I found that these Bible-classes were a great blessing to those who attended them, but more than all, perhaps, to myself; watering other souls with the water of life I was more abundantly watered. The questions of the people drew my attention to distinctions and differences I had not noticed before, and helped to take off the coloured glasses through which I had hitherto read the Word.
I observed that the third, sixth, and twentieth chapters of St. John's Gospel had been held and interpreted by me in a way that I now saw to be altogether wrong. I had taken the first of these as bearing on Baptism, the second on the Holy Communion, and the third on Priestly Absolution.
I pondered much over these chapters, and marvelled how they could have been so diverted from their original and obvious meaning; and, more wonderful still, that countless millions in Christendom had so received them for many generations. It was a bold thing, and seemingly presumptuous to suppose that I was right and all Christendom wrong; but I soon found that mine was no new discovery, and that if millions who followed traditions without comparing them with the Bible, thought on one side, there were also millions who did read their Bibles, and thought on the other.
It was perfectly clear, moreover, that one obvious motive or policy had dictated the false application of the three chapters. It will be observed that priest rule is established in them; for, according to this teaching, no one can enter the kingdom of God 'without priestly operation in baptism; no one abide or be fed in it without the same in Holy Communion; nor any one receive absolution from sin, and final release from hell to heaven, apart from sacerdotal action.
On the other hand, I saw spiritual men, as sure as they were of their own existence that their new birth took place, not at baptism, but at their conversion. Therefore they were convinced that the third chapter of St. John, in which our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus is recorded, refers to that spiritual change which takes place at conversion, and not to baptism, which was not even instituted for two or three years afterwards (Matt. 28:19).
Again, as to the sixth chapter. A spiritual man knows that he feeds continually on the body and blood of Christ, it is the "Bread which came down from heaven" for him. The Lord said, "He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me" (John 6:57). They know how they received spiritual life, and also how it is continually maintained; therefore they could not allow themselves to be carried away with such a palpable fiction as transubstantiation, or any other doctrine kindred to it. The sixth chapter does not refer to the Lord's supper, but the Lord's Supper refers to the reality which is mentioned in it.
Lastly, as to the twentieth chapter of St. John, on the authority of which it is supposed and asserted that Christ left power with His Church and priests to forgive sins. Of this we may say, He has not delegated any such powers at all. When He gave commissions to His disciples (not exclusively to the apostles), He said, "Lo, I am with you." Our power is not imparted to us from Him, but is in Him. We have no power at all, but in Him, and no grace but 'that which is in Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 2:1). It is His presence, His real, promised presence by the Holy Ghost, which is spiritual power; and this is given directly to individuals by God Himself, and is not transmitted through other channels.
The Lord Jesus, on His resurrection day, said to His disciples, in the upper room—and, be it remembered, that all the eleven were not there (and some women may have been)—"Peace be unto you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, 'they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23).
Is it possible or reasonable to suppose that our Lord intended by these words to constitute all that assembly absolving priests? The apostles and early Christians (both men and women) never thought so, either before or even after the day of Pentecost, when they were taught and led by the Holy Ghost. The apostles did not exercise any so-called priestly functions; they all preached the Gospel, and as ministers and witnesses, declared, through Jesus Christ, the forgiveness of sins. Their testimony was then, as such testimony will ever be, the savour of life or the savour of death. It was thus they remitted and retained sins; and yet not they, but God by them.
While I was thus ruminating, a book came into my hands which interested me greatly. This I read and re-read, and made an abstract of it. It was the "Life of Adelaide Newton." What struck me in it so much was, to find that this lady was able to hold spiritual communion with God by means of a Bible only. Is it possible, I thought, to have such close communion with God, apart from the Church and her ministrations? I do not hesitate to say that this was the means, under God, of stripping off some remains of my grave-clothes, and enabling me to walk in spiritual liberty, instead of legal and sacramental bond age.