Faith Is The Victory
By Professor E M Blaiklock MA Litt
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THE NEW COMMANDMENT:
In 1 John chapter 2 verses 3-6, John turns again to the sectaries who professed to know God as no other men, but who treated God's commandments with scandalous lightness. "The one who professes to abide in Him." said John downrightly, "is bound to walk as He walked." There is a debt of love, a binding obliga-tion. Unless religious experience involves a reorientation of the will, a setting of the affections in the direction of the moral excellence revealed in Christ, it is a sham, a futile stirring of the emotions, a pose, a perilous hypocrisy.
Verses 7 and 8 form a paradox, and the key to their understanding is autobiographical. The paramount necessity for Christian love is an old commandment, part of the word which they had heard from the beginning. And yet, says John, in a sense it was a new commanding, and a touch sadness haunts the phrase, as though the old apostle confessed a life-long lack and a late discovery. In the Gospels John is marked by a fiery, passionate nature. "Son of Thunder," the Master called him. He was intolerant and sharp, even self-seeking, and earned a name which contained no gentleness.
The relevant passages are worth revising-Matthew 20. 20-28;
Mark 3. 17; 10. 35-45: Luke 9. 51-56.
When did the change take place? 'The "Son of Thunder" still lived at Ephesus. Irenaeus and Eusebius quote a story of the great Polycarp who sat at John's feet. The apostle once visited the public baths, and seeing the heretic Cerinthus there cried: "Let us flee, lest the building fall, since Cerinthus, the foe of the truth, is in it." This looks like the old John. When did the new man appear? Was it the exile on Patmos, and the vision of his Lord, which changed the character of his ministry? The day of suffering and withdrawal is sometimes the chosen time of God's Spirit, and the opportunity He makes or takes to teach a lesson long unlearned. Or was it the writing of the Gospel? Did that blessed urge, which sharpened thought and memory and moved his pen, bring back so gloriously those three years of fellowship, that the aged man was changed and sanctified anew?
Let us at any rate draw two clear lessons from this moving passage. The first is that it is never too late to learn. It is true that the arteries harden and the mind stiffens in mortal man, but it is also true that the Holy Spirit is not restricted, and that the willing heart at any age can be illumined anew, and delighted with fresh revelation. And note, secondly, that the . fierce critic of Cerinthus lost none of his power by the change.
In a new spirit of love he deals as faithfully with error, and as
-uncompromisingly as he ever did in the fierce speech of an earlier ministry. And he deals more effectively with it. With poor fallible tools the Great Builder builds His Church. But when for a season they lie docile in His hand, sharpened as He would have them, with what loveliness He builds. From the last years of John's ministry came the Fourth Gospel and “Son of Thunder" could not have written
the Epistles. The them.
The Lord waited patiently for his death. Or, to use John's own figure "when the darkness passed away, and the new true light began to shine," the Lord put a pen in his servant's hand, and he set to work on his life's final and greatest task.
7. LOVE AND HATRED:
For the fifth of the six occasions in the Epistle the clash between profession and conduct is underlined (I: 6, 8, 10;
2: 4; 4: 20). We have seen this presented as the antithesis of truth and falsehood, light and darkness. Now it is hate and love. It is, of course, only a failure to understand the hyper-bolical language of the East which sees a contradiction here with Luke 14: 25. To "hate" one's father and mother is merely to hold them second to God.
The one who hates his brother, says John is "still", or "even until now," in the darkness. No work of grace is yet manifest in him. Had it not already been said: "If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge .. and have not love, I am nothing, nothing." On the other hand the personality which loves contains no stumbling block There are three distinct interpretations possible for th phrase. First: "there is nothing in him likely to cause him to stumble," which is an echo of John I1: 9, 1o. If the mo common meaning of "skandalon" (which we have translat
"stumbling block") is chosen (Matt. 13: 41; 18: 7; Rom. 1
13), the passage might mean: "there is nothing in him to offend, or cause others to stumble." From the records of early Church it is clear that the love of the Christian community was often a major commendation of the Gospel. The absence of it, as most Christians are brought forcibly to realise, is a major cause of stumbling today. The first mark of the disastrous change appears in the 4th century when the pagan historian Ammianus commented on the religious controversies of the Church. "The enmity Christians towards each other," he remarked, "surpassed the fury of the savage beasts against man." The third possibility is to translate "in it," rather than "in him." The forms are the same. "In it" would refer to the light. "In the light there is no chance of stumbling"; again consonant with John 11: 9, 10. Perhaps Ps. 119: 165 was in the writer's mind. The word
"skandalon" represents the Hebrew metaphor of "a snare" Jud. 2: 3: 8: 27), and is a late form of "skandalethron" which in classical Greek means the "bait-stick" in a trap. The hater, the loveless, in a word, is necessarily outside God's plan, and "fair game" for the Evil One.
He lives, and moves, says v.11, in darkness. The figure is that of Proverbs 4: 18, 19. Hatred takes away all spiritual insight, and to choose the darkness is to incur the final penalty of blindness. Like the pit-pony, the mole, and the fish of Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, the dwellers in darkness lose the faculty of appreciating the light. Unused powers atrophy.
New Zealand's kiwi has the rudiments of wings, but never flies. Life in a forest which knows no wild animals or reptiles, and the abundant food of a land which was inhabited only by birds, took away the need for flight. Unused powers die.
So it is with the mind. the heart, the spirit. Never to love is to lose the capacity to love. Never to seek righteousness is to lose the thirst for it. Never to seek to pierce the veil of visible and material things, is to cease to see aught else. As Wordsworth wrote :
A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. . . .
Never to look at the light, as the imagery of the verse puts it, is to grow accustomed to the darkness as if that was the natural state, and to be unable to bear the radiance of truth, and the glow of God's real presence.
PRAYER: O God, Thou who art Light, and in whom is no darkness at all, help us, we pray, to walk in the sunshine.
Drive darkness from our minds, the darkness of doubt and fear, and all anxiety. Help us to tread the path of life in confidence and joy, knowing that Thou seest all the road, and in perfect wisdom linked with perfect love wilt guide every mile of the way. Help us to hold no dark corners in our soul where Thy light is not admitted, and where the things of darkness hold converse in the gloom.
Let Thy bright presence drive the night away. Help us to forgive ourselves for those things which Thou hast for given us. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.