The Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation of St. John

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Introduction

The writings ascribed to St. John — Gospel^ Epistles^ Revelation — may be classed with the Bookof Deuterofiomy in the £eict that they are, for New and Old Testament respectively, the storm centres of modern controversy. Over Johannine literature intricate and multiplied questions of genuineness and authenticity, of canonical authority, of theological exegesis, have at all times arisen, and divided the world of scholarship and religious thought. It will be understood that nothing of this controversy will be represented in the pages that follow. The Modern Reader^s Bible has from the first excluded questions of authorship and textual history : this consideration of itself disposes of more than half the matter of disputation. Discussions of canonical questions are similarly excluded. From theology in a sense it is impossible to separate ourselves : the literature we call secular is imbued with religious thought, and Biblical writings cannot but be full of it. But the province of the present series ends just where the province of the systematic theologian begins : the formula-* tion of the thought contained in the sacred writings, and the comparison of scripture with scripture, belong to others ; the Modern Reader's Bible is concerned with individual works, and aims only at presenting each under the most favourable conditions for its receiving the full illumination that the work can shed upon itself.

It may be not improper to inquire, how much is implied in this strictly literary presentation of Biblical works.

The first duty of the literary editor is to present each woric as a complete whole. This is one of the statements that may be difficult through their very commonplaceness. A purely modern reader, accustomed to literary divisions which are mechanical and unmistakable, needs to be reminded that an ancient 'book* was not, as with us, an individual frame enclosing an individual picture, but rather a cupboard in which were heaped many literary works, usually without sorting. In dealing with Old Testament prophecy or philosophy by far the hardest task of the editor is to discriminate exactly where a particular literary composition begins and ends. Yet this would seem of greater importance than any matter of date or authorship. For literary impression is of the same nature as electrical or magnetic effect: an exact circuit of thought, neither too much nor too little, must be completed before the illuminating flash will follow. This matter of unity arises in connection with St. John's writing at only one point. Of the three epistles attributed to the apostle two are epistles of

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Introdaction 9^-

the simplest order, needing no comment. But the First Epistle of St. John has not a single mark of the epistle about it. The title is explained partly by the poverty of an unliterary tradition, which found no other designation ready to hand ; partly again the reiteration of such terms as little children^ brethren^ beloved^ suggested a body of hearers or correspondents to be addressed. But the whole spirit and matter of this work assimilate it to the literature of sacred meditation which in the Old Testament is termed wisdom ; and the Epistle of St, James exists as a reminder, both that Christian matter may be conveyed in the Hebrew form of wisdom, and also how the my sons of the older sages is superseded by the my brethren of their New Testament successor. I have therefore presented this First Epistle as The Wisdom of St. John. It is here that the question of unity comes in. An epistle, presumably, would be continuous in thought from beginning to end. Wisdom literature, on the contrary, falls regularly into separate, independent, often brief meditations ; it is the literary form that has its counterpart in the Thoughts of Pascal, or the early essay literature of our own Bacon, or Earle, or Feltham. Such a scheme of thought for John^s epistle as Alford and other commentators elaborate is to the present editor wholly unconvincing: it is a rack on which the sequence of sentences is tortured, rather than a map indicating any real trend of thought. I have on the contrary divided the whole into the independent divi-

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sions into which it seems to fall ; and here, as in the wisdom books, I have endeavoured to give the assistance of a suitable title to suggest the point of each 'thought^ One remark may be added. Like the great wisdom book, EccUsiasiesy this Wisdom of St, John binds its independent sayings into a kind of unity by a common prologue and epilogue. The prologue — in phraseology that reminds every reader of the prologue to St. John's Gospel — announces the solemn purpose of what is to follow. And the epilogue, with its triple We knowy enunciates three golden truths : these, it declares, make up the knowledge of the Urue God,^ in opposition to which all else must be shunned as ' idols/

When the various works have been separated, the next duty of an editor is to present each one in the exact literary form under which it is properly classified. It is manifest that a reader who attempted to follow a drama under the impression that he was reading a discourse would find himself in continual difficulties; and the same principle applies to differences which are less extreme than this. Such classification is not difficult in the case of our present author. The Revelation will be discussed presently. The Gospel is by its name relegated to a smsdl literary species consisting of four works which neither have been nor can be paralleled. Yet amongst these four it is universally felt that the Gospel of St. John stands apart from the rest In discriminating this last difference we are on

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Introduction B^

sure ground, for we have the invaluable assistance of the authors* prefaces. No one could read the four verses of preface to St, Luke, and the eighteen verses of prologue to Si. Johfi^ without understanding that widely diverse works were being introduced. St. Luke promises a carefully sifted narrative of accepted incidents and teachings of Jesus ; St. John, in a style that may be called logical mystidsm, elaborates a theological position which his gospel is to support. This prologue, once its peculiar form is caught, may be called clear, in spite of the profound matter with which it is dealing. It has a form that is common in wisdom literature of Old and New Testaments : the maxim, or gnomic text with expansion. Three such gnomic propositions stand out as the steps of a progression : to catch their full force they should be separated from the argumentative matter with which they are interwoven.

In the beginning was the Word: And the Word was with God: And the Word was God,

And the Word became Fleshy And dwelt among usy Full ofgriue and truth,

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No man hath seen God at any time :

The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the

Father^ He hath, declared him.

The first of the propositions ^Eistens attention upon the conception of the Word^ a revelation in itself no less Divine than that which it reveals. The second describes the new dispensation inaugurated by this Word becoming Flesh, The third unites the other two in the conception, Sony and the thesis of the prologue is complete : Jesus, Son of Gody only revealer of the Father. The first two propositions are supported with matter of evidence and expanded statement. On the third proposition which sums them up the whole Gospel that follows is the comment.

The third essential for literary presentation is that the work should appear with such structural divisions as are inferred from the particular work itself, and not determined by conventional or external considerations. It is in this connection that the ordinary versions of the Bible appear at their worst, chopping up literature of the most diverse character into uniform divisions, under which no principle can be discovered, unless they may be called dosilogical. On other grounds stout defenders of the older versions are still to be found ; but I have not yet met anyone who

Introduction Bethinks the chapters and verses of the Bible 'inspired.* Yet I doubt if the full importance of this consideration is commonly realised: the mechanical presentation is fatal to what would seem the most important of all literary exercises — the reading of a whole work at a single sitting. Two different modes of exegesis invite the student : one studies the whole in the light of the details, the other the details in the light of the whole. The first is the method of commentators : they seek to come to dose quarters with each successive clause, and concentrate upon it light from all departments of investigation, confident that to master the details is to know the whole. Indeed, such method has usurped to itself the title of ' thorough * ; and the student easily accepts the description, conscious of the labour with which he has followed, and the frequent sense of triumph over difficulties, and unaware how many of these difficulties and how much of this labour were created by the method of study he has adopted. The interpreter of the other kind takes his stand at such a distance that the whole work can be surveyed at once ; he sweeps over the whole ground again and again, and yet again ; at first with imperfect grasp and a sense of much that is passed over unexplained, yet with each repetition finding more and more resolve into the common unity, while from first to last he has been keeping firm hold of that foundation element of true thoroughness which we call perspective. Undoubtedly the best scholarship will keep side by side the

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Introduction

exegesis of perspective and the exegesis of detail : but in the present condition of Biblical study, in which concentration on < verses^ has almost smothered perception of literar} ^ works,^ there is no question that it is the rapid survey oi whole books that needs emphasising. And an editor whc would assist this must not shirk the responsibility of dividing up again the writings of Scripture into their true struct- I ural parts.

• The application of this principle to the present case

seems to follow naturally from what has already been said i St. John^s work is a gospel: accordingly, like the othei

I gospels, it will be made up of the the Acts and Sayings oi

Jesus. But its prologue has set forth a very special purpose for the narrative : the support of a theological position, ; In accordance with this we find, as a fact, that the ' Acts

! of Jesus become in St John^s narrative ' Signs,^ and the

! * Sayings' are all of the nature of ^Witness.' From this

point of view the work falls into natural divisions : sever incidents constitute the Earlier Signs and Witness of Jesus, seven more his Signs and Witness to the Jews; foui divisions comprise the Signs and Witness among his own Disciples, and the three phases of the final Passion and Resurrection history may again be treated as Signs anc Witness.

The word * sign ' is of great importance in the histor) of prophecy. In its widest significance it is applied tc the symbolical action which the prophet makes a starting

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Introduction fii^

point for his spiritual discourse. But often such prophetic emblems are acts of supernatural power, like the ' signs ^ which Moses wrought before Pharaoh ; these * signs of the prophet ^ are not only emblematical texts for his discourse, but also credentials of his Divine commission. As the history of prophecy progresses there is a tendency to exalt the latter conception of the sign as against the former, until the miracles of Elisha seem, in the narrative of The Kings^ to be no more than wonders, and Jesus (in the other gospels) complains of an evil and adulterous generation that seeketh a sign. In St. John the usual names for what we call ' miracles ^ almost entirely disappear, and we read only of signs : it is in the spirit of the prologue that even the miraculous should be valued only for the spiritual revelation underlying it. The act of Jesus which might appear most like a mere wonder — the turning of the water into wine — is at once connected by the evangelist with the thought of the prologue : This beginning of his signs did Jesus . . . and manifested his ghry. The miracle of healing at the pool of Bethesda attracts no note as a miracle : it is only the circumstance that the deed was done on the sabbath that makes it the foundation of discourse. Still more suggestive is the incident that follows. Jesus feeds a multitude with a few loaves, and walks upon the sea ; the latter action is just as much < miraculous^ as the former: yet Jesus passes over unnoticed the wondering enquiry of the multitude as to the crossing the sea, and fastens atten-

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tion only on the other miracle in which was latent the spiritual meaning of the bread that came down from heaven. He heals the man born blind with the words, / am the light of the worlds he raises Lazarus in token that he is himself the resurrection and the life. The old prophets, amongst their emblem texts, would sometimes use a spoken parable instead of a symbolic action : it is noticeable that the only two parables of Jesus in St. John's Gospel, the parable of the Good Shepherd and of the Vine, are treated precisely like the miraculous signs, and made the starting point of spiritual discourses. The simple act of washing the disciples^ feet is in the same way treated as a sign; while the concluding words of the gospel apply this same term to the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection, implying how each is significant of highest verity. In the other gospels the whole life of Jesus appears occupied with wonder working: St. John selects only such wonders as are spiritual signs.

The other leading thread running through this gospel is such presentation of incidents as will render them so much * witness ' to the doctrine of the prologue. It is interesting to note in what high sense the word ^ witness^ is used. John the Baptist and other disciples recognise the messiahship of Jesus : but the witness of this incident does not, to our author, lie in this testimony — for Jesus receives not witness from men. It lies in the signs from heaven of which the Baptist speaks, and even more in the

xiv high claims with which Jesus himself meets those who approach him. The cleansing of the temple is witness because it is ^^ his Father^s house ^^ that Jesus thus purifies ; again, because of the enigmatic ref^ences to the future which here and elsewhere are spoken, and which will be stamped with the evidence of fulfilled prophecy hereafter. In the conversation with Nicodemus the very words of the prologue are spoken by Jesus of himself. The incident of the Samaritan woman is witness, not because of the superhuman knowledge displayed by the Master, nor because of the acceptances of him as 'Saviour of the world,^ but through the formal claims of Jesus himself to the name of Messiah; still more, in view of his joyful recognition at the close that the work committed to him by the Father was being accomplished. Rebuked for healing on the sabbath Jesus claims authority equal to that of the sabbath^s founder ; when his enemies see in him an approach to the supreme presumption of likening himself to Abraham, he replies. Before Abraham was I am. It is clear that the climax of witness, as St. John conceives the idea, is reached where the Master is alone with his disciples after the traitor has withdrawn, and thus unfettered by any element of opposition he pours out fully to them the truth as to the Father, and as to that Spirit to be given hereafter in order to make the witness yet more complete* But while such support of the prologue by signs and

XV witness is the dominant purpose of every single section, it must not be supposed that the fourth gospel is a theological argument. The purpose which appears most upon the surface is that of narrative. Compared with the other evangelists, if some of these are more particularly graphic in their descriptions, St. John leaves an impression that may be called dramatic. It is not vivid details of incident that distinguish him as an historian, so much as whole characters, situations, phases of movement. The personalities of Nicodemus, of the Samaritan woman, of St. John the Baptist, of the man born blind, of Mary and Martha stand out clear as we read. The swaying multitude, fluctuating through the Feast of Tabernacles between scepticism and excited homage ; the officers unable to arrest for very impressiveness of their prisoner's words, the furious priests and Pharisees, the solitary voice of protest in the council itself; the sudden appearances of the Master to answer unspoken doubts, his mysterious departures in the teeth of attempt •> o arrest or stone ; the joyous spectacle of the water pi -^^^1 out amid trumpet tones and merry dances, in men ♦^'•of the miraculous stream of the desert, suddenly awed uy a more majestic presence turning the lesson of the rite to his own high claims ; the brilliant illumination of the temple courts suddenly made a background to one who cries, /am ike light of the world: all this movement of incident makes the Feast of Tabernacles as we here read it an act in a drama. Not less

Introduction 9i-

dramatic is the sudden sense of treachery among £riends which seems to overpower the Master in the Last Supper, until amid a hush of expectation Judas has retired, and the words // was night transport us to the perfect peace of the last farewell. Perhaps most dramatic of all is the appearance before Pilate, as St. John moulds the incident. On the one side we have priests and rulers nervously pressing to get their dangerous enterprise finished in order that they may keep the feast after all ; on the other hand, Jesus stands wrapped in a silent severity that will offer no defence in an insincere trial. To these is added the Roman, embodiment only of material power that knows no spiritual world. Pilate seems divided, between gross desire to insult the despised Jewish people, and rude recognition of a majesty he cannot understand in the solitary figure before him. Now he makes attempts to release the prisoner j now he has the man whom he would release as innocent scourged and crowned in order to give point to his scorn, Behold your King! shall I crucify yotir King? The Jewish rulers become more and more eager, for it is the sixth hour on this the day of Preparation ; and dangerous references to Caesar force Pilate to give the accusers their will. But to the last he is true to his scorn, and over the cross of shame he inscribes King of the Jews ^ and will not be persuaded to alter it. It is in the middle of this incident that the most dramatic point is reached. The judge's question, Art thou the King of the Jews ? seems to chime

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-^ Introduct i on with something in the inner thoughts of the prisoner. At first Pilate^s answer when Jesus makes reply shows how little was implied in the former enquiry, and Jesus simply explains to the Roman that his kingdom is not of the world his judge understands. But when the forlorn majesty of the persecuted Master draws the rejoinder, Art thou a kingf then the chord that has been stirred in the heart of Jesus vibrates in ringing tones : Pilate has indeed spoken the word; a king he is, born to this very end, to bear witness to the truth, while all that are of the truth become his subjects. It is but a mementos flash of spiritual witness : Pilate^s What is truth ? brings back the commonplace darkness of the world that is outside, and the severe silence is resumed.

It may be added that when the gospel has been brought to a formal conclusion with what is a reiteration of the purpose laid down in the prologue — These \signs'\ are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christy the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name — there is added yet another incident by way of epilogue, an incident of quite a different kind to the rest. It is no more than a personal reminiscence. One of the appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples is related ; and the incident ends with the retirement of the Master and Peter. But ^ the disciple whom Jesus loved ^ appears inclined to follow, and when Peter enquires about him the Master answers : If I will that he tarry till I come^ what is that

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Introduction 8f^

to thee f The narrative proceeds to the simple explanation that the phrase tarry till I come had given rise to an idea that this disciple was destined not to die : the writer points out that the words of the Master had no such significance. At this point an anonymous commentator has added this reflection: This is the disciple which beareth witness of these things f and wrote these things : and we know that his witness is true. The reflection is one that might occur to any reader : its purport is merely to identify the hero of the incident just related^ and consequently ^the disciple whom Jesus loved,^ with the author of the whole book to which this is epilogue: such identification, the note proceeds to say, is authority enough for accepting the truth of the book.

The Revelation is to be described as a rhapsody : and the best preparation for its study is to read the Isaiahan rhapsody of Zion Redeemed^ or Isaiah^s Vision of Judg" tnent ; or the rhapsodies of Amos, of Joel, of Habakkuk ; or, what is closer still, the Visions of Zechariah. Such rhapsodies exhibit the fusion of all literary forms together, now one form predominating, now another. In the present case there is approximation to the epic in the flow of narrative, broken by little dialogue ; there is none the less an approach to dramatic form in the linked succession of visions, which follow like the acts of a drama. It is most important however in interpreting to discard all idea of

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succession in time as separating these visions. Like th( sections of Zian Redeemed each part is complete in itself and covers the whole field ; like the sections of Isaiah^ Vision of Judgment the succession of parts may suggest graduation of intensity, and a new vision may be the climax of that which has preceded.

Of what nature is the matter jM-esented to us in this chain of visions ? The word ^ Revelation ^ is to describe it. The dwarfed sense of the word * prophecy* in modern speech leads most readers (and interpreters) to fasten upon a revelation of the secrets of the future. But Old Testament history and prophecy make prominent another kind of revelation — the unveiling of the ideal, as when the pattern of things sacred was unfolded to Moses in the mount. With both these conceptions of * revelation' the present work is in harmony. But the title has a fuller meaning yet, that is best conveyed by a phrase of the book itself, one which sums up the spirit of the whole in a single clause: The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. That the whole mystery of Divine dispensations finds its meaning in the sacrificial work of ^ the Lamb ' that was slain, this is the 'revelation' in which past and future, history and ideal, are harmonised. Hence it is that in this series of symbolic visions the symbolism is mainly that (^ the old prophets, revived, imbued with new meaning; symbol is linked with symbol, and separate jewels of Old Testament imagination concentrated in diadems of light, to make adornment for this final outpouring of the prophetic spirit. The very structure of the poem seems to adapt itself to this one thought. In a form that exactly corresponds with the structure of Joel's rhapsody, the seven visions of St. John's Revelation seem in their line of succession to trace the figure of an arch, the keystone of this arch, or foundation of the whole structure, being the master thought of the prophecy.

I. The Sealed Book and the Lamb

11 . The Powers of Judgment

III. The Seven Trumpets : Judgment Imperfect and the Mystery of Prophecy

VII. The Lamb's Bride, the New Jerusalem VI. The Word of God and the Thrones of Judgment V. The Seven Golden Bowls : Judgment Consummated and the Mystery of

Babylon IV. Salvation: the kingdom op

THE WORLD BECOMINQ THE

KINGDOM OP Christ

XXI

From this central vision the symmetry of the whole succession of visions becomes clear ; towards this centre the half solved mysteries of the earlier sections are pointing, from this as a fovmdation the later visions build up climax upon climax.

The Prologue is a flash of the glory that is to come. There is a theophany, vivid enough to recall the visions of Daniel, and charges to each of the seven churches of Asia. The form of this prologue takes us back to the rhapsody of Amos, where dooms are spoken to the seven nations with the same combination of recurrent formulae and individual addresses. These opening and closing forms of speech, the one describifig afresh each time the Divine speaker, the other enumerating the blessings that are promised, in their terms echo the symbols of the fuller revelation to which they are the prelude.

For the Revelation itself the apostle is, like Ezekiel, caught up in the Spirit into heaven. What Ezekiel saw in its moving radiancy is now unveiled in full splendour of repose : the Throne of Deity, rising out of the crystalline sea; around it lesser gradations of power — elders grouped round the Ancient of Days ; life in its ordered forms and variety admitted within the circle : the whole is one ceaseless round of adoration, stretching from past to future eternities. The vision modifies itself to the seer's eye as a Book is seen in the hands of him who sits upon the throne, sealed with seven seals. With the intensity

xxii of dream emotion the seer weeps that none is able to unloose the seals of mystery, and a comforting voice announces that the ' Lion of the tribe of Judah * hath overcome to open the book. While the vision has thus grown into one strain of expectation there appears, no lion^s form, but ^ a Lamb standing as though it had been slain * : and at once the imagery of the Isaiahan rhapsody, with the Baptises application of it, comes rushing to our thoughts. The moment the Book has been taken from the hands of Deity the symphony of universal adoration becomes transferred to the Lamb ; and with it there mingles suggestively a symbol not before seen, ^ golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.' These final triumph tones leave us looking to the next vision for the unsealing of the whole mystery of God.

In this Second Vision the seven seals one by one are opened ; and yet we are only carried forward on a further stage of expectation, pointing to what is still to come. With the opening of four seals, under symbolism that mingles the mystic horses of Zechariah with Jeremiah's fourfold types of doom, there appear Powers of Judgment, granted authority to act, yet not at present seen in action. With the fifth seal, the souls under the altar cry (as in Zechariah) for judgment, and are comforted with words of patience. The opening of the sixth seal masses together all the heralding woes of prophetic judgment into one single horror, and the Day of Wrath is actually break-

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^ Inlroductio:^

ing. Then judgment is restrained : as in Ezekiel^s visiot? of the figure with a writer's inkhorn, so here forces of destruction are held back until the servants of God can be sealed on their foreheads. In orderly enumeration, as of the old ritual, we have the sealing of twelve times twelve thousand from the tribes of Israel : then, beyond all power of computation, breaks upon us the vision of the multitude out of every nation and kindred and tribe, arrayed in white robes and with palms of victory, while the harmonious phrases and exquisite imagery of the Isaiahan rhapsody link these with Jehovah's exiles guarded on their homeward march to Zion. Now only may come the opening of the seventh seal. At once heaven resolves into a great silence of expectation : the ang«ls of the next vision stand ready with their golden trumpets, but there is no movement, save the incense prayers of the saints, ever going up before God.