Faith Is The Victory

Faith Is The Victory by Professor E M Blaiklock MA., Litt. D

I. THE RETURNING THEME:
Not more than twenty miles from Ephesus where John writing, was a curious river which he must have often seen. It was the river Maeander, which has put a verb into our language, for, like Israel’ Jordan, it twists fantastically and returns upon its tracks as it makes its way to the sea near Miletus. John's theme is a little like the Asian river. It doesn’t
'meander' in the ordinary sense of that word, but undoubtedly returns to ground traversed before, and revisits old territory. And necessarily, like the river, it presents new angles and varied points of view. It is rewarding to follow it bend by bend to the sea.
John remembered how the Lord postponed his arrest, and went, we may guess, to the Temple court where the great sculptured vine overhung the gate, to give his men the last exhortations, which fill Chs. 15 and 16 of the Gospel. Troublous times lay ahead, and a battle not only with an oppressive State but with false philosophies which sought to corrupt the Church from within. John was urgent to stress and stress again the simple truths which were to save the Church. John wrote at the close of what we may call the New Testament era. A century follows of which we know little of the history of the Church. Towards the end of the second century our evidence becomes plentiful again, and the victory of which John writes so confidently in the two chapters before us, is almost won. The persecuting State remained, but the sword was less deadly than the perversion of truth within. During the dimly-lighted years of the second century it is not unlikely that the true faith fought with its back to the wall, and that John's words of repeated warning, reiterated encouragement, and insistent guidance, were the vital equipment of the brave fighters who kept the faith.