S. JOHN’S anxiety is to assert this for all

08 Aug S. JOHN’S anxiety is to assert this for all

“AND HE IS THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS; AND NOT FOR OURS ONLY, BUT ALSO FOR THE SINS OF THE WHOLE WORLD.” 1 S. John ii. 2.

* It is well to remember this, when we are gravely told that “Omnipotence itself cannot save obstinate sinners.” Now, in the matter of salvation we have an express assertion that even the camel can go https://1stamericanloan.com/installment-loans-al/ through the needle’s eye; for with God “ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.”

There Christ takes away the sin – regarded as one vast whole – of all humanity: here the sins, i

Notice here the world contrasted with the true disciples; and yet the propitiation is not to be confined to the few, it is for all.

Here, as so often, the narrower and wider purposes of salvation are both mentioned: the narrower not excluding, as in the popular view, but including and implying the wider; a truth of the deepest importance

“THE SON OF GOD WAS MANIFESTED THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL.” 1 S. John iii. 8.

The very purpose of the manifestation of God’s Son is here stated to be the sweeping away of Satan’s works. How then can this possibly be true, while pain and sin endure for ever? No ideas can be more exactly opposed than the permanence of evil, and yet the destruction of the works of the devil. Is sin, and all that sin involves, the work of the devil? Yes, or No? You cannot answer in the negative, if you accept the standpoint of Scripture. But, if the affirmative be true, then all hell and sin and sorrow are to be swept away.

Does it not savor of mockery to say that the Father sent the Son to destroy evil, and to save the world, and that the Son is victorious; and yet that neither shall evil be destroyed or the world saved?

Significant words; doubly significant when we remember that Christ had just used these keys to open the prison doors, in His Descent into Hades. How, if so, can death (the second, or any death) sever from Jesus Christ (Who holds the keys) – from His power to save?

“AND EVERY CREATURE WHICH IS IN HEAVEN, AND ON THE EARTH, AND UNDER THE EARTH, * * HEARD I SAYING UNTO HIM THAT SITS ON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB, BLESSINGS,” c. Rev. v. 13.

These words embrace every created thing – on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea. All are represented as swelling the chorus of praise to God, and to the Lamb. Yes, to such an end we trust and hope that all Creation is indeed coming, because we believe God’s distinct promise, that all things shall be made new. How else could all things join in this glorious chorus? Compare notes on Eph. i. 10; Phil. ii. 11.

“The sense of the whole seems to be that at the final consummation of all things, all evil, physical and moral, will be abolished.” – Bishop WARBURTON.

This is the same glorious hope, not for some, but for all; no less than all things are to be made new.

A thoughtful reader will note that this claims for God a position, which negatives a final dualism: as He was the Source, so He is the Goal of all things. God is the TERMINUS of Creation; the Stream shall return to its Source. The unconscious dualism of current theology is a barrier to any true apprehension of the thought of the Apostle, which seems to be the same as that S. PAUL expresses in Rom. xi. 36.