“He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” The italicized pronoun is in the original Greek a word of vivid force. The English reader naturally is unaware of any special emphasis. But it is there, and that in a marked degree. Several times indeed John uses it in this Epistle in reference to our Lord. And it has been beautifully observed by the late Archbishop Alexander that the thought of his Lord, and of the perfect life which he himself had portrayed in the Fourth Gospel, the scroll of which, may be, was beside him as he wrote, half hushes the apostle’s voice, and so instead of mentioning the revered name, which all who loved it would easily supply, he consequently merely says “that One” (ἐκεῖνος), that great, that adorable One. This comment is as just and well-warranted as it is exquisitely beautiful.
“He that says he abides in him.” Have we not here in brief the concentrated doctrine of John 15:1-71I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 2Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 5I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 6If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:1‑7)? And then the tense in which the apostle refers to the Savior’s walk sums it all up, as it were. It is the aorist (περιεπάτησε), and presents that spotless life as a perfect whole. Contrariwise, and most appropriately, in the admonition to the professor he enforces the necessity of ever walking as He walked. In short it is the present infinitive, περιπατεῖν.
What endless beauties, “lights and perfections” (may one not say?) are to be found by the reverent student of the holy word!
R. B.