NOVEMBER 25TH, 1889
[p. 6] NOVEMBER 25TH, 1889
In reply to Mr. W. J. Lowe.
My Dear Brother, — Your putting ‘formally’ before me the proofs of the systematic character of evil teaching with which I am charged necessitates some reply as I suppose it to be on your part a preliminary to other steps.
Finding this I accept your disavowal of personal feeling and expression of unfeigned affection and I think I can avow the same toward you. It has been a trying experience to me to find myself in a position of antagonism toward you. I had thought after the meeting at Oliphant’s more than a year ago that there was but little substantial difference of thought between us and I know of nothing which has since come to light to justify the extreme expression with which your letter closes.
In examining your letter I must first remark on the slender premises on which the charge of an evil system of doctrine is based: a passage from a letter — a supposition of something said at a reading — an expression from a paper written two years ago (as to which paper you spoke to me at the time taking no exception to it) an extract from a letter to a brother — a statement at a reading: these are for the most part taken out of their connection: read in their place their meaning is clear enough, but stated by themselves their meaning may not be apparent. No brother can pretend to inspired accuracy of language and if a charge of heresy is to be based on such premises as these, no teacher would be safe. It is a human way of proceeding and not a movement of the Spirit of God and ought, I believe, to be resisted to the utmost. The practice of teachers watching one another to find out proofs of heresy is not of God. I do not for a moment pretend that my thoughts on the points in question are absolutely right or the thoughts of others absolutely wrong. I apprehend they are matters on which with patience [p. 7] light might be obtained from Scripture: but I affirm that what I have expressed as to them at one time and another has had simple reference to each point in itself and is not the outcome of any system existing in my mind save the system of Scripture so far as it has been formed there.
Before referring to the main points of righteousness, relationship and life, I touch on some points of detail: as to life and its manifestation in the Son of God I need say but a few words. What you state has mostly reference to the testimony which He who was the Light of the world bore to the Father here, and it is with this that the responsibility of the world was connected. They could not be won by the greatest testimony that could be presented to them. The prominent thought in the gospel of John is the revelation of the Father in the Son with the gift of eternal life to those given of the Father to the Son and the promise of the Comforter. Eternal life is a subject elsewhere unfolded. I can only express here what I have felt in regard to statements advanced by others that to make eternal life (which in its main force in Scripture refers to purpose of blessing for man) to be descriptive of all that was seen in Christ is on the one side seriously to obscure His true Deity (which is the prominent subject in John’s gospel) and on the other the real part which He took in human life in its conditions down here and which in death He gave up never to resume.
Another point is that of knowledge in connection with John 17:3, and here I have some difficulty in apprehending your meaning. You say that knowledge belongs to the revelation made and is received in faith and when so received is possessed: and again that the knowledge which is implied in the revelation made is received by faith and is a perfect thing in itself.
I admit and so does everybody that the revelation is complete and is received in faith and that knowledge [p. 8] is inherent in the revelation. The revelation is received because it commends itself to the heart and conscience as God’s word not because it is known and I am at a loss to understand the idea of knowledge being received by faith, and that as a perfect thing in itself Knowledge is in part and will always be so here (1 Corinthians 13:12) and is in proportion as the revelation is wrought in us by grace. All knowledge is in the revelation but certainly not yet in us. I doubt not that a man’s spiritual stature is pretty much the measure of his real knowledge though all be his to be known. But I do not think this explains John 17:3.
The verse gives the form and character to us of eternal life and the ‘know’ means, I judge, the knowing which involves a kindred nature as “I know my sheep and am known of mine, as the Father knoweth me even so know I the Father”, (John 10:15) though the objects must have been revealed to be thus known. I do not reject here the conclusion to which you seek to push me that the verse involves the presence of the Spirit in the believer.
This effort to make knowledge entirely objective I regard as very erroneous and tending to destroy the formative value of revelation. As to the expression ‘moral state’ or ‘state of blessing’ in connection with eternal life, I only remark that eternal life means for us a wholly new order of things for which we have to eat Christ’s flesh and drink His blood and the seat of which is in Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.
As to what is implied in the distinctive names of the Father and Jesus Christ, His sent One, I say that as to what is distinctive, which was my point in my lecture at Quemerford, grace in its counsels and movements is what is distinctly connected with the Father’s Name: while the accomplishment of those counsels belongs to the Son and for this end He has become Man and died and all judgment is committed to Him to secure His being honoured by all as is the Father. Your quotation from 1 Peter 1:17 is nothing to the [p. 9] point — it is simply that the God who judges according to every man’s work is invoked as Father by christians.
Now I come to the main points of your letter, namely, righteousness, life and relationship: and here I am bound to say that the defect which is apparent in your apprehension of these subjects really disqualifies you for passing judgment on what I have put forward. But to begin with, the peculiar force of the expression “in Christ” (and I do not think ‘with Christ’ in your sense is found in Ephesians) as denoting the distinctive position of the church in connection with eternal calling in the heavenly places and in the ages to come is frittered away. Your enquiry ‘Where in Scripture is “in Christ” or “in Him” used to denote our conformity to Christ in glory?’ is in the face of Ephesians 1:4 perfectly astounding. At the same time our becoming the righteousness of God in Christ as the fruit of Christ’s having been made sin for us is levelled down to the truth of Romans 4, and made to be a mere question of justification in respect of guilt eked out by a vague reference to new creation. In 2 Corinthians 5:21 the subject. is a wholly distinct one not of guilt but of state. Again by reasoning from nature, relationship and eternal life are made by you to be the consequence of new birth. I say they are the consequences of the gospel though a man must be born to see or believe the gospel. Relationship and eternal life do not belong to the old man but to the new, and though of the grace of God and received through the gospel they are true to the believer only in the having put off the ‘old man’ and put on the new and this is more than new birth.
But your system is ruinous for it cuts away the whole fabric of experimental christianity. Life and relationship are detached from the great characteristic truth of our salvation, namely, the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, in other words, from heavenly ground and heavenly state. The entry by Christ’s death and resurrection on to new and heavenly ground with consequent deliverance from flesh and the world, as well as the formation of Christ in the christian (as to which the apostle travailed again in birth in regard to the Galatians) by the testimony presented to him, is all swept away. For you all has been effected by new birth and yet as to relationship the testimony of Scripture is “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14) and it is by the Spirit of adoption that we cry “Abba Father”. I know the effort to exclude from John’s writings the light of Paul’s — but in principle there is no difference between them. With John eternal life is in the Son (not said to be in us): the three witnesses to us are the Spirit and the water and the blood, and it is not until the Spirit is received that the results of redemption, the power and efficacy of the water and blood, are really known. The one who eats Christ’s flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life.
Without indulging in any strong language I believe you to be wholly wrong; your doctrine appears to be new birth, perfect knowledge received as a whole by faith and then known by the Holy Spirit. I do not accept it: it savours to me far too much of Mr. Grant’s system.
F E. Raven.