UNKNOWN

UNKNOWN

There is much that is interesting in the distinction drawn in General H.’s letters in the Indian extracts, but it seems to me that what I would call the moral element is wanting in the force which he attaches to both the words psuche and zoe, and to the latter he gives, I judge, a too exclusively objective import.

^[p. 212] Psuche appears to me to be the actual living principle in a creature which animates the body, and uses it as a vehicle. Hence it is common between man and the brute creation — the difference with man being that psuche was in his case derived from the breath of God, and was therefore a living soul with moral elements and characteristics, and hence immortal. A character of responsibility also attached to it, and inseparable from this is the idea of individuality. Every man has his own soul, and soul is commonly used for person and to imply individuality. “The soul that sinneth it shall die”. Zoe on the other hand, though employed in more senses than one, is a general idea, not in itself conveying the idea of individuality. We can speak of our life or life in general. I may be mistaken, but my impression is that, like light, life is employed relatively in Scripture, i.e., in actual or implied contrast to death. Now death comes before us in two aspects, viz., moral and actual, hence we read “has annulled death and brought to light life and incorruptibility” — death here meaning distance from God and the power of the devil. In another scripture we have “Son, thou in thy lifetime”. Here life is evidently the period of a man’s natural life on earth, bounded by and closing in death or dissolution. Zoe is evidently, therefore, used both in a moral and actual sense. Now in the vast proportion of cases in which zoe is employed in the New Testament its force is undoubtedly moral. It is unquestionably used for life in the subjective sense, as “In him was life, and the life was the light of men”. Men saw One in whom was (morally) the life of God, and those who followed Him had the light of life. Hence I can well understand the thought of life being communicated to a soul: it is quickened, i.e., made to live in the appreciation and enjoyment of another (the Son), and it is said having ^[p. 213] the Son it has life. The Spirit is life if Christ be in us. The result is that life is manifested in character, the moral qualities of the life of God are seen in the believer, who, being in the fellowship of Christ’s death, is delivered from the flesh and its workings. And the body will be quickened so that it may be in every way a suitable vehicle for the quickened soul, and when this is the case life becomes an actual condition. Mortality will be swallowed up of life. Meantime the body is to be presented a living sacrifice. But zoe is also evidently used in an objective sense as indicating the conditions, i.e., the relationships and surroundings in which life practically consists, and therefore there is constantly connected with it the expression ‘enter into’. This is more often than not its force in the New Testament. It is specially the case where an adjective is attached to it, to characterise it, such as ‘eternal’. Many of Daniel’s people that sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to eternal life — the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. A man hates his life (psuche) in this world, and keeps it to life eternal, and the form in which eternal life is now realised is in the knowledge of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. The present condition of eternal life is faith, which apprehends the objects in the enjoyment of which that life is realised. It will be seen from the above that the senses of psuche and zoe are totally distinct, and that the one in no way displaces the other. In Christ was zoe, and He took a psuche, which had a moral character from the zoe (though His body was also the temple of God), and He could lay down His psuche (not zoe), and take it again; and further that the two senses in which zoe is employed with a moral force meet in the believer, faith coming in (so long as we are here) in the second sense.

^[p. 214] We did not seem able to escape the subject last night. I had told Mr. O. privately pretty much what I thought of his letter and had deprecated the matter being brought up but Mr. Higgins plunged us into it by raising the question of whether corporate or collective responsibilities were connected in Scripture with the house or with the body. I maintained that the body was Christ’s body, the vessel of the Spirit, and that being Christ’s body a true idea of the body did not go beyond the work of the Spirit in saints — that if responsibility could be spoken of in connection with the body it must belong to the Head and that the light of Scripture as to the body was given us to enable us intelligently to carry out our responsibilities as in the house. It seems to me that O. and others have the fear that something is being taken from them. They have depended on mere statements without apprehending their import. They divorce the baptism of saints by the Spirit into one body from the baptism of saints individually by the Spirit instead of seeing that the fact of all receiving one and the selfsame Spirit must necessarily form one body. They have the idea that by being formed into one body they gain something additional instead of seeing that it adds nothing but that thereby the Church is subjected to Christ. My impression is that the real defect lies in the want of knowledge of the gospel, and hence they are not prepared for the mystery. I think we distinctly gained ground though I felt much for O. He prayed nicely at the close.