In “Memorials of the Ministry of G. V. W.” Edited by Mr. Dennett. Vol. 1, P. 345.
“From the beginning,” a remarkable expression. In the gospel it is, “In the beginning,” there as connected with the divine glory of the One who was the Son of God.
There was a difficulty the Spirit of God felt in writing of this subject, because “that which was from the beginning” was also the One of whom John could say, “Which we heard, which we have seen,” &c. John had not seen the divine glory in the abstract, but he had seen it in the One who was down here – God manifest in flesh.
“The life that was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” God never made a revelation of Himself except through the Son, whether in creation, in the reestablishing of things after the flood, in His dealings with Israel, or afterwards with the Church. There was no medium through which the divine glory found expression save through the Son. Everything that came out about God came out in the Son (p. 346).
This book is the expression of One who existed in Himself before the world was. God might have sent from heaven a description of Himself, but that was not His way. No; He sent the Man Christ Jesus, the Babe that was born and laid in the manger at Bethlehem. That is the One John is speaking of when he says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,” showing how completely the Lord had been there among them. John’s head had been on His bosom; He could wash their feet. “Concerning the word of life,” of might imply part of a thing, but this is rather about or concerning.
In verse 2 he speaks of the life itself. “The life was manifested.” They had seen this person, and in Him Eternal Life. The One who walked on the sea, who fasted forty days, He had got {sic} life in Himself, He had the reins of life in His hand. He could command Lazarus to come forth from the grave, and to return to the life which he had before; and so too the widow of Nain’s son. He could command them to cast out their nets, and draw all the fish together round the ship. All was under His control. But besides this He had life with the Father before the world was (p. 347).Mr. Bellett also, in his treatise on The Son of God, distinctly identifies His person with the Eternal Life that was with the Father, and shows it cannot be separated from what He is as God.
Extracts From Mr. Bellett.
There were, I doubt not, different apprehensions of Him different measures of faith touching His person in those who called on Him. He Himself owns, for instance, the faith of the centurion, in apprehending His personal glory to be beyond what He had found in Israel. But all this in no wise affects what we hear of Him, that He was the Son “in the bosom of the Father,” or “that Eternal Life which was with the Father,” and was manifested to us (pp. 6, 7).
“No man knoweth who the Son is but the Father” is a sentence which may well check our reasonings. And the word, that the Eternal Life was manifested to us, to give us fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:22(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:2)) distinctly utters the inestimable mystery of the Son being of the Godhead, having “Eternal Life” with the Father.
And again, as we well know, it is written, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” I ask, can any but God declare God? (pp. 9, 10).
In the bosom of the Father He was – there lay the Eternal Life with the Father, God and yet with God (p. 15).
And still further, in each stage of this journey we see Him awakening the equal and full delight of God, all and as much His joy at the end as at the beginning, though with this privilege and glory, that He has awakened it in a blissful and wondrous variety. This blessed thought Scripture also enables us to follow. As He lay in the bosom through eternity, we need not (for we cannot) speak of this joy (p. 16).
If the soul were but impregnated with the thought, that this blessed One (seen where He may be, or as He may be) was the very One who from all eternity lay in the divine bosom, if such a thought were kept vivid in the soul by the Holy Ghost, it would arrest many a tendency in the mind which now defiles it. He that was in the Virgin’s womb was the same that was in the Father’s bosom! What a thought! Isaiah’s enthroned Jehovah whom the winged seraphim worshiped, was Jesus of Galilee!
Let the soul be imbued with this mystery, and many a rising thought of the mind will get its answer at once.
Who would talk, as some have talked, in the presence of such mystery as this! Let this glory be but discovered by the soul, and the wing will be covering the face again, and the shoe will be taken off the foot again (p. 19).Mr. J. B.
Stoney himself, before these views were developed bears in 1885 the same testimony, that this Eternal Life was essentially divine, viz., the life that the Son had in common with the Father, which was fully displayed here below, and is given to us.
Extracts From Mr. Stoney
It is in the eternal life only that we could have fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is every way of the deepest importance that we should see that the eternal life is an entirely new existence, never possible among men till the Son came, and then it was for the first time manifested. The nature and measure of the life which the saints had before the coming of Christ I cannot determine all I can insist on is that the eternal life which was with the Father, as the very terms “with the Father” show could not be manifested unto us until the Son came. The Son of Man down here, manifested unto us the life He had in common with the Father, and He then, as the “last Adam,” gives us this eternal life (John 17:22As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. (John 17:2)).
We start, then, with the simple fact that the Eternal Life was never manifested in a man until the Son came and He was the virtual and actual expression of that life down here (A Voice to the Faithful, vol. 19, p. 56).
Men of God acted for Him here in divine power according to the measure in which He was pleased to reveal Himself. He was never declared to any of them as Father; until the Son came this could not be. “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” The life of God is manifested by a Man on this earth (pp. 56, 57).
The Son of man is to be lifted up, crucified, made an offering for sin, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This life is heavenly in its nature, tastes, and interests. The blessed Son humbled Himself, and became a Man. He came to do His Father’s will. He freely offered Himself. He, who knew no sin was made sin for us. He vindicates God on our side, that every one believing in Him may be in His life; not reinstated in the condition which man lost in judgment but in the life of the One who bore our judgment, so that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. This life is consequently entirely outside the ken of man (p. 57).
There was One now here who always did the things that pleased God. He was not trying to stand for God on this or that occasion, but He was in Himself a contradiction to everything that was not of God, as the light in the darkness. He was the exhibition of every divine beauty in every detail of His life. The life with the Father was manifested unto us; and that in the One who, because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, “likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death,” &c. (p. 59).
I have only to add that it is very evident, from John’s epistle, that very soon the Church lost the true idea of eternal life; so much so, that the apostle tells us that “these things are written that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” Let any one read 1 John 1, and in any degree apprehend the “fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (impossible to be enjoyed until the Son had come), and surely he will admit that the eternal life is an existence entirely apart from human ken.
Many believers have no idea of this life. They are assured, through grace, that their immortal souls will be happy in heaven – which they surely will – but they have no idea of possessing a new existence, capable of enjoying God, answering to His nature, and sharing in His thoughts and interests; one, too, in which we have fellowship with one another, and in which we come out in the obedience and walk of our Lord Jesus Christ on the earth (p. 63).
Various Extracts From Other Writers.
Could St. John affirm in plainer words that the Son had no beginning of existence, but that He abode with and in the Father before His assumption of our nature, and indeed from everlasting, than in those with which he begins his first epistle? He writes thus, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:1, 21That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) (1 John 1:1‑2)).
And then in the conclusion of his epistle he tells us that the Son is that life which here, in the beginning of it, he says was not made, but was Eternal and with the Father.
He writes, “And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and Eternal Life.”
But if the Son is the Life, and the life was with the Father and the same evangelist says, “And the Word was with God” (John 1:11In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)), then it is plain that the Son must be that Word which was everlastingly with and in the Father.
And as this Son is the Word, so God must be the Father.
Moreover the Son, according to St. John, is not merely “God,” but “Very God.” And therefore the Word which he tells us elsewhere was God is doubtless properly so too. And the Son Himself declares Himself to be that Life which the apostle tells us is eternally with the Father.
Thus, then, we see that the Son, the Word, and the Life are all declared to be with and in the Father (Athanasius Orations against the Arians).
The circumstance which, in my mind, places the matter beyond dispute is, that the same person is here most evidently spoken of as “the true God and ETERNAL LIFE.” It will be granted that a writer is the best interpreter of his own phraseology. Observe then the expression that he uses in the beginning of the epistle “The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and show unto you that ETERNAL LIFE, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” In these words it is admitted that the Eternal Life is a title given to Jesus Christ. Compare then the two passages. Is not the conclusion of the epistle a clear explanation of its beginning? (Discourses on the Principal Points of the Socinian Controversy, by Dr. Wardlaw, p. 59).
I would only ask you to compare with this the confession of the prophet, “Jehovah is the true God, He is the living God” (Jer. 10:1010But the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. (Jeremiah 10:10)). And here we have another invincible argument that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, very and eternal God. (Comment on the above by E. Bickersteth, Bishop of Exeter, The Rock of Ages, p. 77).
So numerous and clear are the arguments and the testimonies of Scripture in favor of the true deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrine can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-31In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:1‑3), is so clear; and so superior to all exception, that by no daring effort of either commentators or critics can it ever be overturned, or be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth (Griesbach’s Critical Testimony on this Scripture, p. 16).
Jesus was the Eternal Life which was at the side of the Father, in communion with Him, in equal intercourse with Him; that life of which all other existence . . . depends for its license to exist. (Dorner’s Doctrine of the Person of Christ.)
Now these extracts from various writers, though they have not authority over us as the word of God has, show what has at all times been the faith of God’s elect; and that it has been generally held by Christian writers that Christ Himself is spoken of personally and divinely as the Eternal Life, or as the Word of Life in 1 John 1, and that this especially characterizes what He is, and the relation in which He stands to us. The editor of A Voice to the Faithful {J. B. Stoney}
shows us plainly, in his paper on Eternal Life, that in February, 1885, he had not adopted the views we are combating, and that they do not originate from him, though he has since allowed himself to be drawn into them. On the contrary, he expresses fully, with a sense of their value and importance, the thoughts he now opposes, and guarantees them to us in every important particular. Eternal Life is what Christ had in common with the Father, that He gives us this Eternal Life, that He manifested and expressed this life of God here on this earth, in all its perfections and in every detail of His life, that it is a new existence, received by the sinner on believing, and that He is our life. So that the delusive outcry now raised, that this involves participation in Godhead, is just as applicable, if it has any force at all, to all these writers from the very commencement, including J. B. S. who now, in his signature attached to Mr. Anstey’s paper virtually condemns himself as guilty of such profanity, in what he then taught. The only writers who have ever questioned these views, or opposed the thought of the Eternal Life being a personal title of Christ, and what He was in eternity, are such as are unsound as to the Godhead of the Lord.
We see, however, in painful contrast with these Extracts in a paper by F. E. R. in A Voice to the Faithful for January 1886, nearly a year after Mr. Stoney’s article, the first germs of these doctrines.
I have doubted sometimes if it be sufficiently seen that when life is spoken of in Scripture, it is presented to us as a moral state into which one is brought through faith (“the Just shall live by faith”), to which the nature begotten in the believer of the Spirit by the word necessarily answers.
I think the passages cited show that the idea of life, in the first revelation of it in Scripture, is a moral order of things into which the believer enters through grace.
And in chapter 5, the apostle reverts to the fact of the Eternal Life being in the Son, and ends with the expression, “He is the true God and Eternal Life”; that is, that Eternal Life means a new order of things, so far as man is concerned, true only in the Son, and in believers as abiding in Him.
My impression is that it is in this way life is presented in Scripture; not so much as a deposit in the believer though indeed Christ lives in him in the power of the Spirit, but as a state of blessing, whether in Christ in glory, or under Christ on the earth.
The question is, Are we to give up truth which we have held and valued as the truth of God for so many years surrendering it for a view which is received by Unitarians alone – who deprive Him of the proper and essential glory of His person, which they have seen plainly enough (if Brethren do not) is involved in this question. This will be seen in the statement given in the following pages, made in reply to enquiries by a brother to a late Minister of that body, and since verified by himself.
Unitarian Statement on Eternal Life.
I understand “that eternal life which was with the Father” not to be Christ personally, but to refer to the life that was manifested in Him when on earth. He manifested the life of God. He did not manifest that life to the unbelieving world, but only to His disciples. This I hold to be the explanation of the words, “How is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” In other words, “that eternal life which was with the Father” was the life of God, lived on earth by Jesus Christ Godward – never lived on earth before He lived it, and distinguishable from earthly life.
As to 1 John 5:2020And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:20), I take “This is the true God” to refer to God (the Father), it is His title; but the following words, “and eternal life,” are not a title of Jesus Christ though the eternal life there spoken of was manifested in Him. I believe that God was in Him when He was a babe in the manger, for Scripture says God was Christ, but that as a babe in the manger He was not the Exhibition of eternal life, nor until some time afterwards, it being necessary in order to the manifestation that He should be understood by those to whom He did manifest it. This required spiritual perception, and eternal life was only manifested to those who had this spiritual perception.
There is no doubt but that the language in the first verse of the First Epistle of John refers to a person, and that person was Jesus, whom they handled, looked upon –with natural eyes, of course – and heard; but “that eternal life” which was with the Father was not the person. Two things are alluded to in verses 1 and 2 (the latter being a parenthesis), viz., the person of Jesus, and the eternal life which was in Him, but these two things are distinct, i.e., the person is not the life, neither is the life the person.
If the pronouns “that” and “which” could be fairly rendered in the neuter in the Greek, as they undoubtedly stand in our English translation, then it would be sound reasoning to argue that their reference is to the life and not to the person; but it all turns upon what the apostle John really said in the original language, and not what we believe about it.
With certain reservations I would admit that Christ was eternal life, i.e. He lived it, and taught men the doctrine of it, He Himself being the expression of it; though I think it would be more correct to say it was characteristic of Him, as all His life could not be said to be the expression of eternal life, He having earthly relationships and duties to fulfill distinct from His mission as a teacher come from God. But while with the above reservations I would admit that Christ was eternal life, yet I would not say He was The Eternal Life, still less that eternal life was Christ, because that would be to ascribe a personality to an attribute, and, as I have before said, in reference to 1 John 5:2020And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. (1 John 5:20), I do not hold that eternal life is an essential title of Jesus Christ. Eternal life is not Deity, inasmuch as it could be expressed in the man Christ Jesus, and through Him imparted to men. Deity belongs only to God, and if I were to admit that “that eternal life which was with the Father” was in itself Deity I should immediately be on Trinitarian ground.
We are far from saying that either Mr. Raven or his followers are Unitarians, but we take the fact of this similarity as affording remarkable evidence of the dangerous character of this system of reasoning, and, along with the further development which has led to dividing the Person, and the apparent intrusion of manhood into the Godhead of the Son it is enough to show, to any who have their eyes open, where these doctrines are leading and will ultimately land their adherents. God has allowed this warning to reach His saints.
Will it be listened to, or refused as other warnings have been?
We shall have fulfilled our duty in placing it before them whatever may be the result.
We are conscious of no feeling but of love toward them and have no wish either to irritate or pain them needlessly, far from it; but as we expect to meet them in heaven, we would arouse them, if possible, to a sense of the dishonor we are sure they are unconsciously allowing towards the Lord who bought them.
It is on Mr. Raven’s letters that we can alone depend with certainty in seeking to ascertain the nature of the views held by him. Mere verbal statements, drawn out of him with an evident object, by those who have sought to defend his views, are of little worth.
It will be seen that some of the letters here given have not before been printed, they are therefore given in full, with some fresh extracts, which have only reached the author in part, along with other passages from letters already printed, added in order to complete the view of the writer’s sentiments.
Extracts and Letters From Mr. Raven.
Extracts Already in Print.
Eternal Life is a condition, but existing and expressed in such a way in a person, that it can be said of Him, He is it.
I should still hesitate to say that Eternal Life is presented as a principle of living” (July 16th, 1890).
I do not find in scripture that the term “Eternal Life” is employed save in connection with manhood either in the Son or us. When the Son is viewed, as in the gospel, as a divine Person, other terms are employed (Nov. 21st, 1890 Letter to J. W., Dublin).
It was in essence with the Father in eternity (Printed Letter to J. S. O ., Dec. 6th, 1889).
Scripture does not speak of Christ having been the Eternal Life which was with the Father before the world was (March 6th, 1890, to W . Barker).
But until He had passed out of the condition into which He had in grace entered, where He might die, and had entered on a new condition in resurrection, in every way commensurate with what He had been spiritually, I could not say He was fully revealed as Eternal Life (Nov. 13th 1890, to A. L., Dublin).
Scripture does not say that Eternal Life is Christ, but that Christ is Eternal Life, i.e. that the heavenly condition of relationship and being, in which Eternal Life consists exists, and is embodied and expressed in Him (Letter printed by Mr. Champney, p. 19).
Other Statements of Mr. Raven.
All I meant by “in essence” was, that it was not in form with the Father until the Son became man; but, as I said the being and, in a sense, the relationship was there, but I judge the thought of eternal life always had man in view.
Eternal Life is a condition, but existing and expressed in such a way, in a Person, that it can be said of Him, He is it (Greenwich, July 25th, 1890).
I do not accept the assertion of some, that eternal life is an essential title of the Son of God. I am sure it cannot be maintained. I believe it to be a term indicating a condition which, according the counsel of God, was to characterize man, and which has now been made manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ. That which was to characterize man was what had been in the Son eternally with the Father, and was in due time revealed in the Second Man the One out of heaven. But what characterized the Second Man could not include all that was true of a divine Person as self-existent, having life in Himself, omnipotence omniscience, and many other attributes of a divine Person and yet it does include what He was morally in righteousness, love, holiness, truth, and nearness to the Father (August 25th, 1890).
As the second Man, He is the pattern of the heavenly family – “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:4848As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. (1 Corinthians 15:48)). Hence, when I view Him thus (though in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily), I think of Him in connection with the family – of what is true in Him and in them (1 John 2:88Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. (1 John 2:8)). “As He is so are we in this world” (1 John 4:1717Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:17)). And this in itself does not involve all that is true of a divine Person, as self-existent, having life in Himself, etc., etc., or it would be true also of us, which is impossible (Nov. 25th, 1890).
As far as I can gather, he (Mr. Rule) regards Eternal Life as the life of the Son as a divine Person, as, in fact equivalent to “In Him was life”; while I regard it as a condition which, although ever existing essentially in the Son, is presented in Scripture as characteristic of the Second Man . . . I fail to find in any of the gospels the statement that Christ is eternal life. On the contrary eternal life there refers without exception to something given to man, or into which man is to enter (Sept. 17th 1890).
Hence I conclude that eternal life is a truth which is connected with man, whether in Christ or in us . . . I believe eternal life is what He is now as man, but then it takes its character from what He was eternally as divine.
But I believe eternal life to be the life of man, according to the purpose of God, and what has come out fully in Christ in resurrection, though manifested in Him even before . In a word, I believe eternal life to mean a new man in a new scene for man (Greenwich, Oct. 12th, 1890).
It is, I judge, a grave mistake to make any essential difference between Eternal Life as presented in Paul’s writings and in John’s (Greenwich, Oct. 29th, 1890).
Questions Addressed in a Letter to Mr. Raven
Is it true that you hold that Eternal Life is an essence or sphere apart from Christ?
Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is and was from the beginning that Eternal Life which was with the Father?
Do you hold that a Christian attending to his earthly calling is not manifesting Eternal Life whilst thus engaged?
Why not, if we do all to His glory?
Reply to the Above Letter.
June 18th, 1890. “Dear Mrs. S., – I readily answer your letter. But I must say that I can only characterize the statement (from whoever it may come) that I hold any evil doctrine as to the divinity of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as shameful untruth. The tendency of what I have maintained is to keep the truth of what He is as a true divine Person distinct from purpose in Him of blessing for man.
The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, and other titles which speak of the true Deity of Christ, are not interchangeable with eternal life. He is the true God AND eternal life.
To answer your questions. I do not hold that Eternal Life is an essence or sphere apart from Christ, though I have no doubt that the apprehension of the new and heavenly sphere is essential to the entering into Eternal Life.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life; that eternal life was manifested in Him here and eternally in Him (in essence, i.e. not in form of man)with the Father.
Eternal life is heavenly (John 3:1212If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? (John 3:12)), and has in itse lf nothing to do with earthly calling, &c. For us its form and character is to know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ His sent One. I do not know where Scripture speaks of any one manifesting eternal life. What it does say is that it has been manifested, a special revelation, so to say, to the apostles that they m ight declare it.
They apprehended in some way the out-of-the-world heavenly relationship and being in which eternal life consists. The more we are in the power of it the better we shall do all here to the glory of God; but all this will pass away, and Eternal Life abide.
(Signed) F. E. RAVEN
July 2nd. My dear brother, – I am glad to answer your letter; and as to the various points you mention would say that the statement about John 5:2626For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; (John 5:26) is untrue, and has no foundation. I refer the passage, as every one else, to the hour that now is.
As to eternal life not being a Person, a Person is eternal life – Christ is it; but when it was said that eternal life is a person by C. S. and that school, they meant that the eternal life and the Eternal Son were strictly equivalent.
This I believe to be very wrong, and clouding to the glory of the only begotten Son. As the risen glorious Man He is the Eternal Life; but then all that in which Eternal Life essentially consists (nature and relationship) was in the Son, ever with the Father, and manifested in Him when here after the flesh. But the eternal Son is a much greater thing than eternal life.
I send you an extract from the letter in which the statement “Think of an helpless infant,” &c. occurs. I think it speak s for itself. The exhibition of eternal life is in the risen Man who has annulled death.
The reference in my printed paper to certain statements having been withdrawn or modified was to statements by ____ ____ &c., not to statements of my own.
I think in the beginning of 1 John 1 the apostle gives prominence to the condition rather than the person –though the condition is inseparable from the person – at the same time the person is greater than the condition.
Believe me Your affectionate Brother, F. E. Raven P. S. – The moment is a trying one, but made less difficult through the mistakes of those who have acted.
To Mr. F. of Salisbury
The personality of Eternal life I do not understand – I understand the personality of the Father, Son, and Spirit –they are Persons; but I judge Eternal life to be a condition (of being and relationship) which was ever in the Son with the Father, and manifested in Him as a man here, and has now its full and proper expression in Him according to the counsels of God, as the risen glorious Man – “He is the true God and Eternal Life,” and we are in Him. The place of Eternal life is “with the Father”; and hence I do not understand its manifestation to the world. Scripture says it was manifested to us (the inspired writers), which implies a special grace to them to enable them to apprehend what was with the Father. Christ was the light of the world spoke the Father’s words, and did the Father’s works, but all that was a different thing to the manifestation of Eternal life – God’s purpose and promise for man.
F. E. R.
To J. W. B.
In regard to Eternal Life it seems to me that it is a kind of technical expression, indicating an order and state of blessing purposed and prepared of God for man . . . so that Eternal Life is objective and practical rather than subjective – a sphere and order of blessing
(May 1, 1888).
To W. Barker
How you can say that my interpretation of 1 John 1 sweeps away Christ as being Himself the Eternal Life I am at a loss to understand. I admit Eternal life to be state, as it has been said, a condition of being and relationship, and this was at least in essence in the Son in eternity (Feb. 10 1890).
Extracts From Mr. Raven’s Writings Already Printed
Expressive of His Views on Eternal Life.
I should not quite like to say that Eternal Life is the life of God (Letter, Oct. 17, 1890, to J. W ., Dublin).
Royal Naval College Greenwich
December 16th, 1890.
My dear Brother,–
I am glad to answer your letter, and I trust to clear up the point you mention. I doubt if the words you quote are exactly what I have written; but I have said more than once that the term Eternal Life in Scripture always stands in connection with manhood whether in Christ or in us. To deduce from this that Christ became Eternal Life in incarnation is wholly unwarrantable, and contrary to Scripture.
In declaring tha t Eternal Life which was with the Father the apostle speaks of what was “from the beginning,” i.e.
from the incarnation. This indicates that he speaks of the Son as man; but then Eternal Life is not what He took in becoming Man, but what He brought into manhood. As to what it is essentially, it was ever in Him with the Father.
Hence Christ could say, “No man hath ascended to heaven but He which came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven.” And again, “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before.” And Paul says, “The Second Man is out of heaven.”
This certainly could not be said of the Son of man as to form; but it could and is as to purpose, and as to all that He is essentially. What the Son ever was in nature (or moral being) and in relationship with the Father now, gives its character as far as it can to manhood, and is fully revealed in Christ risen, though He is also the true God.
Hence Eternal Life was with the Father, and ever so. I have objected, and do object strongly, to the deification of Eternal Life on the one hand, and on the other to its connection with man in his state as a living man here on earth. It reaches us through death and resurrection, and involves a new order of being.
It has been said by a brother in Dublin that Eternal Life is the life of God. This is what I should call irreverence.
May the Lord give grace and courage for the defense of the truth. I am sure it is a critical moment.
With love in the Lord,
Your affectionate Brother (Signed)
F. E. Raven
Written to A. J. P.
Royal Naval College, Greenwich
October 30th 1890
Dear Brother,
– I saw a letter of y ours (to Cutting, I think) in which you expressed a difficulty in understanding a sentence in a paper of mine, viz., “It (Eternal life) was ever an integral part of the person of the blessed Son, but such as could according to the divine counsel be connected with manhood and be imparted to man.” I thought, therefore I would send you a line as to it. What is meant by it is this that while Eternal Life would cover all that Christ is morally, it does not include attributes which are properly divine, and which belong to the eternal Son. He has His own proper glory which is given to Him, even though He has become Man.
There are things which are common between the Father and Son as are seen in John 5 and there are things which are common, so to say, between the Son and us; what is true in Him and in us – as eternal life. In the connection in which things stand in Scripture I do not see that eternal life ever goes beyond man whether Christ or us. In the First Epistle of John it is what was from the beginning (the incarnation) in a man (though essentially it was ever with the Father, as the Second Man is out of heaven). When we come, as in John’s gospel, to the revelation of Christ’s person, other expressions are employed, as, “In Him was life” – as self-existent – which cannot be common between Christ and us. It is here what was in the beginning.
The same glorious Person who is now the full revelation of eternal life – the pattern of the heavenly family – is also the true God; He has life in Himself, we have life in eating Him, but morally we are as He is.
I trust this may serve to make the point plain.
I fear you have trying times in the States as we have in England. There is a distinct retrograde movement from the truth.
With love in the Lord, Your affectionate Brother (Signed) F. E. Raven
(To F. L.)
His (Mr. Rule’s) object is to identify Eternal Life with the life of the eternal Son as a divine Person (in Him was life). . . The statements as to the Son in the gospels are not all to be merged and lost in the truth of Eternal Life. Mr. Rule in his zeal for Eternal Life seems to me to be fast letting go the true deity of Christ. He says the Eternal Son ever was, is, and ever will be in His glorious person and eternal being the Eternal Life.” The phrase is high sounding! but where does he find it in Scripture (Greenwich, Jan. 29, 1891).
Extract and Letter of Mr. Darby’s on Truths of This Nature Are Here Added
The apostle then tells Timothy of the safeguard on which he may rely to preserve himself, through grace, steadfast in the truth, and in the enjoyment of the salvation of God.
Security rests upon the certainty of the immediate origin of the doctrine which he had received; and upon the Scriptures, received as authentic and inspired documents which announced the will, the acts, the counsels, and even the nature of God. We abide in that which we have learned, because we know from whom we have learned it.
The principle is simple and very important. We advance in divine knowledge, but (so far as we are taught of God) we never give up for new opinions that which we have learned from an immediately divine source, knowing that it is so (Synopsis, vol. 5., p. 222).
N e w York, Dec. 10th, 1874.
Beloved Brother, –
We must take care not to pretend to know all that concerns the union of humanity and divinity in the person of the Lord. This union is inscrutable. “No man knoweth the Son but the Father.” Jesus grew in wisdom. What has made some Christians fall into such grave errors is that they have wished to distinguish and explain the condition of Christ as man. We know that He was and that He is God; we know that He became man and the witness to His true divinity is maintained, in that state of humiliation, by the inscrutability of the union. One may show that certain views detract from His glory, and from the truth of His person, but I earnestly desire that brethren should not set to work to dogmatize as to His person; they would assuredly fall into some error. I never saw any one do it without falling into some unintentional heresy. To show that an explanation is false, in order to preserve souls from the evil consequences of the error, and to pretend to explain the Person of the Lord, are two different things (from the French. Letters of J. N. D., vol. 2, p. 368).
N. B. – Italics are introduced everywhere to mark important passages.