works of doctrine" which, in their attempts to preserve particular, formal conceptions of the Atonement, to vindicate the righteousness of divine law, and to emphasize pre-conceived notions of the meaning and message of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, men have allowed to obtrude themselves between the soul and God. Instead of bewildering and repelling men by artificial schemes of abstract dogma, and obscuring the richness and freedom of proffered forgiveness, as the confessional standards of the churches have not infrequently done, "Jesus sees and describes to men the picture of the Father, an almighty, living, loving reality, who watches and waits for the return of his prodigals, eager to welcome them home. With one exception, all manner of sins and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, can be forgiven men.' It does not seem possible to Jesus to exaggerate the compassion of God the Father. As long, as wide, as deep as his unchanging righteousness is his abounding mercy."

6

THE NEW COMMANDMENT OF LOVE.

In connection with the doctrine of sin and its forgiveness, there emerges from the gospel narratives the positive instruction, also, concerning the higher requirements of what Jesus calls "the new commandment which I give unto you." At the very commencement of his public ministry a new note is struck when he says, "Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you." But later, when under his training the disciples had increased capacity for entering into his spirit, he gave them more clearly to understand how austere were the requirements which the law of love made of those who owned God as their Father. The stirrings of a responsive love to him were not to make themselves felt simply on the emotional side of their being and spend themselves in the raptures of praise and prayer; they were to constrain them, on the practical side of their lives, to render loving service and at the cost of sacrificing self, to

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fellow-men. Learn of me," he said to his early followers when about to send them forth on their mission of service, "I came not to be served but to serve, and give my life as a ransom for many." How significant the commission they received, to heal the sick, to instruct the ignorant, to relieve the poor, and to save the sinful! How large the demands their subsequent experiences made of them in seeking to obey this law of love and service it is easy to imagine demands on energy and time, on sympathy and patience, on courage and perseverance when opposition was great and results disappointing, on suffering and sacrifice when nothing but the Master's example and promises remained to support them!

But great as are the demands made in an outward way by the character and circumstances amid which the followers of the Lord in all ages must show their faithfulness to the new commandment-the moral demands are immeasurably greater and more exacting. Without an inner, personal equipment, a moral preparation for undertaking and prosecuting the loving, saving service to which Jesus calls, nothing worthy of his spirit and example can be performed. If one is to succeed in serving men in their higher and eternal interests, and in accordance with the principles of the gospel, it is necessary that every obstacle, that pride and selfishness are always putting into the heart to crowd the thought and love of others out, must be removed. How numerous and defiant many of these obstacles are one can easily gather from what he knows to be hindrances to religious progress. The spirit of sect and caste, of race and nationality, of social position and mental culture, of prejudice and suspicion, leaves room in no heart occupied by it, for the hearty good-will, the affectionate sympathy, which children of the same Father owe each other in all the circumstances and relations of life. The spirit contradictory of love and manifest in anger and revenge, jealousy and untruthfulness, covetousness and impurity, harshness in judging and ambition to rule over them-this spirit must

likewise be driven out before there can be any capacity for real Christlike service. But if the expulsion of these is a problem at once necessary and difficult, what shall be said of the cultivation of the positive graces that are likewise essential in the character of those who can obey the new commandment of Jesus "to love even as I have loved you." The marks that unvaryingly characterized his love were those that appear in the love of the eternal Father: the most unstinted outpouring of himself in his efforts to minister to others' welfare; an inexhaustible patience and forbearance with human frailty and folly; an untiring willingness to forgive the past and to assist to a nobler and better future; and an unselfish devotion that could not be turned aside from its divine and saving purpose by the necessity of making any sacrifice of himself or undergoing the most painful personal sufferings. The enforcement of love similar to this upon his followers, as the rule of life and the way of salvation, when considered in connection with Jesus's conception of the nature and consequences of sin, is abundantly sufficient to prove the presumptuousness of supposing that moral laxity is of no consequence in the end for ourselves and our characters, or of no concern to our holy and righteous Father. For the avoidance of sin and for the cultivation of lofty individual character, for the bettering of social conditions and the establishing of God's reign on earth, no ideal within the reach of human knowledge is at all to be compared with that which the religion of Jesus sets before us in its revelation of the divine Fatherhood.

BALTIMORE, MD.

III.

ETERNAL LIFE: A STUDY IN JOHANNINE

THEOLOGY.

BY PROF. WILLIAM C. SCHAEFFER, D.D.

One of the characteristic conceptions of the Johannine writings and especially of the Fourth Gospel is that of life. The prologue contains the statement, " In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (1: 4); and in the conclusion we find the declaration, "Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name " (20: 30, 31). These two verses," it has

may be regarded as the

been well said by Mr. E. S. Scott, poles between which the whole thought of the Gospel revolves. Jesus as the Son of God possessed in himself a divine life; this life is communicated to those who believe on him. The problem of Christianity, as it presents itself to the evangelist, is to account for the reappearance in the believer of the life that was manifested in Christ."

This life is sometimes referred to simply as "life," as in the statement of the prologue above referred to (1: 4); sometimes it is spoken of as the life, in distinction from death; and again it is called "eternal life." The second and third of these forms of expression occur in 5: 24; "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death (EK TOû baváтov, the death which is really such) into the life. (eis Tǹv Swýv, the life which is truly life)." Whichever name is used, the reference is to the same great fact.

Another preliminary observation should be made. Eternal

life in the Fourth Gospel is very nearly, if not quite, equivalent to the kingdom of God in the Synoptics. It occupies the same central and emphatic position; and it is very similar in meaning. In the Synoptic Gospels, the kingdom of God stands for the highest good, which has been brought into the world by Jesus Christ; and, in the Fourth Gospel, that idea is expressed by eternal life. It is the sum total of the good, which Jesus came to bestow upon men. Thus Jesus himself said, "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly " (10:10). And John sums up his entire conception of Christ's mission by saying, "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life" (3:16). And the two terms are very nearly, if not quite, synonymous in the Gospel itself. To "see the kingdom of God" in 3: 3, and to "enter into the kingdom of God" in 3: 5, are equivalent to eternal life in 3:15, 16. In both places the reference is to the realization of the blessing of salvation.

1. The Source of Eternal Life.-John finds the source of eternal life in God. God is "the living Father" (6: 57), the One, and the only One, who has life in himself in original, underived form. As "the living Father," he has given to the Son also to have life in himself. "For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself: and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man" (5: 26, 27). The Son does not have life in the same underived, original form as "the living Father"; for he lives "because of the Father" (6: 57). But because of his union with the Father, he is himself a fount of life for the entire animate creation. "In him was life; and the life was the light of men" (1: 4).

Life is represented as flowing forth from the eternal Son in a threefold way.

(1) He is the source of life for the entire animate creation. Though the animate creation does not participate in eternal life, until it has reached its consummation in the sons of God;