1. Eternal Life:
In the Fourth Gospel Eternal Life takes the same place as the kingdom of God in the other three. The author is not, indeed, unaware that Jesus employed the latter phrase for the sum of the blessings brought by Him to the world; and it has already been remarked that the Synoptists occasionally employ "life" as an equivalent for the phrase they usually make use of. The reason of John's preference for his own phrase may have lain in some personal idiosyncrasy, or it may have been due to the Gentileenvironment in which he wrote. But the phrase is one suggestive and instructive in itself in the highest degree. It had already entered deeply into the language of religion before the time of Christ; indeed, in every part of Holy Writ the idea is common that separation from God is death, but that union with Him is life.
2. Its Source in God:
In the teaching of Jesus, as this is found in John, the world lies in death, because it has become separated from God, and the children of men are in danger of perishing everlastingly as the punishment of their sin; but "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life" (Joh 3:16).
3. Through the Son:
This life is, first, in God, who abides in everlasting blessedness; but it is not, even in Him, at rest, but agitated with an impulse to communicate itself. Then, it is in the Son--"For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself" (Joh 5:26); not, however, for Himself alone, but for the purpose of being communicated to those destitute of it. For this reason He was made flesh and dwelt among us; and He communicated it through His words, which were "words of eternal life." The words of Jesus, as thus bringing life, are the "light" of the world; and they are the "truth"--two favorite expressions of this Gospel--or He of whom they speak is Himself the light and the truth; He said Himself, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." He is in His word in such a way that, when it is received in the right spirit, He enters the soul personally--"ye in me, and I in you" (Joh 14:20). As food is taken into the body, to sustain life, so does He become the life of the soul; He is the "bread of life" and the "water of life" (Joh 6:35). As, however, bread has to be broken, before it is eaten, and water to be poured out, when it is drunk, so does the virtue which is in the Son of God only become available through His death--"I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world" (Joh 6:51).
4. Need of New Birth:
The world lying dead in sin, a new birth is required for those who are to enter into life; and this is necessary even for so fine a character as Nicodemus (Joh 3:3,5,7). Without this change, the children of men are insensible to Divine revelations; and even the children of privilege, who had enjoyed the Old Testament revelation, were indifferent to eternal life, when it came near to them in the person of Christ. Hence, there was required a special drawing on the part of God to awaken the sleeping soul--"No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him" (Joh 6:44); and, where this influence was not responded to, there might be the most violent and persistent opposition to Christ on the part of those who believed themselves to be the favorites of heaven. The new birth is accompanied with spiritual vision--"seeing the kingdom of God" (Joh 3:3)--and, throughout the Fourth Gospel, remarkable stress is laid on the virtue of such seeing or knowing. It leads so directly to faith that to "know" and to "believe" are virtually the same act (Joh 10:38). Faith is the reception into the soul of the life eternal, or of Him who has been discerned by the spiritual vision and who is Himself the life. It is the eating of the bread of life, the drinking of the water of life, and it makes and keeps alive.
5. Nature of Faith:
Since faith is thus the means whereby the eternal life becomes a personal possession, it is the one thing needful and the sum of all the commandments--"This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent" (Joh 6:29). It is the unique commandment, comprehending all the commandments, and it "worketh by love" toward the fulfillment of them all. What these are is, however, less brought out in detail in this Gospel than in the others, for it is a peculiarity of the mind of Jesus, as recorded by John, to deal with central principles and to assume that the consequences will follow as a matter of course. Of the organization, for example, of the community which was to perpetuate His influence, after He had left the world, He says much less in this Gospel than even in the Synoptists; yet He characterizes the very essence of the new body in such words as this, "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me" (Joh 17:23). In the last half of this saying there is a hint of the influence to be exerted on the outside world by the display of Christian character, with the result of producing belief; but this aim was to be sought more directly through testimony (Joh 15:27) and the "word" of the disciples (Joh 17:20). Thus would even the distant, "which are not of this fold," be brought in, so that there might be "one flock" and "one shepherd" (Joh 10:16). Inside the fold it is the greatest privilege and honor, as well as responsibility, to feed the "sheep" and to feed the "lambs" (Joh 21:15-16,17).
6. Fruits of Union with Christ:
Character and conduct are, even for the disciples of Christ, "commandments," as, indeed, Jesus does not disdain to speak of the various parts of His own vocation by the same humble name, implying the necessity of moral effort and the temptation to failure (Joh 15:10). Therefore, they are also proper subjects for prayer. He prayed for the disciples, both that they might be kept from the evil in the world and that they might be sanctified through the truth (Joh 17:15,17), and doubtless He expected them to ask the same things for themselves, as theirs was to be a life of prayer (Joh 16:24). But, in the last resort, they are the fruits of union with Himself, and eternal life is not merely a gift of the future, to be given at the death of the body, but is enjoyed even now by those who abide in the vine.
LITERATURE.
Monographs on the ethics of Jesus in German by Grimm and in English by King; compare also Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, and Jesus Christ and the Christian Character; relevant portions works of larger scope, such as Jacoby, New Testament Ethik, Wendt, The Teaching of Jesus, and the handbooks of New Testament theology by Weiss, Holtzmann, Schlatter, Feine, Weinel, Stevens. Very ample references to literature in Stalker, The Ethic of Jesus.
James Stalker