GREENWICH, JUNE 8TH, 1892

GREENWICH, JUNE 8TH, 1892

Mr. J. Edmondson.

My Dear Brother, — I send a line in reply to yours to say that, as regards my movements, I shall not be likely to be away from Greenwich this month. I may probably run away for a few days in the beginning of July and we may all be away for the month of August, but otherwise I am to be found here at any time and ^[p. 67] should be very glad to see you. If a bed were any convenience we would give it you.

I thank you for the paper you sent me and think that the article on eternal life fairly represents the common idea of Evangelical Christians on the subject. What the high churchman connects with baptism they connect with faith — but the main idea of life in itself is the same. I am not sure if J.A.T. is clear of this idea. I think your strictures on his paper are just, what he says does not alter my judgment. In the first epistle, John is speaking of what was from the beginning what they had seen, and hence (whatever it might be essentially) the thought of eternal life is connected with Christ as Man and the expression “which was with the Father” does not disprove it to my mind. It is to me a moral expression. I believe the common conception of life, as something having a substantive existence, is a material idea and not the thought of Scripture. The word ‘zoe’ is used in certainly three senses: (1) a blessing — a gift, i.e., relief from the judgment of death or the passing out of death into what is morally life; (2) morally, as character or moral being, the effect of quickening — in this sense Christ the living bread is the life of the soul; and (3) as energy. If Christ be in you the Spirit is life, but none of these senses gives the idea of a something substantive. As to God, He is — as to us we live spiritually, because we have been made alive in our souls by God’s power. It is the difference between the Creator and the creature, though morally we become partakers of the divine nature.

The word ‘bios’ appears to me to refer to natural life and is used for ‘living’, in the sense of that on which natural life is dependent, i.e., substance or circumstances. It is used in the Septuagint chiefly in Job and Proverbs in the sense of man’s life on the earth “his days”. In Song of Songs 8:7 it is “substance”.

I do not very much think there is any immediate ^[p. 68] prospect of my coming to Dublin. And the more I think of their paper at Westland Row the worse I regard it, but I am very thankful there are those there that do not approve it. I am very glad you are going on happily at Rathmines.

With love in the Lord,
Believe me,
Your affectionate brother,
F. E. Raven.