GREENWICH, JULY 25TH, 1890
GREENWICH, JULY 25TH, 1890
My Dear Brother, — I will endeavour to answer your questions, though it must be shortly, for I am much pressed.
(1) I should not like to say that Christ was not eternal life until after the resurrection, because all in which eternal life essentially consists in being and relationship was as true in Him before His death as after. Still it is when eternal life is in the heavenly, glorious condition, which the counsels of God purposed, that Christ is said to be “the true God and eternal life”. (1 John 5:20)
(2) All I meant by ‘in essence’ was that it was not in form with the Father until the Son became Man, but, as I said, the being, and, in a sense, the relationship was there, but I judge the thought of eternal life always had man in view. The wonderful thing being that the Son should connect Himself with manhood (become Son of man), and that we should be brought into that which is morally divine.
(3) I do not like the expression ‘exhibition of eternal life’, but if used at all, it could only apply to Christ as He is now — the last Adam — the glorious Man. When here in the flesh He had taken part in the life and circumstances of the first man (though as to His Person, the second), and hence in that condition it was no question of exhibition of eternal life, but of its manifestation by divine grace to chosen vessels, and to this John refers in the beginning of his epistle. In John 3 the Lord speaks of Himself as “the Son of man which is in heaven”, (John 3:13) though bodily He was on earth.
(4) In 1 John 5:20 you could not make ‘Jesus Christ’ and ‘eternal life’ reciprocal. It is predicated of Him that He is eternal life in the same way as He says of Himself, “I am the resurrection”, (John 11:25) etc. Eternal life is a condition, but existing and expressed in such a way in a person, that it can be said of Him He is it. But then that same Person is the true God and the only-begotten Son.
(5) What I meant by condition in 1 John was heavenly condition of relationship and being before the Father, which was manifested in the Son, and which we have in having Him. This is the subject of the epistle.
(6) When I think of the only-begotten Son, I think of Him in His own peculiar glory (we beheld His glory as of an only-begotten one with the Father) and the Giver of eternal life. If I think of Him as the eternal life, I think of Him as the glorious Man, though [p. 22] what gives its character to His manhood is what He was eternally and in a sense divinely.
(7) If we apprehend eternal life to consist in a condition of heavenly relationship and being, such as was ever in the Son, we can readily see that if He takes part in man’s responsible life here on earth, the two things must be distinct. It is the difference between what He brought and what He entered into here, and this last He left to enter into a new condition wholly suited to what He brought. I do not quite like the sentence you quote as the substance of a letter written by me early last year.
Eternal life when Christ was here was still with the Father; but this life before men was wholly consonant with it, and in words and works He bore testimony to the Father. I add that I have never wished any letters of mine to be kept secret, but at the same time I very much doubt the propriety of all correspondence between brothers becoming public property. It will soon put an end to all liberty of communication between brethren.
Finally we must distinguish in our minds between the eternal Son and eternal life; for the Son is the object of our adoration and worship. He had part in seen things here, but looking at eternal life abstractedly, I should say it has not, either in the Lord or in us.
F E. Raven.