JOHN commences without any preliminary introduction. His first words burst forth from the fulness of that which was the soul, the centre of his whole Christian life, that which formed the sum and substance of his preaching and of all his instructions. Taking his readers at once into the midst of that subject, on which no doubt all he had ever had occasion to say to them had turned, he begins by pressing home upon their hearts what had already become familiar to them from his lips; which needed only to be recalled to their remembrance, to be quickened and animated anew, and to be made the centre and axis of their whole christian life. We all remember the old tradition, that when this Apostle, in extreme old age, was carried in the arms of his disciples to the assemblies of the church, he did nothing but repeat this one admonition: "Little children, love one another." When asked the reason, he replied: "Because it is the Lord's command; and this being done, all is done." In this single trait, handed down to us by tradition, is fully expressed the peculiar nature and personality of John. It is not the rich variety in the development and expression of ideas, and of their remote relations, which we find in Paul. Here, on the contrary, are a few essential truths, repeated. over and over in simple words, which, as they fell from the lips of Christ himself, had stamped themselves deeply into the susceptible spirit of John, and had become as it were ingrown into his own peculiar nature. With him all proceeds from the direct contemplation of Christ, the God-man, whose living image is ever present to his soul, and to whom he is ever directing alike his hearers and readers. He ceases not to testify of that which he has learned in daily intercourse with him, the divine source of life, and which is to him of all things the most certain. He can find no words strong enough to express the assurance of his conviction, that this divine-human life was a reality. His very forms of expression stand forth in strong contrast with that sublimation of the image of Christ by the Docetes, of which we have already spoken.
In his historical representation of Christ's Messianic labors, he distinguishes himself from the other Evangelists in this respect, -- that he does not commence with the immediately preceding historical preparation, the prophetic advent of the Baptizer, nor yet with the beginning of the earthly life of Christ; but rises above the manifestation in time, to that divine Original which revealed itself therein. This characteristic peculiarity of John meets us also here, at the very commencement of this Epistle. No otherwise could John have spoken. The fulness of the divine essence, leading back to the Eternal Source in the invisible God himself, and the human manifestation, -- all this he contemplated inseparably and as one. He beholds in Christ the revelation in humanity of Him who is exalted above all time, who had no beginning in time; who, antecedent to all creation, was from the beginning; the Eternal Image of the unknown divine existence. This having now presented itself in human nature to human apprehension, it was necessary that John, in reproducing the image of Christ to the view of his readers, should first of all comprehend both these in one; viz. that which was from, the beginning, -- and that which had become, to those who witnessed his life on earth, an object of unquestionable physical perception. He begins, not with abstract ideas, but by referring to a fact, the highest of all facts in human history, and to its attestation by personal experience.
