The Epistles of St. John

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“Or, to put the contrast in an epigrammatic form, the theme of the Epistle is, ‘the Christ is Jesus’ the theme of the Gospel is, ‘Jesus is the Christ.’” (Page xliv)

“All sin tends to make the fellowship less complete. Yet not all equally; nor all in a fixed and unalterable degree.” (Page 191)

“On the whole it is best to recognise that the problem of the address is insoluble with our present knowledge. It is not unlikely that it contains some allusion, intelligible under the original circumstances, to which we have lost the key. But the general tenour of the letter favours the opinion that it was sent to a community and not to one believer.” (Page 224)

“Fellowship must repose upon mutual knowledge. If we have fellowship with God we must know truly what He is and what we are, and the latter knowledge flows from the former. The revelation of life from first to last is the progressive manifestation of God and the progressive assimilation to God.” (Page 14)

“The ideas of divine sonship and sin are mutually exclusive. As long as the relationship with God is real (ὅτι ἐκ θεοῦ γεγένν.) sinful acts are but accidents. They do not touch the essence of the man’s being. The impossibility of sinning in such a case lies in the moral nature of things.” (Page 108)