The Pulpit Commentary — 1 John — Section 46

hnve hinted nt already, that some-many-of those who now ranked with the anti- christian party had once Rought aclmission to and found a home witr.iu the viHihle Church of tho Lord Jesus ChriHt. What was the pressure put upon them from without we cnnnot tell; h11t outside pressure nlone, however great, would not account for their npostaAy, 2. The apostle at once reaches a definite conclusion-that, thouah these deserters had ooce had a name and a place on the Christi~n roll, yet they h~d never known that living fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ which alone is tho actual raison d'etre for Churches at all. 3. This conclusion is sometliing more than a decision of the fudgment; it is a manifested/act. "That it might be made manifest that they all were not of us." 1 "All." Without exception. They could not have drifted off from the ranks of Christ's followers and joined an a.ntich ristian heretical party if they had been really in Christ. 4. Their defection was a IJivir,e pi·ovisionfor the exposure of the hollowness of their profession. 'A/1./1.' 1va ,pavepw8wf1'1v- " in order that," etc.; either they went out with that purpose, or Gou had that end in view. We cannot suppose the former. We are shut up to the latter. If there are hypocrites in the Church, God will not allow his Church to be wrecked by them, but will cause them somehow or other to be exposed to view. A gardener was once asked, "\Vhy do so many pears fall off that tree?" "Oh ! sir," was his reply, "it is only those that a.re rotten inside that fall off." Some there are who" receive the Word with joy," and" for a while believe;" but they have" no root in themselves, antl in time of temptation fall away." II. BOTH FACT A:ND COMMENT TEACII LESSONS OF PERMANENT VALUE. 1. External Church-membership and vital fellowship with Ghrist and his peop?e are by no means the same in substance or uniform in extent. The one is a form; the other is the reality of which the form is supposed to be the expression. If there is the reality, the form should follow. But it is quite possible for the form to be adopted without any such reality behind it. Judas. Demas. AcLan. 2. There may be much to attract ar/here-nts to a visible Church. The first outgushing of brotherly love and com- munity of goods attracted Ananias and Sapphira. Success. "Nothing succeeds like success." When "religion walks in silver slippers" many will be ready to follow. Wealth. Power. Patronage. Splendour. Ornate services. All such features in the external framework and environment of Churches will attract numbers of adherents. And if such a phase of social life should show itself, as for it to be "the thing" to make a profession of religion, thousands will do it for the sake of going with the stream. 3. Being in the exte1·nal Church will not minister life, any more than it will prove its existence. If belonging to God's own Church is a sure means of salvation, these deserters would have been saved by union with it, specially when under the oversight of the Apostle John! But no I No Church on earth can minister spiritual life to any soul, by any ordinances whatever. What a scathing rebuke to" sacramental efficacy," or any such doctrine, is the fact indicated in our text! Note: John had once had to learn that a man might be with Christ, though he did not follow with the apostles. He has now bad to learn that a man may follow with apostles, and yet not be with Christ. 4 . .All such merely external adherents are but dead weights in a Church. They do not and cannot increase its living acting force; they are rather a drag on the body to which they are outwardly attached. When a living Church is encumbered with them it is like a living body tied to so many dead ones. 5. It is even possible that many forms of antichristian evil may exist in such. "Many antichrists . . they went out from us." A living faith in a living Lord ensures uuity in all essential points. But if men are only dead professors, numberless forms of error may take root in them and bear poisonous fruit. If, e.g., it has been fashionable to belong to this or that Church, to repeat a form of sound words, and to accept such and such a creed merely because it is the law of the land, there is scarcely any form of pestiferous error which may not nestle beneath such hollowness as that. Nor can any order of Church life however free in action, pure iu creed, scriptural in government, or becoming in its for~s of service, be proof against the intrusion of dead professors. 6. Consequently, any external Church may nquire weeding to a very cvnsiderablB extent. In such cases 1 When tho 1r<ls is sepnmted by the verb from the ov, the negation, according to the usRge of the New Testament, ie olwaye uninrs!ll (all not), IUl.ll nut p,ntial (not aU) (Westcott, in loo,). 42 THE FIRST EPIS1'LE GENERAL OF JOHN.