The Pulpit Commentary — 1 John — Section 145

reading ie abTtp, not fovT<p, Bnt Iv abTrp and of the Epistle, with this differc:ice-in may be reflexive. The believer in the In- the Gospel the porpose fa that w0 may hn'l!e oamation hae the Divine testimony in his eternal life ; in the Epistle, that we may heart, and it abides with him as nn ad- ditional source of evidence, supplementing know that we have eternal lite. and confirming the external evidence. In Ver. 13.-These things I have written to its daily experience, the soul finrls ever you sums up the Epistle as a whole. At tl10 froeh proof that the deolaration, "Thie is outset tbe apostle said, "These thin"s w,i my beloved Son," is true. But even without write, that our joy [yours as well as ~ineJ this internal corroboration, the external evi- may be fulfilled;" and now, a.a he rlraw~ to dence suffices, and he who rejects it makes a cloae, he says the same thing in other God a liar; for it ie God who presents the words. Their joy is the knowledue tha, evidence, and presents it as sufficient and they have eternal life through beliet in the true. The second half of the verse is paren- Son of God. There is consiclerable variety thetical, to show that the unbeliever, though of reading in this verse, but that of the T.R., he has no witness in himself, is not therefore represented by the Authorized Version, is a excused. In ver. 11 we return to the main manifest simplification. That repres~nted by proposition at the beginning of ver. 10. the Revised Version is probably right. The Ver. 11.-" And the substance of the in- awkwardness of the last clause procluced ternal testimony is this-we are conscious of various alterations with a view to gr~ater the Divine gift of eternal life, and this we smoothness. The verse, both as regards have in the Son of God." St. John's {0111 construction and meaning, should be care- alowws is not "e11erlasting life : " the idea of fully compared with John i. 12. In both endlessness may be included in it, but it is we have the epexegetic addition at the end. not the main one. The distinction between In both we have St. John's favourite -;rund,- eternity and time is one which the human •w ,ls, expressing the very strongest belief; mind feels to be real and necessarv. But motion to and repose upon the object of we are apt to lose ourselves when w·e try to belief. In both we have the remarkable ex- think of eternity. We admit that it is not pression, "believe on his Name." This is time, that it is the very antithesis of time, no mere periphrasis for " believe on him." and yet we attempt to measure it while we Names in Jewish history were eo often sig- declare it to be immeasurable. We make it nificant, being sometimes given by God simply a very long time. The main idea of himself, that they served not merely to dis- "eternal life" in St. John's writings has no tinguish one man from another, but to indi- direct reference to time. Eternal life is cate his cha.meter. So also with the Divine possessed already by believers; it is not a Name: it suggests the Divine attributes. thing of the future (John iii. 36; v. 24; vi. " To believe on the Name of the Son of God " 47, 54; xvii. 3). It is that life in God is to give entire adhesion to him as havin<>0 whioh includes all blessedness, and which the qualities of the Divine Son. is not broken by physical death (John xi. 25). Ver.14.-And the con.Bdence that we have Its opposite is exclusion from God. towards him oonsists in this. The thou"ht Ver, 12.-Eternal life is not granted to of kno,cing that we have eternal life (~er. the whole world, or even to all Christians 13) leads back to the thought of conficlence en masse; it is given to individuals, soul by before God in relation to pre. yer ( eh. iii. 21, soul, according as each does or does not 22). This idea is now further developed accept the Son of God. The order of the with special reference to intllf'cession for Greok is noteworthy-in the firRt half of others; n particular form of prayer which is the verse the emphasis is on " bath," in the in close connexion with another main idea second on "life." Here, as in John i. 4, in the Epistle-love of the brethren. the article before (wf, should be translated, Ver. 15.-The point is not, that if God "bath the life . . . hath not the life." The hears our prayers he grants them ( BS if we insertion of Tou 0,ou in the second hnlf of could ever pray to him without his being the verse points to the magnitude of the aware of it) ; but that if we knou, that he loss : the possessor has no need to be told hee.rs our prayers (i.e. trust him without whose Son he has. reserve), we already have what we have asked in accordance with his will. It may Vere. 1S-21.-4. CONOLUSION OP Tmll be years before we perceive that our prayers EPISTLE; without, however, any marked have been answeNd: perhaps in this world break between this section and the last. we may never oe able to see this; but we On the contrary, the prominent thought of know that God has answei-ed them. The pe'luliar construolion, ,uv with the indicative eternal life through faith in the Son of God is ie not uncommon in the New Testumeut a; continued for final development. This topio a variunt reading. It seems to be genuine ia the main idea alike of the Goepel ( u. 31) in Luke xi.x. 40 and Acts viii. 31 with the  142 THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN. [on. v.1-21,