Since this paper went to the printer, there has been sent me a new tract written by Mr. Grant in reply to some of his reviewers, in which, as in his former tracts, he depends on John 15 for proof that saints before the cross were in the Son. And in defending his interpretation of this scripture, he shelters himself behind what seems to me a most pitiable subterfuge which exists only in his own imagination. Mr. Lowe had objected to his use of this scripture, and he replies to the objection thus: “Now, if John 15 really speaks of an eternal link at all, it would seem as if it would not be out of place to introduce it into the subject of this link of life! Mr. Lowe gives no just reason; for that these are branches not thus vitally connected is none. He forgets that here there are no ‘natural branches,’ that all are necessarily, according to the apostle’s figure, ‘grafted in,’ that grafts do not, as all know, invariably abide, that ‘abiding’ is a mark that the graft has struck — that is, has formed vital connection. All this surely takes nothing from the significance of the figure here” (page 26).
Here Mr. Grant confounds the figure of the “vine” with that of the “olive tree” in Romans 11, as if the subjects were the same. In Romans 11 the natural branches of the olive tree are broken off, and others grafted in. But here there is not a word about cutting off branches from one vine to replace them by grafts taken from another. It is not a replacing of branches but of vines. Israel as a vine is replaced by Christ as a vine. It is a new vine with its own branches without a word as to grafting, which is foreign to the subject, and a wrong figure as well, according to which, the branches which men gather and burn, are the little scions that have been grafted in, but have not “struck,” or “formed vital connection”! The absurdity of this everyone must see who knows anything about either grafting or vineyards. It stultifies the whole passage, and shows to what a desperate shift the author is driven in seeking to maintain what is utterly untenable.
In connection with this subject the author repeats a question of his former tract, “If life before Christ’s being on earth were not in the Son, how then?” He also tells us that, “The life is not in us independently, even when we have it; it is in Him, as the life of the branch is in the vine.” Now it seems to me he reasons on this whole subject as if those who do not receive his system deny that life was in the Son of old, and that in the saints it was dependent life. With me, at least, these have not been questions at all. “In Him was life,” and He was “that eternal life which was with the Father.” This is blessedly true; but who denies it? Nor is it in question, as far as I know, that the old saints had divine life. They surely had, and a life, too, which in its essence is eternal, though surely much more than this is involved in “eternal life” as we get it developed in the New Testament. But when the author tells us that the old saints had life in the Son, and that in virtue of this life they were in the Son, I believe he goes beyond Scripture, and has not a word of proof. It is not what characterized their faith at all. In all this he raises questions not raised in Scripture; and I believe they ought not to have been raised by him, but left as God’s Word leaves them. What is the profit in all this wretched reasoning which only serves to lay a false foundation for a false system? He asks if they had “independent life,” as if somebody believed they did! Is this a sober question? Surely life in all its forms, and in all God’s creatures down to the tiniest insect, or tiniest flower that grows is dependent life. All hangs upon the intrinsic power of Him who spoke it into existence. And surely divine life in the creature is dependent too. But it in no wise follows that the saints of old quickened by it, were, in virtue of this, in the Son. The whole thing, I believe, is a pure sophism, and can only mislead such as are willing to be led beyond the simple statements of God’s Word.