Love at War (Rewritten)

As long as sin exists in the world, love cannot remain passive. Love must fight. Christ himself came out of the Father’s love not merely to soothe the world, but to confront it — to bring a sword against sin. The cross stands at the center of this conflict, a rallying point for forces hostile to evil. The sinful soul is like a fortified stronghold, crowded with enemies opposed to Christ. Love advances on that stronghold step by step, determined to conquer and fully possess it.

1. Pardon through Christ’s Atoning Blood

The first move of love is the offer of forgiveness through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Sin Not.

 SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 4. 

"Sin not."

Sin is a small word, but it occupies a large place in human history. The trail of this serpent is upon us all. Upon the holiest of the sons of Adam it has left scars. In all others who have not applied the Divine cure it is a running sore, a virus poisoning the whole soul and threatening eternal ruin. Under God's moral government sin can never be happy. It may, for a short time, be delirious, and sing, and laugh, and dance. But delirium is not felicity. Sin grieves the heart of infinite love. 

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. 

Themes in 1 John 1 (2): The Blood of Jesus Christ

"The blood of Jesus Christ..." 

"brings about that real sinlessness which is essential to union with God" (Bishop Westcott), who also says "the question is not of justification, but of sanctification." 

As ritual purity was required of all who would approach to God under the old covenant, so moral cleanness of conscience through the blood of Christ is required of all who would serve the living God in New Testament times. (Eph. v. 26, 27; Tit.ii. 14; Heb. ix. 13, 14, 22-24.)

1 John1:5-10 - God is Light

---

 i. 5 - ii. 28. GOD IS LIGHT.

a. i. 5 - ii. 11. What Walking in the Light involves: the Condition and Conduct of the Believer.

• Fellowship with God and with the Brethren (i. 5-7).

• Consciousness and confession of sin [committed before forgiveness] (i. 8-10).

• Obedience to God by Imitation of Christ (ii. 1-6).

• Love of the Brethren (ii.7-11).

---

 

5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all

5. "This is the message." The revelation of God's moral character; which must be known before we can be assimilated to its beauty and purity. Harmony must rest on a mutual knowledge and a moral likeness and sympathy. This constitutes true spiritual fellowship. The incarnation brings God to the knowledge of men. The work of the Spirit in the believer conforms him to the image of God revealed in Christ.

Introduction to the Epistles of John (7): Style and Abiding Value

RHETORICAL STYLE.

The most marked feature of the style is the constant occurrence of moral and spiritual antitheses, each thought has its opposite, each affirmative its negative; light and darkness, life and death, love and hate, truth and falsehood, children of God and children of the devil, sin unto death and sin not unto death, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, love of the Father and love of the world. 

THEOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL VALUE.

The Epistle is not a designed compendium of systematic theology or handbook of Christian doctrine for catechetical training, being written not for the instruction of the ignorant, but expressly for those who "know the truth." Yet "in no other book in the Bible are so many cardinal doctrines touched with so firm a hand." No other book gives a formal definition of sin, and none so often alludes to the atonement in the blood of Christ presented in its various phases, no other so magnifies love and identifies it with the divine essence, and no other so distinctly teaches Christian perfection attainable by all believers who here and now claim their full heritage in Christ, perfect love shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. John writes as if conscious that he is writing the last statement of Christian truth in epistolary form, just as he had written the last of the Gospels.

 "Each point is laid before us with the awe-inspiring solemnity of one who writes under the profound conviction that 'it is the last hour.' None but an apostle, perhaps none but the last surviving apostle, could have such magisterial authority in the utterance of Christian truth. Every sentence seems to tell of the conscious authority and resistless, though unexerted, strength of one who has 'seen, and heard, and handled the Eternal Word, and who knows that his witness is true."'

Leviticus 17:10-16 - Blood (Part 2 & Concluding Note).

"10 And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people. 11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. 12 Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood. 13 And whatsoever man there be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, which hunteth and catcheth any beast or fowl that may be eaten; he shall even pour out the blood thereof, and cover it with dust. 14 For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off. 15 And every soul that eateth that which died of itself, or that which was torn with beasts, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even: then shall he be clean. 16 But if he wash them not, nor bathe his flesh; then he shall bear his iniquity." —  Leviticus 17:10-16 KJV. 

10. I will even set my face against — This form of words indicates that the extermination of the blood eater will not be by imperfect human judicatories, but by the direct intervention of Jehovah cutting off the offender, as if guilty of a most heinous crime. See Leviticus 7:26, note.

11. The life… in the blood — Literally, “the נֶ֣פֶשׁ (nephesh, soul) of the flesh.” The soul has a double sphere of life. It is both animus, the subject of all the activities of knowing, feeling, and willing, and anima, the principle of animal life vitalizing the blood and operating in nutrition and respiration. In 1628 Dr. Harvey discovered the vitality of the blood, for the circulation of the blood results from a living principle inhering in it. This wonderful discovery of anatomical science had been standing as an open secret in the Mosaic writings three thousand years, overlooked by science in her pride and disbelief of revelation. This is more surprising when we read Solomon’s beautiful announcement of the same truth in Ecclesiastes 12:6. The Bible, when rightly understood, never contradicts science. I have given it… for your souls — Jehovah has not only devised the scheme of an atonement, but he gives the blood which is demanded to perfect this scheme. He not only saves through sacrifice, but he affords the victim. “Behold the Lamb of God” — the Lamb which God requires, and which he accepts, himself provides. The atonement originates with the Father. John 3:16. He is not, as some blasphemously portray him, an inexorable Shylock demanding his pound of flesh. The blood which he demands he gives. How widely different the divine scheme from human attempts at propitiation, in which the god to be appeased is to be bought off by costly sacrifices. God provides his own means of propitiation, so that all boasting is excluded, for we are saved by grace through faith in the one God-given, atoning sacrifice. “The death of Christ,” says Delitzsch, “was a conscious act of loving free-will, the central act of his own self-sacrifice, the solution of the enigma, ‘I have given it,’ in which the saints of the Old Testament had to rest their implicit faith.” Atonement for the soul — All the versions, except the Revised Version, have missed the great truth revealed in the Hebrew, “it is the blood that maketh atonement BY REASON OF THE LIFE.” ב is plainly an instrumental preposition, and not to be rendered ἀντί, instead of, as the Seventy, nor pro, for, as the Vulgate, nor fur, as Luther. See extensive discussion in The Ceremonial Function of the Blood. Men are redeemed from death only by the price of a life. Jesus gave his life a ransom for the world. Says Kalisch, “It is impossible to doubt that the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice was entertained by the Hebrews… The animal dies to symbolize the death deserved by the offerer on account of his sins.” The apparent discrepancy between this verse and Hebrews 10:4, 11, is removed when, with Outram, we regard the blood as a “condition of pardon,” and with Ebrard and Alford, “not the instrument of complete vicarious propitiation, but an exhibition of the postulate of such propitiation.” See concluding note.

Leviticus: Driving the Guilty to the Blood

"And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock." —  — Leviticus 1:1, 2 KJV.

 

In the unfolding of the Divine purposes Abraham has been isolated from his polytheistic kindred, and called to sojourn in the Land of Promise. His seed have been cast into the furnace of Egypt, and, by centuries of oppression, have been fused into a homogeneous mass now ready to be poured into the divinely prepared mould for the formation of a nationality unique and wonderful. Through a highway miraculously thrown up they have been led forth from Egypt to the foot of Sinai. Here, amid the display of all that is terrific in the elements, they have received two revelations the holiness of Jehovah and the expression of his will, in the most sublime and comprehensive code of moral laws that had ever been given to man. The purpose of both these revelations is to sanctify and elevate the nation. Both convince of sin. 

The Divine purity is a mirror wherein man may discover his moral defilements. The decalogue, by clearly drawing a fiery boundary between right and wrong by quickening the conscience and thrusting upon the unwilling soul a sense of guilt for its evil deeds, under the government of a holy God is now extorting the despairing cry, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The imperative demand of the hour through all that multitudinous host is a purgatory for their sins. For the law has entered disclosing their abounding offences. Romans 5:10.  That purgatory the merciful Lawgiver now prepares. 

An expiatory quality is now clearly developed in one of the familiar sacrifices, and others wholly propitiatory are to be instituted. The law drives the guilty to the blood. 

— Commentary on Leviticus.

Jonah in the Belly of the Fish

QUESTION: Having heard a Methodist preacher make the statement from the pulpit recently that Jonah was dead in the belly of the whale three days and nights, I wish to ask if, in your judgment, there is anything in the Bible to back up such a statement, and if there is, does it not prove that the Roman Catholics are right in their claim that we have a chance to get right with God after death? If God gave Jonah the privilege of repenting after he was dead, have not we a right to expect the same privilege?

ANSWER: The day after this question was laid on my table, my daily paper of May 17 reported that a vessel called the Octopus, sunken near Newport, R. I., was raised, after a submergence of twenty-four hours, the whole crew of fifteen men being found alive and as well as they ever were. They voluntarily went down in a water-tight submarine war vessel, well supplied. with food and fresh air condensed in vaults which they let out from time to time after expelling that which had become foul. They testify that they could have been very comfortable several days. If men using only natural means could prolong life under the sea, could not God, who has both the natural and the supernatural at his command, keep a runaway preacher alive in the Octopus, which he prepared for him in the Mediterranean Sea? The sailor at masthead cries "There she blows," when he sees a stream of spray arising from a whale expelling the foul air from his lungs, preparing to inhale several cubic yards of pure air. So you see, there was a good chance for Jonah to live without any great draft upon the supernatural. Moreover, we have a historic proof that Jonah did not die, in the fact that he made a long prayer, in answer to which he was permitted to go ashore without a gang plank. Judging by the length of their prayers, Jonah was more alive than Peter was, who had only breath enough to say, "Lord, save me." Jonah dead is a very shaky foundation for the Romish doctrine of a post-mortem purgatory, with its back door opening heavenward. But it is the best they have. There is but one purgatory, for sin, the blood of Jesus Christ (I John 1:7), applied in this life.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 228-230.

St. John Versus the Gnostics

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8 KJV)

I wish you to notice the connection in which these words stand. The connection is this: "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, . . . the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Now if the "we" here means the persons cleansed, just spoken of when it says, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," we must convict this inspired writer of a manifest contradiction in affirming that the same persons are cleansed from all sin and yet are still living in sin. It is very much like saying that vaccination is a prophylactic against small-pox, but if any one tries it, and proves it is so, he is a liar. Or quinine is a specific against fevers, especially malarial fevers, but if any one tries it, and is cured, and makes declaration of the fact, it is false. That is the absurdity to which John is reduced by that kind of exposition.

We Need the Atonement Every Moment

I believe if any man says, however holy he may be at the present time, however the work of God by the divine Spirit may have purged him, soul and body, from all sin, if he says he can live half an hour without the atonement, he is a greatly mistaken man; if he says he can live one minute without the atonement, he is a mistaken man, That is where much of fanaticism comes in. If the devil cannot ride a truth down, he will raise up various clouds of fanaticism and misunderstanding about it.

I stand every day and every hour and every moment upon the atoning merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that all so-called sins of ignorance, — read the fourth chapter of the book of Leviticus, — all infirmities, ignorances, failures, need continually the blood of sprinkling. Sometimes I am inclined to go as far as President Wayland, that justification by faith is a series of repeated acts every moment of a man's life, a series of acts on the part of God to a justified believer, pardoning him. Whether this is so or not I do not know, but I do believe with respect to our inmost spiritual condition, we stand only upon the ground of the atoning merit of Christ, and are saved only as we continually exercise real faith in the great atonement, or, as it is said sometimes, in a phrase I never exactly liked, "being kept under the blood."

"Every moment, Lord, I need
The merit of Thy death."

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 11.

On Human Infirmities

QUESTION: Do infirmities partake of the nature of sin?

ANSWER: No. They are failures to keep the law of perfect obedience given to Adam in Eden. This law no man on earth can keep, since sin has impaired the powers of universal humanity. Sin is a voluntary offense against the law of Christ, the law of love. Infirmities are an involuntary outflow from a hereditary, imperfect organization. They have their ground in our physical nature, aggravated by intellectual deficiencies. Sin roots itself in a perverse will, the core of the moral nature. Infirmities entail regret and humiliation. Sin always produces guilt. Infirmities in well-instructed souls do not interrupt communion with God, but sin cuts the telegraphic wire. Infirmities hidden from ourselves, as believing souls are unconditionally covered by the blood of Christ.They are without remedy so long as we are in the body. A thousand infirmities are consistent with perfect love, but not one sin. Says Wesley: "I apprehend that involuntary transgressions are naturally consequent on the ignorances (Heb. 9:7, R.V., margin) and mistakes inseparable from mortality. Therefore sinless perfection is a phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself. I believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to involuntary transgressions."

"Every moment, Lord, I want

 The merit of thy death."

In view of this truth, it is eminently appropriate for the holiest soul on earth to say daily, "Forgive us our debts as we also havd forgiven (R.V.) our debtors."

— Steele's Answers pp. 70, 71.