It is probable that J.N.D.'s rendering of this verse is more exact, and a more adequate presentment of the original than the translation as it stands in the A.V. or the R.V. No doubt both the latter give the force substantially, though, as I shall endeavor to show, less forcibly than the Greek has it. For there can be no doubt that the stress is not so much on our Lord's coming per se, as on His coming in flesh. This is of supreme consequence, and the participial construction adopted by John charges the words with the profoundest meaning. For the all-important truth of the blessed Lord's true humanity was even then, thus early after His departure from the earth, being weakened and denied. And even still the enemy has subtly sought to swamp this truth, though the more prominent error of to-day may be the denial of His deity. Either denial is fatal.
Happy are they who hold to both these cardinal truths without essaying to understand the inscrutable mystery of His Person.
Now here the apostle is insistent in pressing upon us that the incarnation was a most real, as also a most vital fact. It was essential that the Lord should so come, if the human race was to have a Savior. It is true that our Lord might have come in some other way. The limitations that bind the race of Adam were not obligatory on Him. He had appeared of old oftentimes in angelic form, a subject to which we may presently return. We, of course, could not have come in any other way, as is somewhere forcibly remarked by the late Editor of the Bible Treasury. The Lord Jesus condescended to come in this way. And every spirit that owns Him thus come is of God.
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” Remark that nothing is here said of the atonement, or of any other capital truths. The apostles had none of what I must call the feverish anxiety that some excellent people betray to give all the truth in every discourse. Not so. There are times for insisting on special lines and aspects of the great circle of revelation. We have the profitable example of the apostle Paul, who fed the Corinthians with milk, not with meat, whilst to the Ephesians he could say, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:2727For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. (Acts 20:27); 1 Cor. 2:2,6; 3:12For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)
6Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: (1 Corinthians 2:6)
1And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:1)).
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” It is striking to note that the form of the word for “come” in the original is that very expressive participle of which the apostle John is so fond, viz., the perfect. Again and again he uses it in this Epistle, notably at the beginning of it, e.g., “That which we have seen and heard.” It has to do with the propounding of doctrine, a view confirmed by the fact that when historical retrospect is in question, the inspired writer uses the aorist. Most noticeable is the conjunction and contrast in 1 John 1 in the employment, surely neither accidentally nor indifferently, of both tenses in this sublime chapter. And how interesting to contrast the “We have seen and heard” (ἑωράκομεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν) of 1 John 1 with the “We saw and heard” (εἴδομεν καὶ ἠκούσαμεν) of Acts 4:2020For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. (Acts 4:20). The former is doctrinal, the latter testifies to the reality of their historical experience. And one may note, too, the special emphasis on the pronoun. “We (ἡμεῖς) saw and heard.” How beautiful, too, is the way in which these two passages, in Acts and in 1 John, corroborate one another. For, though Peter be linked with John here (that also a noteworthy fact), we have the latter holding the same language as a young man and very soon after the Ascension, as in that later day when, full of years, he wrote down under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that wonderful Epistle (1 John), which, in profundity of meaning and majestic calm, almost eclipses every other portion even of Holy Writ, always excepting his own Gospel.
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” As we have said, what is here asserted is the cardinal truth of the incarnation. But this also involves and carries with it all the rest. These concise statements are ever in the manner of John. He does not unfold and elaborate doctrine in the highly logical and systematic style of the apostle Paul. As another has said, we find in the Johannine writings not so much sequence of reasoning (though that also be surely there), but succession of contemplation. At least the latter is what most strikes the devout reader. Yet this apostle again and again contends for truths that are only rightly apprehended when held in concert with all the highly developed doctrines of Paul to which we have alluded. It were easy to give instances of similar statements, as profound as they are luminous, as comforting as they are searching, scattered through the pages of this most spiritual epistle. The apostle, as it were, gives them as so many marks, characteristics, cachets, if I may be allowed this rather mundane word, of the true believer as of every Christ-honoring spirit. The word of God, needless to say, would not have been complete without this special presentment of the truth, of which John was the chosen vehicle, and for which he was so admirably fitted by nature, life, age, and experience—the Holy Spirit, of course, dominating and purifying all. In him, as much as in Paul of Tarsus, is the fine saying of J.N.D. exemplified, viz., that while the same divine water flows through all the vessels that were the channels of revelation, that water takes the form of the vessel through which it flows.
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” He had come before in the semblance of flesh to many a favored patriarch of old. In particular, as bearing specially on our present subject, we may recall the story detailed in Gen. 32 And this brings us to the name of God, which our blessed Lord came expressly to declare— “came in flesh” to declare—so that it should no longer be a secret. And, though it be a digression from the main point of this little paper, yet the linking it on to what has gone before will not be arduous, and may be both comforting and edifying to the reader.
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” We go back then to that wonderful story, and will recollect how when Jacob set out to meet his deeply-wronged brother—the essential worldliness of Esau, it is needless to say, was no justification of Jacob's deceitfulness—he sent on flocks and herds in front to propitiate him, but now something transpired far beyond his calculations. For he was met by a mysterious visitant who assuredly was none other than the Son of God, afterward incarnate, and Jacob asked Him His name. But not then was the name revealed. We may surely say, with reverence, that God's name, in its fullness of blessing and mercy, could not be revealed then. It was necessary for Jesus Christ to come in flesh. It was necessary for the gospel story to be written down “for our learning,” for the word of God to be completed. Thus may we happily link together the former and the later oracles. Not to Jacob could the fullness of God's name be declared, although his blessing was not a slight one. Was he not a prince with God, and had he not prevailed? And we read, “He blessed him there.” Like all the pictures of this wonderful book, there is in it a perennial freshness, and I suppose no portion of the Old Testament is more attractive to the heart than these utterly veracious, because divinely-given, histories of the fathers of Israel.
“Jesus Christ come in flesh.” Yes, it was necessary for the Son of God so to come, if we were to be blessed according to the high purposes of God. For so only could His name be declared by Him in whom all the fullness dwelt bodily (Col. 2:99For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)). For the name of God connotes all His attributes, His mercy and His judgment. And, if the gospel light is so much more vivid than that granted in the old dispensation, we may not wonder that the shadows are so much darker. Even in natural things, as we know, the brighter the light the darker the shadow. May the light that is in us be not darkness!
R. B.