Christ's death on the cross seems mysterious to many. It truly is mysterious, and if it does not seem that way to us today, it is only because the Gospel accounts have become familiar to us. So familiar that we no longer think about their mystery, taking everything described in them as...
Christ's death on the cross seems mysterious to many. It truly is mysterious, and if it does not seem that way to us today, it is only because the Gospel accounts have become familiar to us. So familiar that we no longer think about their mystery, taking everything described in them as common knowledge and self-evident. In reality, Jesus' death is an utterly incredible event. Not death on a cross - that can be explained by the sinfulness of fallen humanity - but the fact that death became reality for Him at all.
The matter is not only that He is the God-man: God's fullness in Him could be hidden, could become unconscious even for Him, and only He knows what He experienced at that moment. The state of God-forsakenness is familiar to us, and even in a certain sense habitual, and our nature corrupted by sin has adapted to such an abnormal existence for itself. But nothing of the kind can be said of Him: He was born and grew up conscious within Himself of God's fullness, and to lose it was for Him a trial we simply cannot imagine. The matter also lies in the fact that, for human nature in general - and for transformed human nature, such as the Savior's human nature is, especially - death is an unnatural phenomenon. To us it seems natural, and in a certain sense it truly is natural for us, but only in the sense in which, for example, the presence in an addict's body of the drug that is killing him is "natural." For normal human nature, death is something unnatural, and for transformed nature it is directly impossible.
How then could the Savior die, even from the point of view of His own humanity? Death obviously could not have become reality for Him in any way unless... unless He Himself, absolutely voluntarily, fulfilling the Father's will, consented and resolved to enter it. To come into contact with it. To make it voluntarily, for Himself and for His own existence, just as real as it is real for us apart from our will. To do this for our sake - because otherwise even the fullness of the life of the Kingdom that He brought us would have remained incompatible with our fallen nature. God's fullness had to be brought into the world not simply in human nature; it had to enter the world clothed in mortal human nature, absolutely identical to our own in our present condition.
The only difference was that our mortality turned out to be the involuntary consequence of a sin committed by free choice, while His mortality was a temporary condition He voluntarily accepted upon Himself, unconnected with any sin. In this sense Jesus' death was truly absolutely voluntary: without any compulsion or necessity, He agreed to enter a condition entirely unnatural to Him and absolutely foreign to Him. Here He was moved not by necessity or inevitability, but by love - for the Father and for those whom He wants to save.
1
1:1 The elder - An appellation suited to a familiar letter, but upon a weighty subject. To the elect - That is, Christian.Kuria is undoubtedly a proper name, both here and in Jo2 1:5; for it was not then usual to apply the title of lady to any but the Roman empress; neither would such a manner of speaking have been suitable to the simplicity and dignity of the apostle.Whom - Both her and her children. I love in the truth - With unfeigned and holy love.
1:2 For the truth's sake, which abideth in us - As a living principle of faith and holiness.
1:3 Grace takes away guilt; mercy, misery: peace implies the abiding in grace and mercy. It includes the testimony of God's Spirit, both that we are his children, and that all our ways are acceptable to him. This is the very foretaste of heaven itself, where it is perfected. In truth and love - Or, faith and love, as St. Paul speaks. Faith and truth are here synonymous terms.
1:4 I found of thy children - Probably in their aunt's house, Jo2 1:13.Walking in the truth - In faith and love.
1:5 That which we had from the beginning - Of our Lord's ministry. Indeed it was, in some sense, from the beginning of the world. That we may love one another - More abundantly.
1:6 And this is the proof of true love, universal obedience built on the love of God. This - Love. Is the great commandment which ye have heard from the beginning - Of our preaching.
1:7 Carefully keep what ye have heard from the beginning, for many seducers are entered into the world, who confess not Jesus Christ that came in the flesh - Who disbelieve either his prophetic, or priestly, or kingly office. Whosoever does this is the seducer - From God. And the antichrist - Fighting against Christ.
1:8 That we lose not the things which we have wrought - Which every apostate does. But receive a full reward - Having fully employed all our talents to the glory of him that gave them.Here again the apostle modestly transfers it to himself.
1:9 Receive this as a certain rule: Whosoever transgresseth - Any law of God. Hath not God - For his Father and his God.He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ - Believing and obeying it. He hath both the Father and the Son - For his God.
1:10 If any came to you - Either as a teacher or a brother.And bring not this doctrine - That is, advance anything contrary to it. Receive him not into your house - As either a teacher or a brother - Neither bid him God speed - Give him no encouragement therein.
1:11 For he that biddeth him God speed - That gives him any encouragement, is accessory to his evil deeds.
1:12 Having many things to write, I was not minded to write now - Only of these, which were then peculiarly needful.
1:13 The children of thy elect or Christian sister - Absent, if not dead, when the apostle wrote this.