A blog drawn from the writings of 19th Century Methodist Bible scholar and Holiness advocate Daniel Steele (1824-1914).
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| John Fletcher |
Anyone unfamiliar with the distinct experiences of these three dispensations, Fletcher argues, will struggle to apply Gospel truth correctly or fully fulfill their ministry. Although these dispensations appeared successively in history, they now exist at the same time. Among people accepted by God and living on the earth today, some are living primarily in the dispensation of the Father, some in that of the Son, and others in the dispensation of the Holy Spirit.
[Jesus said:] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you." — John 14:15-17 NRSV.
When Jesus promised the Comforter, He was not talking about someone whose sole job was emotional consolation. The Greek word παράκλητος (paraklētos) carries a much broader meaning. It can just as accurately be translated helper, advocate, teacher, guide, or counselor.
For the purposes of this essay, we will use the older term "Comforter." But, remember: It carries with it a wealth of meaning.
“As for you, the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in him.” — 1 John 2:27 NRSV.
But this assumption rests on a very old mistake.
The idea that matter itself is inherently evil comes not from Scripture, but from ancient pagan philosophy—specifically from Gnosticism and Platonism. These systems taught that matter is eternal, un-created, and irreversibly corrupt. God, they claimed, merely shaped this flawed substance as best he could, but could never fully cleanse it. As a result, the soul was thought to remain defiled as long as it was trapped in the body, only to be purified later — after death — by some kind of fiery process.
Love is not something the mind manufactures. It does not come from logic or analysis. It arises freely from the soul when it encounters what it loves. God is not merely loving — God is love made visible. And God’s perfect love toward humanity is meant to awaken a corresponding love for God in the human heart. The mirror that reflects this love may be cracked and uneven. Human souls, even at their best on earth and even under grace, are fractured by weakness and enduring flaws. Still, a person’s love for God can surge forward with the full strength of their being.
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"The vicarious sufferings and death of Christ are an atonement for sin as a conditional substitute for punishment, fulfilling, on the forgiveness of sin, the obligation of justice in moral government."
SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 4.
"Sin not."
This sorrow prompts the attempt to apply the atonement, the only remedy. This must be adapted to man's free agency. It cannot be forced upon him against his consent. He cannot be saved as a thing; he must be saved as a person by a free compliance with conditions, not as a bale of goods from a burning warehouse, but as a person intelligently and providently securing a life preserver and binding it upon him. Such a life preserver God has provided in the blood of His Son, which John in the first chapter of his First Epistle announces as the perfect remedy, "the double cure," saving from wrath and making pure.
It has been beautifully said that this Epistle is a prism which gives all the seven colors that make up the one white light of redemptive truth. Each of these testimonies is really distinct from every other, and from all others in the Holy Scriptures.
6 This is he that came by water and blood, [even] Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood
6. "This is he that came." The identity of the man of Nazareth with the eternal Son of God is again emphasized as the central truth of Christian theology, the reception of which is necessary to the attainment of victory over the world and of translation out of darkness into the marvelous light of His kingdom. Then follow the witnesses to this truth which are "the water and the blood." Many are the explanations of these words. The ritualists understand them to signify the sacraments of baptism and of the Lord's Supper. Others see only symbols of purification and redemption. But it seems to the writer that John uses these words as a summary of Christ's earthly life and mission, baptism in the water of Jordan and His sacrificial death by the shedding of His blood for the redemption of the world. The cardinal truths of His gospel are here briefly stated; for at His baptism with water was His baptism with the Holy Spirit attended by the Divine announcement of His Sonship to God in words implying that He is the Son in a sense unique and peculiar. This was a sufficient opening and explanation of the whole of His ministry. His public and tragic death is at once the close and the explanation of His life of self-sacrifice. "The Gnostic teachers, against whom the apostle is writing, admitted that the Christ came 'through' and 'in' water; it was precisely at the baptism, they said, that the Divine Word united Himself with the man Jesus. But they denied that the Divine Person had any share in what was effected 'through' and 'in' blood; for, according to them, the Word departed from Jesus at Gethsemane. John emphatically assures us that there was no such separation. It was the Son of God who was baptized; it was the Son of God who was crucified; and it is faith in this vital truth that produces brotherly love, that overcomes the world, and is eternal life." (The Cambridge Bible for Colleges.)
The third chapter should begin with the last verse of the second, which speaks of being begotten of God. Then naturally the author describes the present character and future position of the children of God when their real glory, now unappreciated by the world, shall be outwardly manifested.
1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God: and [such] we are. For this cause the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not
1. "Behold." This is not a mere interjection of surprise, but a verb in the plural number calling on all to gaze upon something actually visible now to eyes anointed by the Holy Spirit, and destined to be transcendently glorious hereafter.
"What manner of love." Love is the very essence of Christianity distinguishing it from all false religions. Its origin is not earthly, but heavenly. It is a spark dropped from the skies, not to consume sinners, but to illumine and purify believers.
THE RELATION OF THE EPISTLES TO THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.
The
relation of the First Epistle to the Fourth Gospel is that of an
application to a sermon, Or that of a comment to a history. The Epistle
presupposes that the persons addressed possessed knowledge of the Gospel
communicated either by John's voice or his pen. The Gospel is a summary
of his sermons to audiences ignorant of the facts and truths of
Christianity. The First Epistle is a summary of his exhortations to
believers to practice the precepts of Christ stated in such a way as to
guard them against the evils of religious error.
There are numerous and manifest resemblances, both in the thought and the form, between this Epistle and the Gospel of John. There are also striking differences. The theme of the Gospel, clearly and concisely stated in the first verse is the supreme divinity (doxa) of the Logos, who "was with God," hence distinct in personality, and who "was God," being identical with Him in nature. The burden of the Epistle is the real and perfect humanity (sarx) of Jesus Christ announced in its opening sentence, which appeals to three of the five senses, in proof that he was not a phantom, but a man composed of flesh, blood and bones, — a veritable man, the God-man. It has been well said that the proposition demonstrated in the evangel is "Jesus is the Christ," and that proved in the Letter is "the Christ is Jesus." In the latter case the apostle presents his argument from the divine to the human, from the spiritual and ideal to the historical, the natural position of an evangelist and historian; in the former the writer argues from the human to the divine, from the historical to the ideal and spiritual, which is the natural position of the preacher.
It is the vocation of every believer, in every generation, to afford in his own person the evidence that Christ has risen. Art thou a Christian? Then art thou one whom Christ has chosen to convey to men the proof that He is risen. This is thy vocation. Wilt thou roll back the stone upon the sepulchre and make the world believe that Christ is still there? This thou art actually doing if thou walk not in the Spirit.
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Regeneration is the lodgement by the Holy Spirit of the new principle of life. This is love to God, which is the ruling motive of every genuine Christian. There is a radical and an essential difference between those who are born again and the best of those who lay claim to only natural goodness, a beautiful moral character revolving around self as a centre. But the great transition from spiritual death to spiritual life does not make the child of God at once complete in holiness. The Holy Spirit in sanctification does not work magically, nor mechanically like a washing machine, but by the influence of grace, in accordance with the essential constitution of man, and in the way of a vital process, only by degrees completely renewing the soul.
"And he brought the bullock for the sin offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock for the sin offering. And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it. And he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and Moses burned it upon the altar. But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the LORD commanded Moses. And he brought the ram for the burnt offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And he killed it; and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about. And he cut the ram into pieces; and Moses burnt the head, and the pieces, and the fat. And he washed the inwards and the legs in water; and Moses burnt the whole ram upon the altar: it was a burnt sacrifice for a sweet savour, and an offering made by fire unto the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses. And he brought the other ram, the ram of consecration: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron’s right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot. And he brought Aaron’s sons, and Moses put of the blood upon the tip of their right ear, and upon the thumbs of their right hands, and upon the great toes of their right feet: and Moses sprinkled the blood upon the altar round about. And he took the fat, and the rump, and all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat, and the right shoulder: And out of the basket of unleavened bread, that was before the LORD, he took one unleavened cake, and a cake of oiled bread, and one wafer, and put them on the fat, and upon the right shoulder: And he put all upon Aaron’s hands, and upon his sons’ hands, and waved them for a wave offering before the LORD. And Moses took them from off their hands, and burnt them on the altar upon the burnt offering: they were consecrations for a sweet savour: it is an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And Moses took the breast, and waved it for a wave offering before the LORD: for of the ram of consecration it was Moses’ part; as the LORD commanded Moses. And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon his sons’ garments with him; and sanctified Aaron, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons’ garments with him." — Leviticus 8:14-30 KJV.
“Welcome, welcome, dear Redeemer,
Welcome to this heart of mine;
Lord, I make a full surrender;
Every power and thought be thine,
Thine entirely, through eternal ages thine.”
25. The fat — The suet, Leviticus 3:3. The rump — The tail, Leviticus 3:9, note. The two kidneys — Leviticus 3:4, note. The burnt offering is evidently an object lesson inculcating the first great commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,” etc. Hence the enumeration of all the parts: the head as an emblem of the thoughts; the legs, an emblem of the walk; the kidneys and the inwards, the constant and familiar symbol of the affections. The meaning of the fat may not be quite so obvious, but it doubtless represents the energy not of one limb or faculty, but the general health and vigour of the whole.
26. Oiled bread — Here are all the elements of the מִנְחָה (mincha), meat offering, or meal offering, (R.V.,) except the frankincense. Leviticus 2:1.
27, 29. He put all upon Aaron’s hands — By this symbolism the priestly office was handed over to the candidates. Numbers 3:3, note. Wave offering — Leviticus 7:30, note. Moses’s part — The ram of consecration is treated as a peace offering. As Moses is acting in the capacity of a priest, the priestly portion belongs to him. This was the right shoulder. Leviticus 7:33, note.
30. The anointing oil — For its elements see Exodus 30:23, 24. These spices beautifully typify the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, which impart no acerbity of disposition, no acid tempers, but only gentle qualities and benevolent affections. And of the blood — Since both oil and blood prefigure, the first the consecration and the second the purifying of the soul, their union typifies the blending of the office of the atoning Saviour, who hath redeemed us by his blood, with that of the Holy Spirit, who transforms and sanctifies by his cleansing power. Hence, since under the Gospel all believers are dignified as priests, we are exhorted to “draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,” by the blood of the Lamb, “and our bodies washed with pure water,” the symbol of purification by the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 10:22; see Leviticus 14:5, note. Sacrifice for sin alone does not suffice; there must be an inward cleansing by the Spirit. To pardon sin is to leave the house swept and garnished but unoccupied; to fill with the Holy Ghost is to put in a keeper. Upon Aaron, and upon his garments — The person and the garments were sprinkled to prefigure both inward and outward purification, holiness of heart and of life. When the blood and the oil could be connected together, then Aaron and his sons could be anointed and sanctified together. Thus Jesus set himself apart as a bleeding sacrifice for the purchase of the holy unction for all believers, made priests unto God. This explains John 17:19.
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