which one feels that the line of distinction between the Lord's final coming to receive the disciples to Himself, and His "continuous abiding with them or visita- tion of them through the comforting Spirit, tends to be a vanishing one.
Yet it does not follow that the distinctively eschatological utterances or references contained in the Johannine Gospel {e.g. 5'^'- 2r--'-) are of the nature of a formally dutiful acknowledgment of an earlier mode of speech and a still lingering form of popular Christian expectation correspond- ing to it. Such a view, at least, is not an exhaus- tive description of the state of the case. It seems true rather to say that the futuristic outlook, while it lost, even within the time covered by the NT writings, its first aspect of keen expectation, was yet to tlie last of that period felt to be — what it is still — an indisjiensjible element of Christian faith. That the iiuitlci- is looked at from within, and attention fastened not on what is to C07)ic to us, but rather on what we arc to become (1 Jn 3-), does not alter the fact that the total on which we are looking belongs to the future as well as to the present, and that that future is in the wonder- working power of the Conqueror of death. It is never possible to neglect the aspect of futurity, and it is sometimes imperative to emphasize it. Such a passage as 1 Jn 2'* compared with Mk IS'^'- shows significantly how much the Fourth Evan- gelist, in spite of the depth of his insight into the Master's mind (or, shall we say, because of that insight), was to the last influenced by the eschato- logical utterances of the Synoptic testimony. He recognizes the antichrists of his own day, and is confident that it is the 'last time.' The 21st chapter of the Gospel speaks similarly for the attitude of the Evangelist's circle. The chapter is an appendix, and v.~'- show what is probably its main motive. The aged Apostle has passed away, and the question is raised. Did not the Master say that this disciple should not see deatli till He should come in glory? The expectation implied in the question connected itself in all likeliliood with the utterance in Mk 9^ II. There was a general impression throu-liont tlie Churches of Asi.i that -lohii w.is (lie pfisoii mainly intended, and a story was ciurciit t.i tlie i-lli'i-t that in pre- dicting Peter's m(Ml(! of death the Master had told tliat disciple of the survival of John. The author of the appendix claims to be in a position to tell the readers of the Gospel what the Master had realljr said. It was far from being a definite jiromise. It was only the hint of a possibility. riie apology would harilly have been deemed necessary if the tendency to insist on a literalistie interpretation of the Synoptic testimony, placing the glorious final advent within ' this generation,' had not still been prevalent at the close of the 1st cent., i.e. at the time when John died.
Neither the author of the Gospel and the Epistles nor the author of the appendix to the Gospel has anything to object to the probability of an immediate Parousia of Jesus in glory ; but the impression which their utterances leave upon our minds, and wliioli from the first they were fitted to convey to the Church, is that the contrast important to the authors is no longer that be- tween ]ires(>nt and future, but rather that between (Ufl aiLiI the world, lietween the love of the Father and the lo\e of this present evil world. The matter of absorliing interest is not that the Son
of God will come again, but that He has come. Life is not movement towards a point on a straight line : it is expansion from a centre, and because the centre is living he who is at the centre is also implicitly at the goal of the moving circumference.
'riie Evangelist has expressed this in very char- acteristic fashion in the closing words of his prin- cipal Epistle : ' We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. And we know tliat tlie Son of God is come, and hath given us an understaiuliiig, that we may know him that is true, ami we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life' (1 Jn 5™-)-
Those who find their own consciousness ex- pressed in such words, and feel impelled to trace that consciousness to its historical source, will not readily suppose that they have found the source anywhere nearer than the consciousness of Jesus Himself. Who but He could have been the first either to possess eternal life or to know that He ' it?