Introduction to the Epistles of John (4): The Relation of the Gospel to the First Epistle of John

 

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.

Don't Pray for the World?

QUESTION: Explain Christ's word's "I pray not for the world." (John 17:9).

ANSWER:  They are not to be understood as an absolute refusal to pray for the world which he came to redeem. In his last prayer, in full view of the cross upon which he would die on the morrow, he focalized his prayers upon the few who believed in him, whose faith would certainly fail unless supernaturally strengthened by divine power, when the Messiah King should yield to the powers of darkness, and die as a malefactor. Verse [9] must have reference to a world that was yet in alienation from him. Says Luther, "To pray for the world, and not to pray of the world, must both be right and good. Paul certainly was of the world when he persecuted and killed the Christians. Yet Stephen prayed for him. Christ also prays in like manner at the cross, Luke 23:34." His prayer for the world is that it may cease to be what it is; his prayer for believers is that they may be perfected in the love enkindled in them when they were born from above. For this chiefly his high-priestly prayer was made.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 11, 12.

Professing Holiness

There are two ways of professing holiness — the wise and the proper way, and the ostentatious and distasteful way. Christ did not say in a bold and offensive style, "I am perfectly holy." He might with truth have used these words; but he would have been needlessly beclouding his own humility, and laying stumbling-blocks in the way of his hearers. At this point some modern advocates of Christian perfection are at fault. In set phrase they profess more holiness in half an hour than Jesus Christ did in all his life. His profession was by a great variety of phrases, and almost always by implication: "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" "I always do those things that are pleasing to my Father." "He that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. I and my Father are one." These are samples of Christ's implied declaration of his sinlessness.

— From Half Hours with St. Paul and Other Bible Readings, Chapter 1.

Saved Through Christ, Though They Know Him Not

[The Atonement] affords a basis for the salvation of such pious pagans as live up to their best light. 'They are saved through Christ though they know Him not.' (J. Wesley.)

How about the condition of faith in Him? They have the spirit of faith and the purpose of righteousness; that is, the disposition to trust in the object of faith, the historical Christ, were He revealed to them in the Gospel, and a willingness to walk by the revealed law of God were it made known to them.

What is your Scriptural authority? Jesus Christ intimates that the judgment day will proceed by the use of a sliding scale. Where much is given much will be required; where little is given little will be required. St. Paul declares: 'There is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without the written law will be judged by the law written on their hearts.' Peter looking upon a group of God-fearing heathen at the headquarters of Brigadier General Cornelius, declared: 'Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.'

'Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.'

Mr. Joseph Cook, who defends the rectoral theory, advocates the doctrine of salvation by possessing the essential Christ where the historical Christ is unknown. The essential Christ is an obedient attitude of the will toward 'the eternal Ideal required by self-evident truths, which has in Christ, and in Him only, become the historically Real.'

In the last day the Judge will say, 'Come, ye blessed,' not only to those who have enthroned the historical Christ in their hearts, but also to those who have exhibited towards His brethren, any forlorn man, the spirit of love, the essential element in the character of Christ — 'Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye did it unto Me.' The standard is so low as to be applicable to all who know the distinction between right and wrong. The rectoral theory of the atonement needs no probation after death.

What effect does this have on the missionary motive? None. That word stands in full force — 'Go ye and teach all nations.' While the pagan can be saved without a knowledge of Christ, the Christian cannot be saved while selfishly withholding that knowledge. I believe it is easier for God to save a pagan without the Bible in Bombay than it is to save a professed Christian in Boston without a disposition to send him a Bible; in other words, without a missionary spirit. I repudiate the doctrine of geographical election and reprobation expressed in the saying, 'To exchange cradles would be to exchange destinies.'"

— From "The Atonement" Half-Hours with St. John's Epistles (1901). 

Glorified With Jesus

"Father, that which thou hast given me, I will that, where I am, they also may be with me; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." (John xvii. 24 R.V.)

It is important to note that this high-priestly prayer was made only a few days before Jesus would ascend from the sepulcher to the throne of the universe. In his forecast of that hour he saw there would be one drawback to his supreme happiness, one void which all the hosts of heaven casting their crowns at his feet could not fill. The angels and archangels, the seraphim and cherubim cannot on that coronation day compensate for the absence of his human spiritual kindred who have suffered with him on the earth. They must be glorified with him. The redeemed ones, formerly the objects of his compassion, but now the objects of his complacent love and delight, must be near him, not on distant thrones made vacant by the fall of Lucifer and his rebellious host, but close to his side. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

This tallest promise in God's book is a monument to the love of Christ to believers too high for my poor intellect to climb. The very thought makes my head swim. Whenever I read this promise I am inclined to say "O blessed Master, this honor is too great for me." It is indeed a "weight of glory" so heavy as almost to stagger my faith. Is there not some various reading of the manuscripts or some error in the English version? Are not these words a gloss, a marginal penciling of some enthusiastic monk of the Middle Ages, which has accidentally been copied by some honest transcriber? Did not the correct reading omit the words "he shall sit on my throne" and have instead "he shall kiss my feet"? I ransack my library and search all the critical editions of the Greek testament and the Variorum Bible and find no various reading or rendering. I will no longer doubt, but will accept with tears of joy this greatest promise ever sounded in the ears of mortals, or ever written in human language.

There is no hint in the Bible that any other order of spiritual intelligences are invited to share the throne of universal empire. This honor is reserved for the royal family, his human disciples, alone. Nevertheless there is a wonderful fitness and congruity in this consummation of their honor and happiness. It is appropriate that the blood relatives should share the dignity and glory when one of the family is inaugurated as a supreme ruler.

The mothers of two at least of our recent Presidents, Garfield and McKinley, were with them when their sons were inducted into the highest office on the earth. Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, cousins and more distant kindred, fellow soldiers and schoolmates are not out of place as favored spectators in such a scene. Jesus Christ is a real man, not a semblance, a phantom, but a perfect man having a human soul and a material body. He is my brother, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. His glorification has refined and sublimated his body, not destroyed it. Son of man he was born; son of man he died; son of man he arose and ascended; son of man he will come in his glory to raise the dead, both the just and the unjust. Paul is careful to state to the astonished Athenians on Mars Hill that God will judge the world by a man, "that man whom he hath ordained." A man will forever sway the scepter of universal dominion.

— edited from Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 4.

Knowing the Holy Spirit

In what sense may believers know the Comforter? Jesus, who sends Him, assured His disciples that they should know Him because of His intimate relation to them, dwelling with them and ultimately being in them. The indwelling would be true after His future coming. If we fulfill the condition, which is love to Christ certified by obedience, we shall receive the Comforter and shall know Him. Of course we shall know when we receive so important a person. It will be a crisis marking a new era in our lives. It is evident that this is not inferential knowledge, though this is important as a confirmation. It comes from noting the fruits of the Spirit described in the Bible and comparing them with the Christian graces observed in ourselves, love, joy, peace, etc. Knowledge of God in the scriptural sense is assimilative. No man can truthfully say that he knows the Comforter when these fruits of the Spirit are absent. But knowledge of a person includes more than an acquaintance with his works. I had known the military career of Gen. Grant, and had read his brief dispatches after his battles, but I had no personal acquaintance with that great soldier till one day in June, 1856, he permitted me to be presented to him and to shake hands with him on the veranda of a Saratoga hotel. I then for the first time knew Ulysses S. Grant.

In like manner we may have such a second-hand knowledge of the Paraclete as we find in the Holy Scriptures and in the testimony of persons filled with the Spirit, while strangers to the personal Holy Spirit. It is one thing to know much about Him; it is quite a different thing to have an intuitive perception of Him, and to feel the thrilling and transforming touch of His hand, and to commune with Him by day and by night more intimately than with any earthly friend. This is the kind of knowledge invoked in the so-called apostolic benediction. We do not understand that in our knowledge of the Holy Spirit we differentiate Him from the Father and the Son, though some eminent Christians testify to an acquaintance with each Person of the adorable Trinity, one in substance, but three in subsistences. If such a knowledge has been given to any believers, it is quite exceptional. It may be universal in the future world; it is certainly very rare in this. In our present state it is enough for us to receive the love of God and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ commingled in one blissful stream descending through the channel of the Holy Ghost. A distinctive knowledge of each person would tend to divide the divine substance and to lead to tritheism, three Gods.

In the scheme of revelation the Father revealed Himself in His incarnate Son. After His visible form was received by the cloud which hid Him from the eyes of His gazing disciples on the day of His ascension, the Paraclete was sent down to testify of the absent God-Man, to keep Him in the world's thought and to glorify Him who came to glorify the Father. Hence the Paraclete glorifies both the Father and the Son when He glorifies the Son. Hence Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church, "That the Father would give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." This and other texts show that it is not the mission of the Comforter to give prominence to Himself, but to Christ, to whom He bears witness. Thus

"...when a messenger comes to tell a king, when a witness gives a testimony for his friend, neither speaks of himself. And yet, without doing so, both the messenger and the witness, in the very fact of giving their evidence, draw our attention to themselves, and claim our recognition of their presence and trustworthiness. And just so the Holy Spirit, when He testifies of Christ and glorifies Him, must be known and acknowledged in His divine commission and presence." (Andrew Murray.)

It is in this sense that we are to have a knowledge of the Paraclete while He holds up a light for us to see the Father in His adorable Son.

— from The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 22.

Changing the Sabbath

QUESTION: If the Lord Jesus wished to change the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first, why did he not himself do it?

ANSWER: The day before he died he said (John 16:12), "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. When the spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all the truth." Everybody will admit that the treatment of the Sabbath was the most ticklish subject Christ had to deal with in all his intercourse with the Jews. Again and again did he rebuke their impracticable misconceptions, making it the most dreaded, distressing and awful day of the seven. If he had desired to divest it of the severities with which it was loaded down, he could not have done it without changing the day; and he could not change the day without breaking down the confidence of everyone of his apostles and disciples. Hence he left it for the Holy Spirit to teach, who did thus teach so that they immediately began to keep the first day. (John 20:19, 26; Acts 20:7; I Cor. 16:2; John 1:10, on the Dominical Day, i. e., Sunday). As the result the whole Christian world, except a little handful, keeps the first day. To cure this handful get them to go eastward round the world, and when they get home they will all be keeping the first day, having gained a day. Perhaps Carnegie or Rockefeller can be persuaded to pay the bills in order to rid the Christian world of this senseless clamor against it of a few discordant voices.

— Steele's Answers pp. 253, 254.

A New Dispensation

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." — John 16:7 KJV.

The declaration that it was expedient, or "good," as Luther translates it, for Christ to go away in order that the Comforter might come, proves the fact that the work of the Holy Spirit is so indispensable a complement to His own work that His bodily withdrawal, which is the condition of the Spirit's advent, should awaken great joy in the hearts of His disciples. A few disciples, comparatively, had seen Him in His humiliation, rejected of men; now One was to come who should be a mirror in which all disciples in all lands and in all generations should see Him glorified, and, seeing, "should be transformed into the same image from glory to glory." Without Jesus radiant with divinity, the Comforter would have nothing to reproduce in the heart of the believer. It would be like removing from the photographer's studio the person whose features the sun is about to fix on the plate prepared to receive them.

Is Spirit Baptism for Purity?

QUESTION: What right have we to teach that Spirit-baptism is for purity? Where in his Gospel did Jesus declare this?

ANSWER: I wish everybody who desires to have his New Testament illuminated with an arc light would study Bernard's Progress of Doctrine, in which it is shown that the great practical, experimental truths are left in the Gospel as tiny seeds to be fully developed. after Christ's ascension, such as the atonement, justification and sanctification, and the purifying work of the Holy Spirit. He said very little about the gift of the Holy Spirit as a Person till the day before his death when he confined his remarks to the positive works of the spirit, witnessing, teaching, illumining, strengthening, gladdening and giving to the believer a manifestation of his bodily absent Master. He omitted the negative and smallest part of his work in the heart, the subtraction of depravity. Sanctification is to the fruits of the Spirit what house-cleaning is to house-furnishing. It is requisite to comfort and health, but is by no means ornamental. Moreover, before Pentecost the best of the apostles were not prepared to receive this negative office of the Spirit. They were so saturated with ceremonialism that they deemed themselves holy if they observed the Levitical Code. The Spirit himself must create in their minds the idea of inward holiness as necessary to Christian discipleship. Before such preparation the prediction of the purifying work of the Spirit would have puzzled and perplexed the disciples. May not this have been one of "the many things" Jesus did not tell them because they were not able to bear them, but which the Paraclete would unfold to them? This he did chiefly through St. Paul. See Rom. 6:6, 18:22, I Cor. 1:30, II Cor. 7:1, Gal. 2:20 Am. R. V., 5:24, Zph. 4:22-24, Col. 3:9, I Thess. 5:23, 3:11.

— Steele's Answers pp. 201, 202.

Christ Preaching to the Spirits in Prison (1 Peter 3:19)

QUESTION: Explain I Peter 3:19, Christ preaching to the spirits in prison.

ANSWER: We have several times answered this extendedly. We now only quote Wesley's Notes: "He preached through the ministry of Noah to unholy men before the fiood; who were then reserved by the justice of God as in a prison, till he executed the sentence upon them all; and are now also reserved to the judgment of the great day."

— Steele's Answers pp. 196.

The Habitation of the Human Spirit by the Holy Spirit

Professor Austin Phelps remarks that next to the mystery of the Three Persons in the one divine nature is the habitation of the human spirit by the Holy Spirit interpenetrating its substance with his vitalizing presence, pervading all the faculties of the human mind, becoming the life of its life, the soul within a soul, in a sense to which no other union makes any approximation. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). This mystical union is symbolized by the human body united with the head, the branches and the vine, the union of husband and wife, the dependence of the temple on its corner-stone. Paul has a union with Christ by the Holy Spirit so intimate that he speaks of his own heart throbbing in the bosom of Jesus Christ: "For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ" (Phil. i. 8). It has been said that such is the Spirit's efficacy that there is not one thought, feeling, or emotion pervading the man Jesus Christ, amid the glories of the upper Sanctuary, but may be said to be reproduced in the experience of his people on the earth, so that their every want and sorrow vibrates to him like the touching of a chord of which he is instantly aware. This telegraphic connection is implied in the joy of the angels over one penitent sinner, a ripple wave of gladness rolling over all the heavenly hosts. This communion of feeling is because the Holy Spirit who dwells in Christ dwells also in his people.

— Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 12.

When Was Jesus Glorified?

QUESTION: When was Jesus glorified?

ANSWER: To glorify God or Christ is to make him known and acknowledged as being all that he claims to be. Christ is spoken of several times as being glorified (John 12:28; 13:31; 17:10); but in his prayer in John 17:1 he still prays for glorification. We infer that his body was not changed by his resurrection, it still being flesh and bones. (Luke 24:39). This glorification occurred after leaving the earth. It was too dazzling for mortals to see; it almost killed Saul of Tarsus and John (Acts 9:4; Rev. 1:17).

— Steele's Answers p. 189.

Temptation

Temptation is one of the conditions of human probation. We must be put to the proof so long as we are in this world. Character can be solidified and beautified in no other way. Solicitations to sin under various disguises severely test all men. Temptation is a fiery furnace which either anneals or annihilates. The question, Which of these destinies? is determined each for himself. It is the question of power to endure the flames. This power in turn is the question of the indwelling of God, making the soul and body his habitation through the Spirit. This ultimately hinges on faith. "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith." This unites with God and infuses into us his omnipotence. Some are tempted in one way and some in another; some in their animal nature, and yielding, are drawn downward to sensuality; some are tempted on the intellectual side, and failing to overcome, they become skeptics and stumble on the dark mountains of unbelief. Kings and presidents are tempted by their possession of power, and by a crowd of flatterers; the beggar is drawn toward the low vices of falsehood, deception, and theft. How may all classes overcome? There is but one sure way — by being girded with strength by the Holy Spirit received by faith in Jesus Christ.

— from Jesus Exultant Chapter 11.

Conquering Love is Not Human, But Divine

Jesus Christ's method of conquest by love, disarming malice by turning the other cheek to the smiter, has been sneeringly criticized by a shallow philosophy as the vantage ground to wrong and not to right, as subversive of justice and good order, and inadequate to the cure of social evils. More recently a better philosophy, called altruism, has prevailed. Its primal principle is that the only way to beget right feelings, motives, and impulses in others is to manifest them as incarnated in yourself; that love toward the unworthy and malevolent will awaken responsive love. The second altruistic principle is that love towards enemies can originate and flourish on the plane of nature far below the sphere of the supernatural. The love that is conquering the world is not human but divine. Only by divine grace can you love the unlovely and hateful. You cannot do it by mere will power. Unchristian altruism is a fine theory but it will not work; it is utterly impracticable. Christianity is practicable when it successfully confronts all the moral, social, political, and economic problems, because omnipotence is its motive power, the omnipotence of that love which is sky-born.

— from Jesus Exultant Chapter 11.

The Highest Possibilities of Grace Divine

Sin paralyzes the will even where it fails to put a film over the eye. In the downfall of our race, in the transgression of our first parents, all our spiritual nature was damaged; the intellect the least, the will and moral sensibilities the most. Whence is the strength by which this weakness can be removed? Certainly not from within man, but from without; not from beneath, but from above, even from the source of all power, God himself. If fallen man is to overcome the evil propensities in his depraved nature and sit with King Jesus on his throne as he overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne, he must secure a mighty ally in the war which he must wage with the world, the flesh, and the devil. With this ally he can walk arm in arm in unsullied whiteness through the pollutions of the present world.

As Jesus Christ is to-day in spotless holiness (1 John iv. 17), so are we who believe in him with a faith that lays hold of the highest possibilities of grace divine.

It used to be argued that although man in his fallen estate has the natural ability to repent and believe, he has a total moral inability by reason of the perversity of his will. This deadlock between natural and moral ability was formerly urged as an excuse for impenitence, till the special call and the irresistible grace of the Holy Spirit should come to those who are written down in the register of God's secret will as unconditionally elected to eternal life before the foundation of the world. When Jesse Lee, the apostle of Methodism, came into New England in the last decade of the eighteenth century, he met everywhere, among saints and sinners, preachers and people alike, this pernicious doctrine, dishonoring God and destroying the souls of men. He banished it from the pulpits of New England by preaching the impartiality of the Divine regards, the universal extent of the atonement, and the GRACIOUS ABILITY of every sinner to repent through the help of the Holy Spirit freely bestowed upon all without respect of persons.

— edited from Jesus Exultant Chapter 11.

Natural Religion Fails to Discover Forgiveness

At another vital point do all systems of natural religion fail utterly in affording to the guilty soul the assurance of forgiveness. Here is a practical test. Does my religion save me now from the guilt, the pollution and the dominion of sin? Go and question nature until you are gray. Her lips will ever be dumb. Though Bishop Butler may find in the constitution and course of nature some faint analogies which may confirm the doctrine of forgiveness when it has been once revealed, there is not in the whole range of nature sufficient light for the discovery and demonstration of this cardinal evangelical truth.

The analogies of suffering invariably treading upon the heels of violated natural law with no provision in nature to arrest the penal consequences, strongly incline men to believe that punishment must inevitably, without an exception, follow the transgression of moral law. Hence paganism teaches that the penalty follows the sin as surely as the cart-wheel rolls in the footsteps of the ox. Socrates was so impressed with the cardinal doctrine of natural religion, that God is just, that he doubted whether God could pardon sin. The semi-paganism of the liberalists and free-religionists teaches the absolute impossibility of the pardon of sin. In their estimation it would be plucking down the pillars of God's throne and subverting the moral order of the universe. But turn to Christianity and you find that not only forgiveness through faith in the atoning Savior, but also the knowledge of forgiven sin, is its grand and glorious peculiarity. From the day the apostles went forth preaching to guilty men the knowledge of the forgiveness of sins till this hour, there have not been absent from the earth witnesses to the truth of this doctrine. Millions have crossed the flood, and millions are crossing now who can say, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

— Jesus Exultant Chapter 9.

The Spirit Brings the Bible's Message to Life

The Spirit gives reality to the Old Testament, the prophetic record, and to the New Testament, the historic record of Christ's life. He impresses upon us the fact that Jesus is living and present — that He is what He was. His birth, His sermon on the mount, His parables, His miracles, His farewell discourse, His high-priestly prayer, His words on the cross, to Spirit-illumined souls do not belong to a distant antiquity, but are perpetually as fresh as the morning paper. The Spirit telegraphs the Gospels across the chasm of centuries and millenniums as recent news from heaven. What are you so greedily reading, grandpa?" said a child to a Bible-studying saint of four score years intently reading the word of God. "News," was the reply. To the spiritual mind Christ is present giving life to His words spoken eighteen hundred years ago. Thus He verifies His own promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Thus He makes His words spirit and life.

The Spirit of Truth

[The Holy Spirit] is also styled the Spirit of truth. "What is truth?" Jesus Christ declined to answer Pilate's question, not because truth is a simple term too difficult to define, but because the truth most needed by the selfish Roman procurator had a moral element which he had no capacity to receive. Christ could make blind eyes see, but He could not make a blind soul perceive while persisting in a course of sin. Moral truth can be apprehended only by an active moral sense in sympathy with it. To awaken this sense in dead souls was one part of the mission of Christ. The other part was to reveal the truth. "To this end was I born, that I should bear witness unto the truth." All saving truth is centered in His person. "I am the truth;" not abstract, but concrete, in form of facts adapted to man's faculties, or truths cast in a human mould. Truth is conformity to fact or reality. Eternal happiness is in building on the granite of reality and laying every hewn stone by the plum line of truth. There can be no other destiny for a character thus constructed. But sin is a lie. The motive to the first human sin was a lie. "Thou shalt not surely die." All the woes of the human generations and eternities are serpents coiled up in that delusion. Yet eternal well being is in Jesus Christ for every one of the serpent-deceived race who will receive Him by faith. For spiritual realities do not address our physical senses, but our faith only. The great danger lies in the pleasing delusions of sin and our proneness to embrace them in preference to sober truth.

Jesus Christ had One Personality

QUESTION: If only a sinless Divine Being can make an atonement for sin, and only the human Jesus died, how has an atonement been made?

ANSWER: There are not two personalities in Jesus Christ, but one only — the Son of God, who, since his incarnation combines the human nature with the Divine; and this Personality passed through the experience of death in behalf of his brethren, the whole human race.

— Steele's Answers pp. 174, 175.

The Liberty of the Spirit

Many modern Christians become so highly cultivated and refined in their taste as to rebuke the spontaneous hymn breaking out in the pews, independent of the chorister's tuning fork or the organist's keynote, and to take offense at the amen or hallelujah in the congregation not printed in the ritual. They deem such freedom unbecoming the dignity and solemnity of Christian worship. It is possible that the Spirit, who dwells only where there is liberty, departs from those assemblies which attempt to imprison him in stiff forms. He desires to develop individualities by bestowing different gifts severally on whomsoever he will. Dr. Stalker says that the prophets addressed only nations, but Jesus Christ discovered the individual. This latest discovery it is the office of the Holy Spirit to create anew, preserving all original traits so far as they are innocent. Men are not at their best when pruned of all personal peculiarities. Grace is not a die which makes all souls alike like dollars dropping from the mint. There is the same variety in the new creation as there was in the original creation. There should be the same variety in the expression of Christian experience. Let not the quiet find fault with the exultant. Let all the people praise the Lord, each in his own natural way.

— Jesus Exultant, Chapter 7.