(2) References in Epistle. — In passing from the Gospel, where the Johannine writer has emphasized the fact of the self-sm-render in the death of Christ, obviously bringing it in wherever possible without attempting a definition of its relations, to the Epistle, we find a closer definition of these realities awaiting us. But here also the stress is laid upon the correlation of the death of Christ with the actual cleansing from sin rather than with the canceUing of guilt or the satisfaction of the law. Still, whilst the realization of purification, and not merely a provision of the means of its cleansing, is the primary meaning of the references to the re- demptive work of Christ as the bearer of hght and salvation, the latter is set forth in terms so inti- mately allied with the sacrificial terminology of the writers of the earlier ajrostolic Ei)istles, that tiie contention that there lies behind the passages the assumption of a judicial satisfaction for sin cannot be fairly evaded. The passages are : 'The blood of Jesus his Son cleanscth us from all sin' (1 Jn 1^); 'And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right- eous ; and he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world' (2") ; 'Your sins are forgiven you for his name's
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sake' (2^2) ; 'And ye know that he was manifested to take away sins; and in him is no sin' (3^) ; 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins' (4'°). With these it is convenient to associate the strongest saying in the Apocalypse on the subject: 'Unto him that loveth us, and loosed us from our sins in his blood' (Rev 1^). That the immediate interest in these references is to the ethical and spiritual results issuing from the death of Christ in its relation to sin will not be doubted. The question at issue is how far the inference from them, that they assume an ante- cedent value belonging to the death of Christ in putting away the judicial obstacle to the cleansing in the law and righteousness of God, can be estab- lished. The cleansing obviously depends upon the 'death' and the 'blood' of Christ.
We need not draw the distinction made by West- cott,* between the blood in the double sense of a life given and of a life liberated and made available for men, in order to justify a backward as well as a forward look in the symbol. The main burden of proof that the Johannine doctrine includes an objective as well as a subjective work of Clirist is upon the use of 'propitiation.' It is not the same word (IXaff/iSs, not IXaa-rripiov) as is used in the PauHne Epistles, but it is very closely akin. Is it likely, in being apphed here to the same object, to have a different meaning? Used in the same Christian community within approximately the same period, and dealing with the same element in a common faith, is not the term probably used in the same accepted sense by the Johannine writer as by the writer to the Hebrews and St. Paul ? If we are to interpret it, these usages are the only means at our disposal unless the Johannine hterature itself provides others. This is not done. On the contrary, other terms are used that suggest that the place of i\a(r/x6s is in the same system of re- demptive ideas that we find in the other apostolic writings. It is, for instance, co-ordinated with Jesus Christ as 'the righteous,' standing thereby in some relation to the moral order of the world, and with 'an Advocate,' which touches the judicial system of ideas ; it is connected also with ideas of sacrifice and intercession which relate it to a system of mediating priesthood ; the marked con- trast between 'loveth' and 'loosed' in the opera- tion of the love of Christ, which is the source and efficient cause of redemption in His blood from our sins in Rev 1^, may also suggest a combination between the progressive hberation from our sins and the achievement once for aU of our redemption in Him. _ The further statement that the ' propi- tiation' is not for our sins only but also for 'the whole world,' is not satisfied by the merely personal, and therefore for the present partial, experience of a subjective salvation. These are only inferences and nothing more, but they are of value in con- struing the Johannine witness into terms of the general apostolic teaching. The supreme value, however, of this witness is the matchless grace with which the writer relates 'propitiation' to the love of God. St. Paul had taught this as the ulti- mate source of redemption, but had associated with its expression the righteousness of law and the wrath of God against sin. The Johannine writer transcends these in dwelUng with holy joy upon the issues of the propitiation, not only in actual cleans- ing from sin, but in lifting men into the presence of an eternal reality in which propitiation is an interchangeable term with the Divine love itself. In 4^° he defines propitiation in terms of love : 'He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitia- tion for our sins' ; in 3'^ he reverently identifies love with ' propitiation ' — ' In this have we known * Epistles of St. John, 34 £f. ; Epistle to the Hebrews, 293 ff.