JOHN, THEOLOGY OF

manifest a spirit of loving iielpfulness adds falseliood to liis other sins — 'lie is a liar' (4™). The frequent repetition of some of these phrases and their interchange with others, such as 'doing righteousness,' ' walking in the truth,' 'being in the light,' 'abiding in him,' 'God abiding in us,' and the like, show that St. John is dealing with the very central core of spiritual life, and that for him, as for St. Paul, it is true that 'he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the law ... for love is the fulfilment of the law.'

No more comprehensive phrase, however, to describe in brief the blessings of the gospel is to be found in St. John's theology than ' eternal IMe,' It occurs 17 times in the Gospel and 6 times in the First Epistle, while ' life ' with substantially the same meaning is found much more frequently. ' Life ' means for St. John that fulness of possession and enjoyment which alone realizes the great ends for which existence has been given to men, and it is to be realized only in the fulfilment of the highest human ideals through union with God in Christ. Eternal 'life' means this rich existence in perpetuity; sometimes it includes immortality, sometimes it dis-tinctly refers to that which may be enjoyed here and now. In the latter case it is not unlike what is called in 1 Ti 6" "the life which is life indeed.' It is defined in Jn 17' as consisting in the knowledge of God and Christ, where knowledge must certainly imply not a mere intellectual acquaintance, but a practical attain-ment in experience, including a state of heart and will as well as of mind, which makes God in Christ to be a true possession of the soul — that fellowship with God which constitutes the supreme possession for man upon the earth. But a contrast is drawn, e.g. in 3" and lO^s, between 'eternal life' and 'perishing' or 'moral ruin'; and in one of St. John's sharp and startling contrasts, the choice open to man is described as Including only these two solemn alternatives — 'He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life; but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him' (3"). The idea thus broached carries us beyond the boundaries of earthly existence; according to Christ's teaching, whoever keeps His word 'shall never taste of death ' (8'2) , and ' though he die, yet shall he live ' (11"'). Knowledge of God and union with Christ impart to the believer a type of being which is not subject to the chances and changes of temporal existence, but is in itself unending, imperishable, so that in comparison with it no other kind of life deserves the name.

7. This opens up naturally the question of St. John's Esohatology, It has already been said (see p. 482") that some critics find an inherent contradiction between St. John's view of judgment and that set forth by the Synoptists, and it has been pointed out in reply that he recognizes 'judgment' not merely as here and now present in history, but as still to be anticipated in its final form in the life beyond the grave. Similar state-ments have been made in reference to Christ's 'coming' and the ' resurrection.' That each of these three events is recognized as still in the future, to be anticipated as coming to pass at the end of the world, or at 'the last day,' is clear from such passages as the following: ■judgment' in Jn 12" and 1 Jn 4"; 'coming' in Jn 143 and 1 Jn 2"- '\ 'resurrection' in Jn S^s- ^' 6»- " ll'< etc. But it cannot be questioned that St. John, much more than St. Paul or the Synoptists, uses these words in a spiritual sense to indicate a coming to earth in the course of history, a spiritual visitation which may be called a 'coming' of Christ (see Jn 14'8- 23. ss and perhaps 21^2), as well as a judgment which was virtually pronounced in Christ's lifetime (12» etc.). Similarly, in 5« it is said that 'the Son quickeneth whom he will,' where the reference cannot be to life beyond the grave — a view which is confirmed by VV.22- ", where we are told that he who hears Christ's word has passed from death to life, does not come into judgment, and that 'the hour now is' in which the dead

JOKTAN

shall hear His voice and live. There is nothing in these descriptions of present spiritual blessing to interfere with the explicit statement that after death there shall be a resurrection of Ufe and a resurrection of judgment (52s), any more than our Saviour intended to deny Martha's statement concerning the resurrection at the last day, when He said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life' (11«).

It may perhaps be fairly said that St. John in the Gospel and Epistles lays emphasis upon the present spiritual blessings of salvation rather than upon future eschatological events described by means of the sensuous and material symbolism characteristic of the Apocalypse. But the two ideas, so far from being inconsistent, con-firm one another. The man who believes in the present moral government of God in the world is assured that there must be a great day of consummation hereafter; while he who is assured that God will vindicate Himself by some Great Assize in the future life carmot surely imagine that meantime He has left the history of the world in moral confusion. The spiritual man knows that the future lies hid in the hints and suggestions of the present; he is certain also that such hints and suggestions must find their perfect realization and issue in a consummation yet to come., No Christian teacher has understood the deep-lying unity between the material and the spiritual, the present and the future, the temporal and the eternal, more completely than St. John 'the divine.' W. T. Davison.

JOIADA. — 1. One of the two who repaired the 'old gate' (Neh 3"). 2. High priest, son of Eliashib (Neh 1210. n. 22). One of his sons married the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite (Neh 132s').

JOIAKDH. — A high priest, son of Jeshua (Neh

JOIARIB . — 1 . Ezr8",oneofthetwo teachers sent by Ezra to Iddo to ask for ministers for the Temple. 2. Neh 11', one of 'the chiefs of the province that dwelt in Jerusalem ' in Nehemiah's time. See also Jehoiasib,

JOKDEAJVI. — A city of Judah (Jos 15««), whose site has not been identified. See Joekeam.

JOKDVr.— A Judahite (1 Ch 422).

JOKMEAH. — A town in Ephraim given to the Levites, near Beth-horon (1 Ch 6«'). In Jos 2122 it is called Kib-zaim. No site answering to either of these names is known. Jokmeam is mentioned also in 1 K 4'2, where AV has incorrectly ' Jokneam.'

JOEKEAM. — A royal Canaanite city 'in Carmel' (Jos 1322), on the boundary of Zebulun (19"), 'the brook' before it being the Kishon. It was assigned to the Merarite Levites (Jos 21"). It is probably identical with Cyamon of Jth 7'. The Onomasticon places 'Clmona' 6 Roman miles N. of Legio, on the road to Ptolemais. This points definitely to Tell Kaiman, a striking mound about 7 miles N.W. of el-Lejjun, with remains of ancient buildings. W. Ewinq.

JOKSHAN. — Son of Abraham and Keturah, and father of Sheba (Saba) and Dedan (Gn 252, 1 Ch 1''). The name seems quite unknown, and the suggestion that it is identical with Joktan seems the most plausible,

JOKTAN, according to the genealogical tables in Genesis and 1 Chron., was one of the two sons of Eber, and the father of thirteen sons or races (Gn l025-a», 1 Ch l"-23); In the first table it is added that his de-scendants dwelt from Mesha to Sephar. Though the names of the majority of his sons have not been satis-factorily identified, it is clear that he is represented as the ancestor of the older Arabian tribes. The list of his sons is probably not to be taken as a scientific or geo-graphical classification of the tribes or districts of Arabia, but rather as an attempt on the part of the writer to incorporate in the tables such names of Arabian races as were familiar to him and to his readers. It will be noted that Seba and Havilah occur also as the sons of Cush

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