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was sent, however, and they will find in his presence in their souls, the support and peace needful for strength and encouragement to carry on the work in hand.

"Receive the Holy Spirit."

The natural meaning of these words is:

"Receive an

outpouring of the Spirit." This is not simply a promise of the gift of the Spirit. Neither is it the outpouring of the Spirit in its fulness. It is an earnest of that outpouring which is to take place at Pentecost.

20:30, 31. "Many other signs did Jesus do in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book."

It has not been S. John's intention to give a complete and exhaustive picture of the life of Jesus. From the great mass of facts he can lay his hands on, he selects only those appropriate to that side of his life he wished to bring into prominence with reference to what others have said and written.

I. S. JOHN.-NOTES.

I. S. JOHN.-NOTES.

This Letter is not addressed to any particular Church or individual, but to the whole Church throughout the world. It is as suitable to the Church in America at the beginning of the twentieth Century as it was to that of Ephesus in the first.

Introduction.
1: I-4.

Like the first eighteen verses of his Gospel, so these four verses form the introduction to this Epistle and like them again they have the same kind of Hebrew Parallelism.

Like the introduction to the Gospel, so this introduction, tells us that what the Apostle intends to write about is the Word of Life. The authority on which the Apostle writes is also given. It is his own personal experience. The purpose is also here given. It is to complete his and their happiness.

The construction is somewhat involved and prolonged. The four verses form three stanzas. The first and third give the complete sense, and are as strophe and anti-strophe to each other. The second is a digression in the way of explanation.

Throughout this section S. John uses the plural as speaking in the name of the whole Apostolic body of which he was the last surviving member.

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