hev have not natur- iir.unate. This gift '■ I II end from heaven' lulls which, as the citing, are the out-
he two great Sacraments, ilied as Light and Truth,
The Divine i: 1 1 1 i-
words wliirli imiily :iii illuiuination of the intellect. So in 17^ life eternal ir- delined as the knowledge of (or rather, the process of knowing) the onlj^ true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He sent. This ad- vancing knowledge is the highest form of life. Those who ' are of the truth ' listen to the words of Christ ; but the contemptuous or careless ques- tion of Pilate, ' What is truth ? ' receives no answer. The truth also ' makes us free ' ; it breaks the yoke of sin. In opposition to this higher world, St. John develops the idea of the cosmos, which is the direct opposite of the Spirit. It has only the appearance of life ; he who has been redeemed from it ' has passed from death into life' (S^). It is therefore possible to call the devil the prince of this world ; although the passage from the kingdom of the world to that of the Spirit is ojjen (3" and 17). Jesus Christ, who has full possession of the Spirit, is come to raise men from tlie sphere of the world into that of the Spirit. Thus, the Johannine soteriology contemplates an enrichment, not a restoration, of human nature. The Evangelist regards sin as essentially a failure to recognize the Divine in the world. Those to whom the light has not been brought are blind, but not guilty : those to whom it has appeared, and who turn their backs upon it, are the typical sinners. From henceforth, these lovers of darkness are doomed to destruction (diruiXeia), when Jesus shall ' overcome the world ' as a triumphant conqueror.
The relations of the Spirit to the Logos are difficult to define. What, for example, was the office of the Spirit in the world before the Incarna- tion? Life, as we know, was immanent in the Logos : there seems to be no room for another irvcvim ^aoTvoiovv. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism is referred to in St. John, but not described. To him, the Baptism could have no such importance as it appears to have in the Synoptic record. The Spirit was given to Christ ' without measure ' from the first.
During the ministry we do not hear much of the Spirit. St. John tells us bluntly (1^) that ' There was as yet no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.' Instead of the Spirit, we have a jMrasi-independent power ascribed to the words of the Lord Jesus, which are spoken of in the same sort of way in which Philo speaks of the Xbyoi and Sviia.iJt.eis. Jesus insists that the words are not His own, but come from God (3^^ and several other places). The words are, of course, inoperative, unless they are received and taken into the heart : but if they are so received, they will abide in the heart as a living and spiritual principle (15' &"). ' He that keepeth my words shall never see death,' says Jesus (8*') ; and St. Peter exclaims, ' Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life ' (6**) : that is to say, not words about eternal life, but words which confer eternal life, as in 8". Of the disobedient. He says, ' The word which I have spoken will judge him at the last day' (12«) ; and to His disciples, ' He that heareth my words liath passed from death unto life ' (5^) ; ' Now ye are clean through the word that I have si)oken unto you ' (15'). 'The word or words would thus .seem to exercise all the functions of the Para- clete. But they must not be identified ; for the words were addressed to all who heard them ; the Paraclete was given only to the faithful disciples. Moreover, the ministry of the Spirit, properly s|ipaking, begins (mly after the glorification of
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JOHN, GOSPEL OF
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Jesus Christ. Kemembering that the Johannine theology implies a Trinitarian doctrine of equality and oneness between the three Persons of the Trinity, we may still say that the office of the Son, during the period of His sojourn on eartli, was to reveal the Father, while the office of the Holy Spirit was, and is, to reveal the Son.