this message. Compare 1 Peter i. 10,11. Ard points to the source, mapa to the gwer. Thus, John v. 41, “I receive not honor from (mapa) men.” They are not the bestowers of honor upon me. Ver. 44, “ How can ye believe which receive honor JSrom (apd) one another ;” the honor which men have fo give, ‘Cand seek not the honor that cometh from (mapa) God ;” the honor which God alone bestows. On the other hand, 1 John ili. 22, “ Whatsoever we ask we receive from (a7é) Him,” the ultimate source of our gifts. So Matt. xvii. 25: “ Of (azo) whom do the kings of the earth take custom—of (a0) their own children or 0f (a7é) strangers?” What is the legitimate and ultimate source of reveuue in states ?
Declare (avayyédAowev). Compare the simple verb ayyéA- rew to bring tidings, John xx. 18, and only there. “AvayryéA- Aew is to bring the tidings wp to (ava) or back to him who re- ceives them. “AzayyéAXew is to announce tidings as coming Jrom (a7) some one, see Matt. ii. 8; John iv. 51. Karay- yéXew is to proclaim with authority, so as to spread the tid- ings down among (kata) those who hear. See Acts xvii. 23. Found only in the Acts and in Paul.
God is Light (@c0s das éoriv). A statement of the absolute nature of God. Not @ light, nor the light, with reference to created beings, as the light of men, the light of the world, but simply and absolutely God ¢s light, in His very nature. Com- pare God is spirit, and see on John iv. 24: God és love, 1 John iv. 8,16. The expression is not a metaphor. “ All that we are accustomed to term light in the domain of the creature, whether with a physical or metaphysical meaning, is only an efiluence of that one and only primitive Zeght which appears in the nature of God” (Ebrard). Light is immaterial, dif- fusive, pure, and glorious. It is the condition of life. Physic- ally, it represents glory, intellectually, truth; morally, hold ness. As immaterial it corresponds to God as spirit; as diffusive, to God as love; as the condition of life, to God as life; as pure and illuminating, to God as holiness and truth. In the Old Testament, light is often the medium of God’s visi-
FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN. 3lid
ble revelations to men. It was the first manifestation of God in creation. The burning lamp passed between the pieces of the parted victim in God’s covenant with Abraham. God went before Israel in a pillar of fire, descended in fire upon Sinai, and appeared in the luminous cloud which rested on the mercy- seat in the most holy place. In classical Greek gas light, is used metaphorically for delight, deliverance, victory, and is ap- plied to persons as a term of admiring affection, as we say that one is the lught of our life, or the delight of our eyes. So Ulys- ses, on seeing his son Telemachus, says, “ Thou hast come, Telemachus, sweet light (yAuKepov ddos)” (Homer, “ Odyssey,” xvi. 23). And Electra, greeting her returning brother, Orestes, “O dearest light (pidratov pas” (Sophocles, “ Electra,” 1223). Occasionally, as by Euripides, of the light of truth (“ Iphigenia at Tauris,” 1046). No modern writer has developed the idea of God as light with such power and beauty as Dante. His “ Paradise ” might truthfully be called a study of light. Light is the only visible expression of God. Radiating from Hin, it is diffused through the universe as the principle of life. This key-note is struck at the very opening of “the Paradise.” “The glory of Him who moveth everything
Doth penetrate the universe, and shine
In one part more and in another less.
Within that heaven which most His light receives
Was I.” “ Paradiso,” i., 1-5.
In the final, beatific vision, God Himself is imagined as a lam- inous point which pours its rays through all the spheres, upon which the spirits gazed, and in which they read the past, the present, and the future.