Class ~B <>W 3 
 
 Book ■ TVTTy 
 
 GopyrightU?. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
 Edited by JOHN H. KERR, D. D. 
 
 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 GOD THE FATHER 
 
 Archibald Thomas Robertson, D. D. 
 
THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 HIS OWN MISSION. Frank H. Foster. Ready. 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE CHURCH. 
 Geerhardus Vos. Ready. 
 GOD THE FATHER 
 
 Archibald Thomas Robertson. " 
 
 HIS OWN PERSON In preparation. 
 
 THE SCRIPTURES 
 
 CHRISTIAN CONDUCT 
 
 THE HOLY SPIRIT 
 
 THE FUTURE LIFE 
 
 THE FAMILY 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 A Series of volumes on the "Teachings of Jesus" 
 by eminent writers and divines. 
 
 Cloth bound. i2mo. Price 75 cts. each postpaid. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 GOD THE FATHER 
 
 By 
 Archibald Thomas Robertson, D. D. 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 
 150 NASSAU STREET 
 NEW YORK 
 
•7V7f7 
 
 UB^aR^ of CONGRESS 
 Two Ood)o» Received 
 SEP 7 !904 
 ^Cooyrteht Entry 
 
 I GLASS ^CXXo. Na 
 
 COPY B 
 
 9M«H M« mmmmmmmm 
 
 Copyright, igo& 
 By AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 
 

 i 
 
 4 
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 
 WHOSE LOVE IS 
 
 KIN TO THAT OF GOD THE FATHER. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 rHE object of this volume is to tell 
 in straightforward manner the 
 message of Jesus concerning God 
 the Father. The book is written after 
 much study of what men have written 
 concerning God and in sympathy with 
 all the truth that modern scholarship has 
 to offer on this great theme. But in har- 
 mony with the plan of the series no 
 references to the literature of the subject 
 cumber the pages. The bulk of the book 
 is the result of direct exegesis of the 
 words of Jesus. We come reverently 
 with Philip to Jesus and say: "Lord, 
 show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." 
 A. T. Robertson. 
 Louisville, Ky. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Importance of a Knowl- 
 edge of God. Modern Ideas 
 
 about God I 
 
 II. The Old Testament Idea of 
 God the Basis of Jesus' Teach- 
 ing 14 
 
 III. Jesus the Revealer of God the 
 
 Father to Men 24 
 
 IV. The Relation of the Father to 
 
 the Son 43 
 
 V. The Relation of the Father to 
 
 the Holy Spirit 70 
 
 VI. The Relation of God to His 
 
 World 85 
 
 VII. The Relation of God to the 
 
 Unsaved 100 
 
 VIII. The Relation of God to Be- 
 lievers 117 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IX. Jesus' Conception of God Com- 
 pared with the Apostolic 
 
 Teaching 138 
 
 X. Jesus' Conception of God the 
 
 Ruling Idea of Theology. . 155 
 
 XL Summary 167 
 
 Indices 171 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 The Importance of a Knowledge of 
 God. Modern Ideas about God. 
 
 " None is good save one, even God " (Mark x. 18). 
 
 rHE picture of a world without 
 God is horrible to contemplate. 
 A world without God in fact 
 would be either chaos or death. An 
 orderly world is not possible apart from 
 mind and a mind commensurate with so 
 vast a problem. To admit that mind is 
 to admit God. But the world can be 
 without God even if God exists. Practi- 
 cally this state is nearly as bad as the 
 
2 God the Father 
 
 other, though not quite, for even those 
 who have "no hope " and are "without 
 God in the world " (Eph. ii. 12) are near 
 God if they only knew it, for " he is not 
 far from each one of us " (Acts xvii. 27). 
 
 Hope for a Godless World 
 
 For if God exists, he can be found. 
 Though our search for him be not suc- 
 cessful as we grope in the dark, if haply 
 we may feel after him and find him, still 
 we need not despair. Some point of 
 contact may be found between us and 
 God that may, when discovered, open 
 the door of heaven, as Helen Keller was 
 led by touch to God. But atheism is 
 essentially pessimistic and so Paul cor- 
 rectly said that those who have not God 
 have no hope. The reflex influence of 
 one's belief in God cannot be overesti- 
 mated. What one thinks about God 
 determines his theology, his philosophy, 
 his ethical views, his conduct. The 
 ground of hope for a world without God 
 
Modern Ideas about God 3 
 
 is that the Father seeks to manifest him- 
 self to men. This is the positive word 
 that Christ has for men, this is the main- 
 spring in Christian missions, this is the 
 crown of human destiny, to be found of 
 God. 
 
 Why the World was Without a Knowl- 
 edge of God 
 
 If the evolutionary view of the world's 
 origin be correct, it does not follow that 
 originally men did not have adequate 
 knowledge of God. Certainly the Scrip- 
 tures teach original knowledge of God 
 and many scientists find much to confirm 
 it. In the most primitive and savage of 
 present peoples some knowledge of a 
 superior being is preserved with hints of 
 better knowledge in other days. Names 
 of God occur in all parts of the earth and 
 memory of better days exists. It is true 
 that, while Christianity is God seeking 
 man, heathenism is man seeking God, — 
 true in a sense only, however. Heathen- 
 
4 God the Father 
 
 ism is much more a distinct departure 
 from God than it is a groping after the 
 unknown God on the part of a few. 
 Certainly the fall of man after reaching 
 the image of God is possible. We wit- 
 ness human degradation in lives around 
 us. Progress in arts and sciences does 
 not measure progress in goodness. There 
 is a strange persistence, if not increase, of 
 evil through the centuries where the re- 
 straint of fear of God does not abide. 
 The facts of human nature do not justify 
 us in saying that sin is merely the rem- 
 nant of the animal nature brought on 
 from our animal ancestry. Sin is far 
 more of the spirit than of the flesh. It 
 is an easy way of shirking responsibility 
 for wrongdoing to charge it to our ani- 
 mal nature. Evolution as an agent fails 
 to explain the origin of man. Evolution 
 as God's method of working can offer an 
 adequate explanation of man's history. 
 
 The problem of the origin of evil and 
 so of man's alienation from God is the 
 
Modern Ideas about God 5 
 
 most difficult in theology, so difficult in 
 fact that some who believe in God deny 
 the existence of sin. But this again is to 
 win serenity of spirit at the cost of the 
 evidence of the senses. We are helpless 
 to speak a sure word on this subject if we 
 decline to admit the existence of Satan 
 who threw man down from his pedestal 
 and won men away from the worship of 
 God. The chief end of man is to know 
 God and to be like him. It is ruin 
 enough to satisfy any devil if he could 
 thwart the true destiny of men. The 
 three ultimate realities are God, self, the 
 world ; and a recent writer has well said 
 that science works from the point of view 
 of the world, philosophy from that of 
 self, and theology from that of God. 
 Each of these great methods has its place 
 and value, but surely the supreme value 
 belongs to theology if it can really gain 
 the standpoint of God. To see man as 
 God sees him would be theology indeed, 
 and not philosophy under the garb of 
 
6 God the Father 
 
 theology. As God looks upon man and 
 man's sin, what does he see ? He sees 
 the truth and all the truth. " Can man 
 by searching find out God ?" 
 
 What the World now Thinks about God 
 
 One of the worst heretics is the man 
 who is afraid that his views may be wrong 
 and is afraid to investigate the facts. 
 Cowardice before facts is pitiable. Re- 
 pression of the intellect as to religious 
 problems has its necessary reaction in 
 scepticism. The victory for individual 
 opinion won by Luther against the tyr- 
 anny of Roman Catholic stifling of the 
 mind was bound to lead to defiant atheism. 
 The pendulum will swing its course. 
 But better this than the blight of medi- 
 aeval authority over the human mind, for 
 the facts of the universe are open to all. 
 The atheist has had his say and he speaks 
 largely to an unsympathetic audience at 
 present. The blatant infidel has a coterie 
 of followers here and there among the 
 
Modern Ideas about God 7 
 
 openly wicked, but not among the real 
 men of culture. Materialism is no longer 
 a word with which to frighten the fol- 
 lowers of God. Haeckel has only a small 
 following among true scientists. Science 
 has won its place against an intolerant 
 theology and has also realized its helpless- 
 ness to explain the universe without God. 
 Science cannot tell what " life " is nor 
 consciousness nor ethics. The retreat 
 to agnosticism is no longer formidable. 
 Even Sir Leslie Stephen cannot revive it. 
 This essentially apologetic position has 
 been obliged to concede a Force behind 
 the world of matter, grudgingly admit- 
 ting the failure of materialism though 
 unwilling to affirm the personality of this 
 Force. But the hesitation of Spencer is 
 passing into the positive affirmation of 
 Lord Kelvin, who openly asserts that sci- 
 ence has a definite message in behalf of 
 the existence of God. The best scientific 
 and religious spirit of our time is seeking 
 a higher unity in the realm of spirit in 
 
8 God the Father 
 
 the common acknowledgment of God as 
 Creator and Lord of all. The subtle pan- 
 theism of Spinoza reappears in the still 
 popular monism. But one cannot think 
 that this is the ultimate philosophy of man 
 nor the true explanation of the world as 
 it is, any more than the idealism of 
 Hegel. Our time has passed from the 
 cold deism of the eighteenth century 
 with its absentee God. 
 
 The spiritual interpretation of the uni- 
 verse holds the field once more. The 
 doctrine of the immanence of God is more 
 clearly perceived in our day than ever, 
 
 / but needs to be reinforced by the parallel 
 truth of the transcendence of God. In 
 a word the modern mind is open to faith 
 in God. Evolution, instead of ruling God 
 out of the world, has restored him to his 
 true place in the minds of scientific men. 
 
 f The return of George J. Romanes and 
 John Fiske to belief in a personal God 
 is symptomatic of the age. The modern 
 world is not so patient with mediaeval the- 
 
Modern Ideas about God 9 
 
 ological distinctions, but is deeply im- 
 pressed with the idea of the Fatherhood 
 of God. The historic Christ fills the 
 horizon of modern scholarship and that 
 scholarship is reacting to the admission 
 that he is the eternal Christ, the Son of 
 God. The counter movement of Ritsch- 
 lianism is impatient with the historic 
 realities and cares most for the ideas 
 gathered up into Christianity. The great 
 controversy of our time is taking shape 
 around the Person of Christ, whether in 
 truth he were in fact and essence the Son 
 of God, God in nature, or merely so ac- 
 cepted by those who elevated him by 
 faith to the position of deity. The out- 
 come cannot be doubted, but meanwhile 
 many will be led into the bog of Ritsch- 
 lianism, the most subtle apologetic of all 
 time for holding on to the form and sur- 
 rendering the substance of Christianity. 
 The Holy Spirit in his work in the pres- 
 ent age is apprehended in a new and vital 
 sense. Judaism itself accents still the fact 
 
io God the Father 
 
 of God and that much of truth even Mo- 
 hammedanism proclaims. In fact God 
 is the central fact of human thinking, 
 and this fact was never more clearly 
 recognized than now. The theologies 
 of all time are two — one with God as the 
 center, the other with man as the center. 
 Even now with all the new interest in 
 man the God-centered theology is dom- 
 inant. Some systems still betray a certain 
 "horror del" but the modern mind as a 
 whole uncovers itself before the idea of 
 God. 
 
 Has God a Clear Word about Himself 
 
 It is freely granted that God cannot be 
 defined. The saying is eminently true : 
 " Le Dieu defini est le dieu fini." The 
 infinite God cannot be grasped by the 
 human mind either by inquiry or by rev- 
 elation. It is impossible for God fully 
 to manifest himself to men, but this fact 
 does not mean that God cannot at all re- 
 veal himself to some men. Plato went 
 
Modern Ideas about God n 
 
 as far as the unaided human intellect can 
 go in its speculation about God, but he 
 gave up and hoped for more light. " We 
 will wait," said he, "for one, be it God 
 or God-inspired man, to teach us our re- 
 ligious duties and to take away the dark- 
 ness from our eyes." If evolution stops 
 short of opening men's eyes to God, can 
 revelation sufficiently remove scales from 
 the eyes of the heart for God to be seen ? 
 Our day has an answer that steadies many 
 hearts when it points and appeals to the 
 consciousness of the individual Christian 
 as a sure anchor in a time of cold criti- 
 cism and harassing doubts about the Bible 
 itself. There is force in this appeal that 
 God shows himself to the humble heart 
 that seeks him in trust. And yet every- 
 thing must not be made to rest on the ex- 
 perimental argument, for the Moham- 
 medan and the Buddhist may make a 
 similar appeal. We still need the appeal 
 to the life as shown in the outward ex- 
 pression of the inward experience. We 
 
12 God the Father 
 
 still need the argument from design in 
 nature, now greatly reinforced by evolu- 
 tion. We still need the Word of God, 
 the Scriptures, historical and human, col- 
 ored by time and circumstance, and yet 
 speaking a new and growing and lumi- 
 nous and illuminating message from God 
 himself about himself. 
 
 God reveals himself not all at once, 
 but slowly, now one attribute, now an- 
 other, the God of history and God in his- 
 tory. Even in Homer Zeus is called 
 pater (father) and Jupiter among the Ro- 
 mans is the same word and idea. But 
 God the Father was lost in an Olympus 
 of contending gods and goddesses. If 
 God the Father was to be known by men, 
 there was need of a clear word of reas- 
 surance from him. The distinctive mes- 
 sage of Christianity is just at this point. 
 It claims that Jesus as God is able to re- 
 veal God to men as never before known. 
 It is not enough to listen to the voice of 
 nature that in silent grandeur points us to 
 
Modern Ideas about God 13 
 
 God. It is not enough to hearken to the 
 heaven-born aspirations that cry out after 
 God nor the lofty speculations of the 
 reason about God. Better than these is 
 the sure word of prophecy in the Scrip- 
 tures, a lamp shining in a dark place. But 
 best of all is Jesus Christ himself who 
 claims to bring God to men. He comes 
 with the approval of the Father himself : 
 " This is my beloved son, in whom I am 
 well pleased ; hear ye him " (Matthew 
 xvii. 5). What has the Son to say about 
 the Father ? We would see Jesus for his 
 own sake, but for more, wonderful as 
 that is. He bears a message from the 
 Father and is the image of the Father. 
 In the Son then we may study the Father 
 with reverence and fear. In this book 
 we shall "hear " the Son on this greatest 
 of all themes, about his Father and our 
 Father. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 The Old Testament Idea of God the 
 Basis of Jesus Teaching, 
 
 " Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that in them 
 ye have eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness 
 of me " (John v. 39). 
 
 JESUS does not set forth a new 
 divinity. He was not open to the 
 specious charge laid against Soc- 
 rates. 
 
 The Attitude of Jesus toward the Old 
 Testament 
 
 On this point as elsewhere the Master 
 rested his teaching concerning God the 
 14 
 
Basis of Jesus Teaching 15 
 
 Father on the Old Testament revelation. 
 He does not hesitate to appeal to the 
 Old Testament for a summary of duty to 
 God and man under two commandments. 
 " The first is, ' Hear, O Israel ; The Lord 
 our God, the Lord is one ; and thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy mind, and with all thy strength/ 
 The second is this, ' Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself/ There is none 
 other commandment greater than these " 
 (Mark xii. 29-31). In fact Jesus often 
 chided the teachers of the time with ig- 
 norance of the Scriptures which they 
 professed to teach (John v. 39), with 
 ignorance of "the power of God" also 
 (Matthew xxii. 29), and in particular with 
 ignorance of the relation between the 
 Messiah as the son of David and the 
 Father (Matthew xxii. 42-45). So it is 
 not a new God, but new light on 
 the God of Israel that Jesus comes to 
 present. It is just because he has a fresh 
 
1 6 God the Father 
 
 and helpful message, a necessary word, 
 about the God of the Old Testament 
 that he speaks at all. " I came out from 
 the Father and am come into the world " 
 (John xvi. 28). " O righteous Father, 
 the world knew thee not, but I knew 
 thee ; and these knew that thou didst 
 send me ; and I made known unto them 
 thy name, and will make it known " 
 (John xvii. 25 f.). Jesus here states the 
 high purpose of his coming to earth, to 
 manifest to men anew the God already 
 known in part and, alas, forgotten in fact. 
 
 The Progressive Character of Old Testa- 
 ment Teaching about God 
 
 It was not to be expected that God 
 would manifest himself fully at first. 
 The Old Testament purports to be a 
 faithful record of God's dealing with the 
 race through a chosen people in getting 
 them ready for the coming of his Son, 
 the Messiah, who was to bring salvation 
 to the lost. This view is here accepted 
 
Basis of Jesus Teaching 17 
 
 as against the theory which makes the 
 Old Testament merely a retrospect on the 
 part of dreamers and idealists of Israel 
 who wished to incite the people to better 
 things by idealized and even fictitious 
 pictures of the past that would natter the 
 nation's vanity and stimulate their hope. 
 The acknowledgment that God had a 
 definite, consistent and permanent pur- 
 pose in this revelation does not preclude 
 the freest and the fullest historical devel- 
 opment. But the initiative and the 
 control are placed with God in fact as 
 well as in representation. In no other 
 way can the integrity and value of the 
 Old Testament be preserved ; only thus 
 can any really adequate explanation of 
 the facts of Israelitish history be offered. 
 Those who follow the other line of ex- 
 planation do not hesitate to disregard the 
 Old Testament facts that are inconsistent 
 with the theory assumed to be true, a 
 favorite method with dogmatic theolo- 
 gians of all shades of belief. If we may 
 
 B 
 
1 8 God the Father 
 
 rearrange and set aside the facts in Israel- 
 itish history, we are free to adopt any 
 theory that we please. It is time to 
 speak a good word for the Old Testa- 
 ment, for it will survive the present 
 storm. Jesus did not hesitate to use and 
 appeal to the Old Testament. It seems 
 needless to say that there is no polytheism 
 in the Old Testament teaching, though 
 much of it is found in the practice of 
 the people. The Israelites are not alone 
 in history as examples of those who knew 
 and did not. The great lesson of Israel- 
 itish history is the lesson of monotheism. 
 When they would not listen to prophetic 
 teaching, they were turned over to the 
 Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian rule. 
 The exile burned the lesson into their 
 very blood. 
 
 What is the Old Testament Teaching about 
 God the Father 
 
 The God of Israel becomes the God 
 of the nations under prophetic teaching. 
 
Basis of Jesus Teaching 19 
 
 The dominant notes of the Old Testa- 
 ment are the reality, the singleness, the 
 power, the glory, the jealous love of 
 God. Almost every act is represented 
 as done in reference to God. The Old 
 Testament saint walked " before God," 
 "with God." He sinned "against 
 God/' " against the Lord." In history, 
 prophecy, and psalm " the eternal God," 
 "the most high God," "the God of 
 heaven," " the holy God," " the God of 
 hosts," "the Lord God of hosts," "the 
 Lord of hosts," "the mighty God," 
 " the Lord God of the fathers " is pre- 
 sented with terrible directness and awe- 
 inspiring vividness. The supremacy and 
 glory of God and the weakness of man 
 stand out strongly in the Old Testament. 
 Not often is God called "Father" in 
 the Old Testament, and yet the fact and 
 the idea are both present. In Jeremiah 
 xxxi. 9, Jehovah says : " For I am a 
 father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first- 
 born." Likewise in Hosea xi. 1, Israel 
 
20 God the Father 
 
 is called "my son" by Jehovah. All 
 this is in the narrow sense of Father 
 clearly as maintaining a peculiar relation 
 to the people of his choice. In Malachi 
 ii. 10, we read : " Have we not all one 
 Father ? Hath not our God created us ? " 
 Here the wider sense of " Father " is 
 apparently applied to God, not merely as 
 spiritual father of a peculiar people, but 
 as creator of all men. However it is 
 possible that even here the covenant idea 
 dominates. In the Psalms we meet with 
 the character of God as Father. So 
 Psalm lxviii. 5 : "A father of the father- 
 less, and a judge of widows, is God in 
 his holy habitation.' ' In Psalm ciii. 
 13 we read : " Like as a father pitieth 
 his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that 
 fear him." Clearly then the Old Testa- 
 ment has the basis for the teaching of the 
 Son concerning his Father. The Old 
 Testament has many names for God, as 
 El, Elohim, Shaddai, El-Shaddai, El- 
 Ely on, Jehovah. But it also has the 
 
Basis of Jesus Teaching 21 
 
 name of Father, possibly in the general 
 sense of creator and certainly in the par- 
 ticular sense of spiritual relationship to 
 those who are thus bound to him by 
 covenant ties. 
 
 The Character of God in the Old Testament 
 
 He is spirit and not matter. Many an- 
 thropomorphic expressions are used in 
 the Old Testament about the emotions 
 and the deeds of God, but these clearly 
 are not designed to be taken literally. 
 God is absolute righteousness. He is 
 holy and just and good. He is unap- 
 proachable in ineffable glory, but conde- 
 scends to manifest his presence through 
 the Shekinah. He is thus ethical in na- 
 ture, is in fact the basis of ethical concep- 
 tions. He is the cause of everything, 
 animate and inanimate, physical and spir- 
 itual. He is a personal God, not a mere 
 influence, not an idol, not the universe. 
 He dwells everywhere and no one can 
 escape his presence. He is " the living 
 
22 God the Father 
 
 God " and manifests the reality of his 
 presence in many ways that suit his pur- 
 poses. He is superhuman and all power- 
 ful, is Lord of nature and not the slave of 
 his own laws. He can thunder at Sinai 
 and he can speak at Horeb in the still 
 small voice. 
 
 God's Covenant with Men 
 
 In nothing does the Old Testament un- 
 fold God as Father so clearly as in the 
 covenant of grace, prompted by his love 
 for sinners, put in definite shape in the 
 promise to Abraham, repeated to David, 
 and expounded in prophets and psalms. 
 Hear Jehovah speaking to David con- 
 cerning Solomon and the kingdom : 
 "He shall build me an house and I will 
 establish his throne forever. I will be 
 his father and he shall be my son " 
 (I Chron. xvii. 12 f.). The Messianic 
 promise presents God as King in his 
 kingdom, the everlasting spiritual king- 
 dom (II Sam. vii. 13, 16; Ps. lxxxix. 3-5). 
 
Basis of Jesus Teaching 23 
 
 But God the Father in love offers his 
 own Son as the priestly sacrifice for sin so 
 wondrously outlined in Isaiah liii. The 
 Old Testament had already told men of 
 God the Father. What has Jesus more 
 to say ? Will he have a fuller and a final 
 word about God ? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Jesus the Revealer of God the Father 
 to Men. 
 
 " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father " (John 
 xiv. 9). 
 
 /^OD is a person and cannot be clearly 
 i jf apprehended by abstract teaching. 
 The Old Testament revelation 
 was a progressive unfolding of the char- 
 acter of God with a promise of a richer 
 revelation in the coming Messiah. The 
 law was only the pedagogue that led the 
 Jews to the great Teacher. Philosophy 
 had failed to satisfy the spiritual aspira- 
 tions of men, as they had failed to obey 
 24 
 
The Revealer of God 25 
 
 the moral law. Grace and truth, which 
 came by Jesus (John i. 17) brought out 
 the gentler side of the divine nature. 
 Grace is the distinctive word of Christi- 
 anity, but Christianity is more even than 
 grace. 
 
 The hove of the Father Sends the Son 
 
 Behind the work and mission of Christ 
 stands revealed in Christ the love of God, 
 stated in the words of Jesus himself in 
 all probability (though possibly the words 
 of the evangelist John): "For God so 
 loved the world, that he gave his only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
 on him should not perish, but have eter- 
 nal life " (John iii. 16). So then Jesus 
 himself is the supreme proof of the love 
 of the Father for the world. The testi- 
 mony of the Gospel of John is here ap- 
 pealed to and will be used constantly on 
 a par with that of the Synoptic Gospels. 
 It is well known that some critics are un- 
 willing to admit the historical character 
 
26 God the Father 
 
 of the sayings of Jesus in John's Gospel 
 who do admit those in the Synoptic Gos- 
 pels. This is not the place to discuss that 
 question, but ample grounds justify the 
 use of all four Gospels as competent 
 witnesses to the words of Jesus in histor- 
 ical exegesis, but with due perspec- 
 tive and proper apprehension of the 
 relation of the Gospels to each other. 
 Clearly then the motive of Christ's life 
 is to fulfil the high mission of the 
 Father in sending him to men. In 
 fact the Master explicitly and repeat- 
 edly claims to voice the will of the Father. 
 " We speak that which we know, and 
 bear witness of that which we have seen " 
 (John iii. 11). This he said to Nicode- 
 mus in justification of his right to teach 
 the doctrine of the spiritual birth at which 
 Nicodemus stumbled. In a summary of 
 his teaching spoken at the very end and 
 given in John xii. 44-50 Jesus closes 
 thus : " For I spake not from myself ; 
 but the Father that sent me, he hath given 
 
The Revealer of God 27 
 
 me a commandment what I should say, 
 and what I should speak. And I know 
 that his commandment is life eternal ; the 
 things therefore which I speak, even as 
 the Father hath said unto me, so I speak." 
 In the synagogue at Capernaum Jesus 
 distinctly claims that God has sent him 
 to be the Messiah according to the 
 prophecy of Isaiah (Luke iv. 18 f.). 
 
 Jesus Qualified to Reveal the Father 
 
 So Christ claimed and so he is. On 
 the human side he was devoutly pious, 
 had the clearest knowledge of the Old 
 Testament teaching of God, and lived a 
 life of close communion with the Father. 
 But he needed more than this if he was 
 to give the world the full and final reve- 
 lation of God. A mere man could tell 
 of God's dealings with him and others 
 like him and could disclose the aspects 
 of God's character into which he had 
 gained insight by study, by communion 
 with God, and by revelation from God. 
 
28 God the Father 
 
 But no mere man could manifest God to 
 men in his eternal, absolute, and univer- 
 sal relations to men and at the same time 
 bring him home to the hearts of men as 
 a real person and as the loving and mighty 
 Father. It is not strange, therefore, to 
 find the evangelist John, who was the 
 beloved disciple and who caught best the 
 true character of Christ, saying of him : 
 " And we beheld his glory, glory as of 
 the only begotten from the Father' ' 
 (John i. 14). This may be an allusion to 
 the transfiguration scene, but John was 
 no Docetic Gnostic, for he says also : 
 "That which we have heard, that which 
 we have seen with our eyes, that which 
 we beheld, and our hands handled, con- 
 cerning the Word of life . . . de- 
 clare we unto you " (I John i. If.). 
 
 But this is not all. John makes the 
 definite assertion of the pre-existence of 
 the Word with the Father (John i. 1), 
 " the Word was with God." This coex- 
 istence with the Father by the Word was 
 
The Revealer of God 29 
 
 eternal also, "in the beginning/ ' No 
 ideal pre-existence in the mind of the 
 Father will satisfy the demands of this 
 language nor the words of Jesus himself 
 in John ix. 58 : " Before Abraham was, 
 I am." The term Word (Logos) is used 
 in no mere philosophical sense either 
 Platonic or Philonian, for "the Word 
 became flesh, and dwelt among us " 
 (John i. 14). Moreover, John has in 
 mind the very point under discussion and 
 speaks pointedly on it when he says : 
 " No man hath seen God at any time : 
 the only begotten Son, which is in the 
 bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
 him" (John i. 18). The best ancient 
 documents here read " God only begot- 
 ten " instead of " the only begotten Son," 
 which would be a direct statement of the 
 essential Godhead of Jesus. But what- 
 ever be the true reading John expressly 
 asserts that " the Word was God " (John 
 i. 1), and " the Word became flesh ' ' (John 
 i. 14). The Son " is in the bosom of the 
 
30 God the Father 
 
 Father," John says, signifying an eternal 
 relationship. Hence he is fully able to 
 manifest the Father to men. He is the 
 Word of God and so " hath declared 
 him " to men. The word rendered de- 
 clare is in root our very word exegesis. 
 In measured phrase, therefore, John 
 asserts the eternal pre-existence of the 
 Word, the existence of the Word with 
 God, the identity of this Word with God, 
 an identity not in person, but in essence 
 and character for he is " in the bosom of 
 the Father "and "hath declared him" 
 when he " became flesh." 
 
 But it is not in John's Gospel alone 
 that Jesus is thus presented as God. 
 Matthew expressly explains the prophecy 
 about the name Immanuel as meaning 
 " God with us " (Matt. i. 23), and this 
 not in a providential but a personal sense. 
 In the temptations of Jesus Satan ad- 
 dressed him as "a Son of God" (no ar- 
 ticle with " Son " in the Greek, but with 
 " God"). He was not willing to admit 
 
The Revealer of God 31 
 
 the full force of the testimony of the 
 Father at the baptism when he called him 
 " My beloved Son " (Mark i. 11). Jesus 
 accepted worship from the disciples as 
 the Son of God (Matt. xiv. 33), and this 
 was in not simply a "religious value " 
 sense, whatever the disciples at this time 
 believed about Jesus, for they "wor- 
 shipped " him. 
 
 The Claim of Jesus about his Message con- 
 cerning the Father 
 
 Nothing is plainer than the high claims 
 made by Jesus concerning his knowledge 
 of the Father. In the next chapter the 
 precise relation between the Father and 
 the Son will be discussed at length. Just 
 here we may properly present what the 
 Master has to say about his own message. 
 To the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well 
 he said : " If thou knewest the gift of 
 God, and who it is that saith to thee, 
 Give me to drink ; thou wouldst have 
 asked of him, and he would have given 
 
32 God the Father 
 
 thee living water " (John iv. 10). To 
 the disciples, astonished that he did not 
 eat the food which they had brought, he 
 replied : " My meat is to do the will of 
 him that sent me, and to accomplish his 
 work " (John iv. 34). When the Phari- 
 sees from Jerusalem reasoned in their 
 hearts that he was a blasphemer, Jesus 
 said : " But that ye may know that the 
 Son of man hath power on earth to for- 
 give sins (he saith to the sick of the palsy), 
 I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed, 
 and go unto thy house " (Mark ii. 10 f.). 
 But not power alone did Jesus claim, 
 power that put him on a level with the 
 Father. Besides power he distinctly 
 avows such knowledge of the Father as 
 no one else possessed : " All things have 
 been delivered unto me of my Father : 
 and no one knoweth the Son, save the 
 Father: neither doth any know the 
 Father, save the Son, and he to whomso- 
 ever the Son willeth to reveal him " 
 (Matt. xi. 27). Here the Son expressly 
 
The Revealer of God 33 
 
 asserts that the only way to know the 
 Father is through the Son. The will of 
 the Son decides to whom he will reveal 
 the Father. This high claim is intolerant 
 of rivalry. Not Zoroaster, not Buddha, 
 not Confucius, not Mahomet, but Jesus 
 alone reveals the Father to men. It is 
 impossible to smooth down this absolute 
 claim, for it is supported by the whole 
 tenor of the teaching of Jesus, especially 
 in the Gospel of John. These words in 
 Matthew, repeated also at a later time 
 (see Luke x. 22), reinforce the historical 
 reality of the Johannine teaching. Nei- 
 ther the Unitarian nor the Ritschlian 
 view of Jesus is consonant with the 
 claims of equality with God here made 
 by Christ. So the Lord Jesus urges 
 men, in order to come to knowledge of 
 the Father, to come to himself. " Come 
 unto me," says he, " take my yoke upon 
 you, and learn of me " (Matt. xi. 28 f.). 
 In fact, Jesus refuses recognition in 
 heaven before the Father to those who 
 
34 God the Father 
 
 deny the Son here. " Every one there- 
 fore who shall confess me before men, 
 him will I also confess before my Father 
 which is in heaven. But whosoever shall 
 deny me before men, him will I also 
 deny before my Father which is in 
 heaven " (Matt. x. 32 f.). No more di- 
 vine assumption of authority in the sphere 
 of the spiritual life is possible than this. 
 The way to the Father's presence is by 
 the approval of the Son. This vital iden- 
 tity between the Father and the Son Je- 
 sus announced to the Galilean multitude 
 in the synagogue at Capernaum at the 
 climax of the Galilean ministry, and the 
 announcement repelled the unspiritual 
 populace who revolted at the spiritual 
 conception of the Messiah. Jesus claimed 
 to be "the true bread of God" (Johnvi. 
 32 f.), "the true bread out of heaven/' 
 When they murmured, Jesus replied : 
 " No one can come to me, except the 
 Father which sent me draw him " (John 
 vi. 44), insisting again that he alone had 
 
The Revealer of God 35 
 
 " seen the Father " (John vi. 46). As 
 they grew angry, Jesus went still further : 
 " As the living Father sent me, and I live 
 because of the Father : so he that eateth 
 me, he also shall live because of me " 
 (John vi. 57). As no one can come to 
 the Father except by the Son, so no one 
 can come to the Son " except it be given 
 unto him of the Father " (John vi. 65). 
 It is no wonder that under such a severe 
 sifting the multitude melted away and 
 left Jesus in the synagogue with the 
 twelve. But the Father in heaven had 
 revealed to Simon Peter that Jesus was 
 the Messiah as he now and afterwards 
 confessed (Matt. xvi. 16 f.). 
 
 If Jesus claimed to bear witness of the 
 Father, he contended also that to reject 
 him was displeasing to the Father, "He 
 that rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent 
 me " (Luke x. 16). If he bore witness 
 of the Father, so the Father bore wit- 
 ness of him. " And the Father which 
 sent me, he hath borne witness of me " 
 
36 God the Father 
 
 (John v. 37). At the baptism (Matt. iii. 
 11), the Father spoke approval of his 
 mission. So was it also at the transfigura- 
 tion (Mark ix. 7) and, when the Greeks 
 came to him, the Father spoke audible 
 cheer (John xii. 28). To his enemies 
 therefore Jesus boldly claimed : "I am 
 not alone, but I and the Father that sent 
 me " (John viii. 16). When they sneer- 
 ingly asked him, " Where is thy Father ? " 
 his reply was ready : " Ye know neither 
 me nor my Father : if ye knew me, ye 
 would know my Father also " (John viii. 
 19). 
 
 It is no wonder then that Jesus ex- 
 presses surprise at the dulness of Thomas, 
 saying : "I am the way, and the truth, 
 and the life : no one cometh unto the 
 Father, but by me. If ye had known 
 me, ye would have known my Father 
 also : from henceforth ye know him, and 
 have seen him" (John xiv. 6 f.). The 
 very climax of the self-revelation of the 
 Father in the Son, as claimed by Christ, 
 
The Revealer of God 37 
 
 comes in his reply to Philip's sceptical 
 appeal that he "shew us the Father." 
 Hear the earnest plea of Jesus : " Have I 
 been so long time with you, and dost 
 thou not know me, Philip ? He that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father ; how 
 sayest thou, Show us the Father ? Be- 
 lievest thou not that I am in the Father, 
 and the Father in me ? " (John xiv. 9 f.). 
 In these words the Son expresses the core 
 of the great truth that he is the Revealer 
 to men of God the Father. Henceforth 
 men are without excuse who do not 
 know the Father, for he has so expressed 
 himself in the Son that all men may see 
 and know. The Father and the Son 
 really abide in the believer : " We will 
 come and make our abode with him " 
 (John xiv. 23). 
 
 The Character of God according to the 
 Message of the Son 
 
 If Jesus is so well qualified to tell men 
 the truth about God, as the Evangelists 
 
38 God the Father 
 
 say and as he himself says, what then is his 
 message ? What has he to say ? We now 
 come to the heart of the subject of this 
 book. The succeeding chapters aim to 
 discuss in detail the various aspects of the 
 message of Jesus concerning God the 
 Father. But just here let us get a fore- 
 cast of the whole treatment by a brief 
 glance at the general features of the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 The first positive word that the Master 
 spoke concerning the character of the 
 Father, as given in the Gospels, is this : 
 " God is a Spirit " or perhaps better 
 "God is spirit" (John iv. 24). This 
 clear word he spoke to the poor Samari- 
 tan woman who sought to inveigle the 
 Saviour into a discussion of the theolog- 
 ical controversy between the Jews and 
 the Samaritans as to the true place of 
 worship, whether Jerusalem or Gerizim. 
 " They that worship him must worship 
 in spirit and truth," " neither in this 
 mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye wor- 
 
The Revealer of God 39 
 
 ship the Father," he said. These lumi- 
 nous words stand out in bold relief against 
 the narrow and unspiritual conception of 
 both Jew and Gentile. They remain 
 yet the last and highest message about 
 the nature of God. The world to-day, 
 after dallying with materialism, is coming 
 back to just this conception, that spirit is 
 before matter, that life is spirit, and that 
 the life of the world is God. As spirit 
 God must be approached by the spirit. 
 This then is the essence of worship, and 
 not the form nor the place. The reality 
 of worship rises above sacrament, ritual, 
 place, as God is eternal spirit. 
 
 Another distinctive word that Jesus 
 uses of God is Father. The word is in 
 the Old Testament and is applied to God, 
 but it remained for the Son to familiarize 
 men with the term and the idea. It is on 
 the lips of Jesus at every turn. "The 
 Father," he says, or "My Father," 
 "your Father," "our Father," or simply 
 " Father," " Abba, Father. ' ' There is a 
 
4<3 God the Father 
 
 difference in the relations expressed by 
 these terms which will be brought out 
 later. But he taught his disciples to say 
 " Our Father " when they prayed (Matt. 
 vi. 9). He taught the Fatherhood of 
 God in a real and blessed sense. He 
 made men feel that God is near and 
 watches over them. 
 
 One other general idea of God Jesus 
 presented. He insisted on the absolute 
 goodness of God. The eager young 
 ruler, who lightly addressed Jesus as 
 "good Master/' was quickly reminded 
 that " none is good save one, even God " 
 (Luke xviii. 19). This he did not to dis- 
 claim his own divinity, but to caution the 
 young man and to pierce his idea of God 
 and Christ. This is a needed lesson for 
 all times. God is good. God is good 
 to us, always good to us. 
 
 The power of God is without meas- 
 ure, Jesus taught. " All things are pos- 
 sible with God " (Mark x. 27). His dis- 
 ciples were distressed at the hard teaching 
 
The Revealer of God 41 
 
 of Jesus about the rich. If the rich had 
 such a difficult task, who then can be 
 saved ? The difficulty is real, and the 
 Master did not minimize it. He rather 
 admitted the hopelessness of the situation 
 from the point of view of men. But 
 there is a higher way of seeing things. 
 "With God all things are possible" 
 (Matt. xix. 26). 
 
 Once more God is the God of the liv- 
 ing, says Jesus. " God is not the God 
 of the dead, but of the living" (Matt, 
 xxii. 32). He is the living God himself 
 and is the God of the living. This is an 
 argument to show that the dead rise again, 
 but it is also a definite message to the ef- 
 fect that God is living. In a word then, 
 as Jesus speaks the message, God is the 
 living God, God is spirit, God is good, 
 God is the Father, God is all powerful, 
 and God loves the world. Spiritual life, 
 absolute holiness, endless power, and per- 
 fect love are the attributes that distin- 
 guish him that Jesus called and taught 
 
42 God the Father 
 
 us to call Father. To love God, to trust 
 God, to walk with God, to find God 
 here, to go to God at last through the 
 portal of death — this is eternal life, this 
 is the true destiny of man. 
 
 Jesus in his prayer before his passion 
 says : " And this is life eternal, that they 
 should know thee, the only true God, 
 and him whom thou didst send, even 
 Jesus Christ " (John xvii. 3). He is fully 
 conscious of the solemnity of his relation 
 to men as the Revealer of the Father. 
 He has not been able to make all men 
 see Him, but he has helped the disciples 
 to that end : " I manifested thy name 
 unto the men whom thou gavest me out 
 of the world " (John xvii. 6). He has 
 this consolation then as he enters the 
 shadow of the cross. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Relation of the Father to the 
 Son. 
 
 " Thou art my beloved Son ; in thee I am well pleased." 
 Luke iii. 22. The Father to the Son. 
 
 " For thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." 
 John xvii. 24. The Son to the Father. 
 
 rHE Evangelist John opens his 
 Gospel with the statement in 
 effect that the Logos eternally 
 coexisted with God and was God. He 
 continues in i. 18 and calls him " the only 
 begotten Son, which is in the bosom of 
 the Father." " And the Word became 
 flesh and dwelt among us " (John i. 14). 
 
 43 
 
44 God the Father 
 
 The Unique Relation between the Father 
 and the Son 
 This is most assuredly true. Jesus is 
 called "the only begotten Son" also in 
 John iii. 16, 18, where it is not clear 
 whether we have the words of Jesus 
 himself or the witness of the Evangelist. 
 The angel Gabriel foretold to Mary that 
 her Son should " be called the Son of 
 the Most High " (Luke i. 32) and that 
 the Lord God should " give unto him 
 the throne of his father David/' and " of 
 his kingdom there should be no end " 
 (Luke i. 32 f.). And to Mary's protest 
 he replied : " The holy thing which is 
 begotten shall be called the Son of God " 
 (Luke i. 35). Thus both the human 
 nature and the divine nature of the Christ 
 are asserted by John the evangelist in 
 retrospect and by the angel Gabriel in 
 prophecy. Did Jesus himself realize 
 such a peculiar relationship toward both 
 God and men? In particular was he 
 conscious of his Messianic mission and 
 
The Son 45 
 
 of a peculiar connection with God the 
 Father ? In seeking to learn the relation 
 of the Father to the Son we are com- 
 pelled to use the words of Jesus about 
 that relation. In three instances alone 
 do we have the direct words of the 
 Father about the Son, but these are full 
 of significance and strongly reinforce 
 what the Son affirms. As Jesus entered 
 upon his public ministry and came up 
 out of the baptismal water, the Father 
 spoke in audible voice, audible to the Son 
 certainly, and said : " Thou art my be- 
 loved Son : in thee I am well pleased " 
 (Mark i. 11). Here sonship of a special 
 character is distinctly asserted by the 
 Father. The words " my beloved " 
 mark him off from other " sons of God " 
 and the " good pleasure " is more abso- 
 lute than that expressed about believers 
 merely (Luke ii. 14) although the same 
 word is used in both cases. 
 
 This testimony was at the introduction 
 of the Messiah to his work. In the last 
 
46 God the Father 
 
 year of the public ministry, when the 
 Galilean ministry, like the earlier Judean, 
 had resulted in the alienation of the peo- 
 ple through jealousy of the leaders and 
 lack of spiritual perception among the 
 masses, the Saviour is facing his death. 
 On the transfiguration mount the Father 
 once more calls him " my beloved Son" 
 (Matt. xvii. 5). In the last week of 
 Christ's public work the message of the 
 Greeks greatly agitates the heart of 
 Jesus. They will come to him only by 
 his death. He has real agony before 
 Gethsemane and cries out : " Father, 
 save me from this hour." But he in- 
 stantly adds : " Father, glorify thy 
 name." The Father heard this appeal 
 and replied in audible voice understood 
 by him though not clearly by the multi- 
 tude : " I have both glorified it, and will 
 glorify it again " (John xii. 27 f.). For 
 the rest we must first see the Father 
 through the Son's person and message. 
 Thus we can gain a point of view 
 
The Son 47 
 
 by which we may form some adequate 
 conception of the interrelation that 
 subsists between the Father and the 
 Son. 
 
 Jesus early became conscious that he 
 was the Son of God in a special way. 
 How soon the Messianic consciousness 
 dawned in his mind we do not know, nor 
 how fully he at first grasped the great 
 fact in his life. That he grew " in favor 
 with God and men " (Luke ii. 52) we do 
 know. When first " the boy Jesus " 
 emerges out of the obscurity of the 
 silent years at Nazareth, the boy of 
 twelve left in Jerusalem by Joseph and 
 Mary, he exhibits knowledge of his 
 unique position in the world. " Knew 
 ye not that I must be in my Father's 
 house?" he pleaded, when they ex- 
 pressed surprise at finding him there. 
 He describes God as " my Father, " 
 whether we read " house" or "busi- 
 ness." He has already come into the 
 consciousness of his real self. By " my 
 
48 God the Father 
 
 Father" he meant more than by "our 
 Father." 
 
 The words " my Father " are often on 
 his lips in after years. The first time 
 that the Messiah appears in Jerusalem 
 after his baptism, he boldly asserts 
 authority over the temple and drives the 
 money changers and market venders 
 out. "Make not," said he, "my 
 Father's house a house of merchandise" 
 (John ii. 16). It was his Father's house 
 in a sense that was not true of mere 
 worshipers of God. When the Jews in 
 Jerusalem find fault with Jesus for having 
 healed the impotent man on the Sabbath 
 day, he says : " My Father worketh 
 even until now, and I work " (John v. 
 17). The effect of this claim was in- 
 stantaneous. "The Jews sought the 
 more to kill him, because he not only 
 broke the Sabbath, but also called God 
 his own Father, making himself equal 
 with God " (John v. 18). It will not do 
 to say that the Jews here misunderstood 
 
The Son 49 
 
 the claims of Jesus as to his unique rela- 
 tion to the Father, for he proceeded at 
 once to prove the high claims of equality 
 with the Father. It is not necessary to 
 prove by further exegetical remark from 
 the use of the phrase " my Father " the 
 uniqueness of the relation between the 
 Father and the Son. Let a few quota- 
 tions suffice. "All things have been 
 delivered unto me of my Father " (Matt. 
 xi. 27) ; " My Father giveth you the 
 true bread out of heaven " (John vi. 32) ; 
 " For flesh and blood hath not revealed it 
 unto thee, but my Father who is in 
 heaven' ' (Matt. xvi. 17) ; " In heaven 
 their angels do always behold the face 
 of my Father who is in heaven " (Matt. 
 xviii. 10) ; " But I honor my Father, and 
 ye dishonor me" (John viii. 49). These 
 are representative sayings of Jesus in 
 which he calls God " my Father." 
 
 It is impossible to say that here Jesus 
 merely claimed God as his Father in the 
 same sense that any other child of God 
 
 D 
 
50 God the Father 
 
 has the right to do. To his enemies he 
 said: "Ye have not known him: but I 
 know him ; and if I should say I know 
 him not, I shall be like you, a liar "(John 
 viii. 55). He insists on this unique rela- 
 tionship in the face of bitter denial. 
 
 Often Christ speaks of God as "the 
 Father.' ' This usage is almost confined 
 to the Gospel of John where it is very 
 common, while " my Father" is com- 
 mon in all the Gospels. In John " the 
 Father " is sometimes God in relation to 
 his children in general, though even here 
 in contrast to the Son as in John v. 23 : 
 "That all may honour the Son, even as 
 they honour the Father. " Usually, how- 
 ever, in John's Gospel, the expression 
 " the Father " in the mouth of Jesus rep- 
 resents God in his relation to the Son, 
 as " the Father loveth the Son " (John v. 
 20), " even as the Father knoweth me 
 and I know the Father" (John x. 15), 
 " because I go to the Father " (John xvi. 
 10). The Father and the Son are often 
 
The Son 51 
 
 mentioned together in the discourses of 
 Christ in the Gospel of John. The pas- 
 sage in Matt. xi. 29-30 (cf. also Luke x. 
 22), which is so much like the words of 
 Christ in the Fourth Gospel, has likewise 
 " the Father " and " the Son " in mutual 
 relationship of utmost intimacy. 
 
 Sometimes, as in prayer, Jesus says 
 simply "Father.'' In Luke x. 21 he 
 prays : " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of 
 heaven and earth," and he goes on in the 
 same verse, " yea, Father, for so it was 
 well-pleasing in thy sight," though here 
 the Greek has the article with the voca- 
 tive. Beside the grave of Lazarus Christ 
 spoke with confident trust : " Father, I 
 thank thee that thou heardest me " (John 
 xi. 41). In the Garden of Gethsemane 
 Jesus cried out to God : " Father, if thou 
 be willing" (Luke xxii. 42), "Abba, 
 Father " (Mark xiv. 36) in the language 
 of childhood in both Aramaic and Greek 
 (with the article with each). On the 
 cross he prayed : " Father, forgive them " 
 
52 God the Father 
 
 (Luke xxiii. 34), a disputed passage, but 
 most probably genuine. He died with 
 the utterance of these words : " Father, 
 into thy hands I commend my spirit " 
 (Luke xxiii. 46). In a world of hypoc- 
 risy and religiosity Jesus stood in lonely 
 and lofty purity and sincerity. He found 
 full fellowship of spirit only with the 
 Father and the Holy Spirit. His heart 
 beat in compassion for men and in sym- 
 pathy with men, but at the same time he 
 stood apart from men. His highest and 
 holiest communion was with the Father 
 whose only begotten Son he was. If 
 this was true, more was true. 
 
 What is the Relation between Father and 
 Son in Nature 
 
 Has the Father given to the Son in ac- 
 tual being what his other children do not 
 possess ? It is sometimes said that evolu- 
 tion brings Christ under inevitable law 
 and makes it impossible for him to differ 
 in nature from other men, however far 
 
The Son 53 
 
 he excels them in character. But even 
 on scientific grounds Jesus is the grand 
 exception in the race, unless we deny the 
 records that we have about his career. 
 Those who revolt at the superhuman, 
 not to say supernatural, calmly brush 
 aside the Gospel accounts as discredited, 
 but then the supreme character remains. 
 It was drawn by somebody. The story 
 of the virgin birth is thrust into the limbo 
 of the legendary. But what then be- 
 comes of Christ? Whose Son is he? 
 This very question the Master pressed 
 home to his enemies after their complete 
 rout on the last day of his teaching in the 
 temple. If he is merely " the Son of 
 David" and so merely human, "how 
 then doth David in the Spirit call him 
 Lord ? " (Matt. xxii. 42 f.) On the 
 other hand, " If David then calleth him 
 Lord " and so he is only divine, "how 
 is he his son ? " (Matt. xxii. 45.) " No 
 one was able to answer him a word ' ' then, 
 nor can any one solve that riddle now 
 
54 God the Father 
 
 who does not admit the real humanity 
 and the real divinity of Jesus Christ. 
 It is no mere official relation nor does 
 Jesus simply have the religious value 
 of God's Son. The relation is vital and 
 eternal. 
 
 It is true that Jesus urges those who 
 follow him to "be one ; even as thou, 
 Father, art in me, and I in thee " (John 
 xvii. 20 f.), "that they may be one, even 
 as we are " (John xvii. 11). But none the 
 less the Son insists on a real difference 
 between the relation of the Son and the 
 disciples and that of the Son and the 
 Father. " And now, Father, glorify thou 
 me with thine own self with the glory 
 which I had with thee before the world 
 was " (John xvii. 5). Here he isolates 
 the Father and himself apart from the 
 world and before there was a world, when 
 he was with the Father's "own self." 
 Ideal pre-existence is inconceivable in this 
 passage. We may not penetrate the mys- 
 teries of the divine essence, but here 
 
The Son 55 
 
 Father and Son are set apart from all the 
 world in being and glory and are on a 
 plane of perfect equality that is incom- 
 prehensible save on the understanding 
 that Jesus is in very nature the Son of 
 God. It is only as we perceive this fact 
 that we can give hearty respect to one 
 who made such claims about himself as 
 Jesus did. With this frank admission 
 there is no discord when he says : " I am 
 the way, and the truth, and the life : no 
 one cometh unto the Father, but by me " 
 (John xiv. 6). Thus he is able to "shew 
 us the Father " because he is able truth- 
 fully to say : "I am in the Father, and 
 the Father in me " (John xiv. 11). So 
 we can be brought into contact with the 
 Father, " I in them and thou in me ,; 
 (John xvii. 23). 
 
 It is not surprising then to hear Jesus 
 call himself " the Son of God " as he does 
 a few times. This is the constant impli- 
 cation of the words so often on his lips, 
 " my Father," " the Father/' " the Son." 
 
56 God the Father 
 
 In the early part of the ministry at the 
 second visit to Jerusalem he was accused 
 by the Jews of calling " God his own 
 Father' ' and " making himself equal 
 with God." So far from denying this 
 charge he even said in defence : " The 
 hour cometh, and now is, when the dead 
 shall hear the voice of the Son of God; 
 and they that hear shall live" (John 
 v. 25). When Lazarus was at the point 
 of death, Jesus boldly declared that this 
 sickness was "for the glory of God, that 
 the Son of God may be glorified thereby " 
 (John xi. 4). But most of all, when put 
 on oath by the high priest at his trial be- 
 fore the Sanhedrin, Jesus asserted ex- 
 pressly that he was the Son of God : "I 
 adjure thee by the living God, that thou 
 tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
 Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou 
 hast said" (Matt. xxvi. 63 f.). Mark 
 represents Jesus as saying in reply simply : 
 " I am " (Mark xiv. 62). 
 
 It seems clear from this what the Jews 
 
The Son 57 
 
 understood Christ to mean by the ex- 
 pression "the Son of God." At any rate 
 his own teachings make clear what he 
 meant to claim. In view of all that is 
 true, it is rather surprising to find the 
 words "the Son of God" used so little 
 by the Master. Perhaps he avoided it 
 partly because of possible political conse- 
 quences as he usually avoided the use of 
 " Messiah " for the same reason. It is 
 not to be replied that Jesus claimed to be 
 God only in the sense true of those who 
 were given authority by God. He used 
 this argument (John x. 34-36). "Is it 
 not written in your law, I said, Ye are 
 gods?'' in rebuttal of the charge that he 
 was guilty of blasphemy, " because that 
 thou, being a man, makest thyself God " 
 (John x. 33). He had just said : "I and 
 the Father are one " (John x. 30). He 
 did not deserve the charge of blasphemy 
 even if he was only a god in the lower 
 sense, by no means admitting that this 
 was all the truth. The term therefore 
 
58 God the Father 
 
 is personal, expressing his relation to God, 
 as well as official and Messianic. 
 
 Jesus did claim his special divine Son- 
 ship when it was wise or necessary, but 
 he rejoiced to assert his humanity. The 
 phrase " the Son of man" is ever in his 
 mouth. This expression cannot be whit- 
 tled down to mean merely "a man." 
 It had a Messianic significance, though 
 perhaps not generally so understood, and 
 was pre-eminently fitting for him who 
 was in every sense the ideal man, the 
 representative man of all time. The very 
 pregnancy of the term makes it all the 
 more suitable. He used the words " the 
 Son of man " not only when speaking of 
 his earthly work, but when discussing his 
 power and glory, as when he replied to 
 the question of the high priest at the trial 
 before the Sanhedrin : " Henceforth ye 
 shall see the Son of man sitting at the 
 right hand of power, and coming on the 
 clouds of heaven " (Matt. xxvi. 64). 
 There is nothing to justify us in speaking 
 
The Son 59 
 
 of the divinity of Christ in distinction 
 from the deity of the Father. This is a 
 Ritschlian refinement foreign to the 
 teaching of the Gospels. John said ex- 
 pressly : " The Word was God " (John 
 
 i. i). 
 
 The Father and Son have an Interflow of 
 Knowledge 
 
 Jesus was a man and grew in knowl- 
 edge. But he also was God and the 
 Father's will and word came richly to 
 him in ways not true of mere men. "For 
 the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth 
 him all things that himself doeth 
 (John v. 20). Once more in the same 
 great discourse Jesus said: "As I hear, I 
 judge ; and ... I seek not mine own 
 will, but the will of him that sent me " 
 (John v. 30). When the hostile Jews 
 marvelled at the source of his teaching, 
 since he had not their scholastic training, 
 Jesus said simply : " My teaching is not 
 mine, but his that sent me ' ' (John vii. 
 
60 God the Father 
 
 16). By the open grave of Lazarus 
 Christ in calm trust looked up to God 
 and said : " Father, I thank thee that 
 thou heardest me " (John xi. 41), adding : 
 " And I knew that thou hearest me al- 
 ways." Jesus claimed to be the absolute 
 teacher of righteousness by reason of his 
 relation to the Father. 
 
 And yet he had some limitations in his 
 knowledge. He himself said of the day 
 of his second coming : " But of that day 
 or that hour knoweth no one, not even 
 the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but 
 the Father" (Mark xiii. 32). Why 
 Christ had superhuman knowledge and 
 yet was astonished at the faith of some 
 and the doubt of others we cannot tell. 
 The mind of Christ is part of the mys- 
 tery of his person. But we may rever- 
 ently assert that what he did teach was 
 authoritative and final. He taught no 
 error, though he did not teach every- 
 thing. He is the final authority where he 
 does speak, for he speaks the will of the 
 
The Son 61 
 
 Father. In the darkness of the cross, 
 Jesus cried out : " My God, my God, why 
 hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt, xxvii. 
 46). Here the frown of the Father rested 
 on the Son as he died for our sins ; he 
 was looked on as sin indeed. How the 
 Father, when one in nature with the Son, 
 could thus forsake the Son we do not 
 venture to discuss. 
 
 The Father and the Son Work in Harmony 
 
 There is no self-will in the Son toward 
 the Father. He gladly claims union with 
 the Father in nature, knowledge, and 
 power. "The Son can do nothing of 
 himself, but what he seeth the Father 
 doing'' (John v. 19). And this is not 
 mere imitation as earthly children copy 
 the deeds of their parents. " For as the 
 Father hath life in himself, even so gave 
 he to the Son also to have life in himself " 
 (John v. 26). With such power and rank 
 the Master dares to claim for himself 
 honor like that of the Father : " That all 
 
62 God the Father 
 
 may honor the Son, even as they honor 
 the Father. He that honoreth not the 
 Son honoreth not the Father which sent 
 him " (John v. 23 f.). This he said to 
 the hostile Jews in Jerusalem who pro- 
 tested against his " making himself equal 
 with God." 
 
 No mere man could soberly say what 
 Matthew represents Christ as saying after 
 the message from John the Baptist : "All 
 things have been delivered unto me of 
 my Father" (Matt. xi. 27). This su- 
 preme authority Jesus often asserted. 
 Even as he entered into the dark hours 
 of the Passion Week, he walked steadilv 
 on, John says, " Knowing that the Father 
 had given all things into his hands " (John 
 xiii. 3). After his resurrection from the 
 grave, the once homeless teacher boldly 
 uttered a cry of victory as he sent a band 
 of disciples on a world conquest : " All 
 authority hath been given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth " (Matt, xxviii. 18). 
 Satan had offered him power on earth for 
 
The Son 63 
 
 the price of a bow of worship, but now 
 the Master has power assured in heaven 
 and earth. 
 
 The Father and the Son are One in 
 Character 
 
 In the nature of the case Christ would 
 say little about being as holy as God the 
 Father. Once in fact when a rich young 
 ruler came to him and called him " Good 
 Master/' Jesus questioned his use of the 
 adjective " good " in reference to himself. 
 " Why callest thou me good ? None is 
 good save one, even God" (Mark x. 18). 
 But we do not here understand Christ to 
 deny that he is good, as some say, but 
 only to assert absolute goodness of God 
 alone from the ruler's point of view. 
 The young man doubtless did not take 
 Christ to be divine, as he is in reality. 
 Hence he needed care in the use of the 
 word "good/' The very caution of 
 Christ here serves to set in relief his own 
 character. He is good as God is good. 
 
64 God the Father 
 
 We also think of Jesus as the expression 
 of God's goodness. In this sense God is 
 as good as Jesus. This is the verdict of 
 men, practically of all men. No adjec- 
 tives are used to picture the life of Jesus 
 in the Gospels. He himself says nothing 
 about his personal character save as we 
 gather it in hints and deeds. But his 
 character is distinct and clear cut. If to 
 see Jesus was to see the Father, then is 
 Jesus like the Father in spirit and life. 
 This Christ claimed for himself : "If ye 
 had known me, ye would have known 
 my Father also " (John xiv. 7). But the 
 Father called him his " beloved Son " 
 and expressed good pleasure in him 
 (Matt. iii. 17). We have been treading 
 on holy ground as we have sought to un- 
 fold the relation between the Father and 
 the Son. He joyfully confessed : " My 
 Father is greater than I " (John xiv. 28). 
 He is speaking of office, but they are 
 one in nature, knowledge, power, and 
 character. The eternal Father and the 
 
The Son 65 
 
 eternal Son are also one in love for a lost 
 and ruined world. 
 
 The Apologetic of Jesus 
 
 Perhaps a paragraph should be added 
 for the purpose of calling attention to the 
 great number of Christ's sayings about 
 the relation between the Father and him- 
 self. He speaks far more about this as- 
 pect of the Father's revelation than about 
 any other. There are obvious reasons 
 for this fact. For one thing it was a 
 necessary introduction to his right to 
 speak so full and free a message from 
 the Father. His high claim to peculiar 
 oneness with the Father could not be 
 taken on his mere statement. This Jesus 
 freely admitted, though insisting that his 
 words were true even if they were not 
 accepted on his affirmation. In a true 
 sense Christ was on the defensive before 
 his enemies, and when attacked for mak- 
 ing himself equal with God, he had to 
 enter into extended discussion of the holy 
 
 E 
 
66 God the Father 
 
 relation subsisting between the Father 
 and the Son. This is seen especially at 
 the feast in Jerusalem (John v.), at the 
 feast of tabernacles (John vii. 7-x. 21), 
 at the feast of dedication (John x. 22- 
 42). 
 
 In the farewell discourse to the disci- 
 ples in the upper room just before his 
 death Christ opened his heart to them 
 and spoke frankly of the Father, the 
 Holy Spirit, and himself (John xii-xvii.). 
 This passage in John is the holy of holies 
 of the teaching of Jesus. And then be- 
 sides Christ had come into the world to 
 manifest the Father, to win the world 
 back to the Father. It is natural there- 
 fore that he should speak often of his 
 own relation to the Father in the execu- 
 tion of his high mission. All else is 
 after the King. The great, the supreme 
 message of Jesus is the revelation that he 
 offers in himself of God the Father. If 
 he speaks less at length about other rela- 
 tions of the Father, we must remember 
 
The Son 67 
 
 that in Christ God is reconciling the 
 world to himself. 
 
 The Father s Satisfaction in the Son 
 
 We are under necessity to be cautious 
 in all that we say concerning the emo- 
 tions of God the Father. But he thrice 
 spoke audibly his good pleasure in the 
 person and work of the Son, as has already 
 been shown, at the baptism, at the trans- 
 figuration, and when the Greeks came to 
 seek Jesus. The Son came forth from 
 the Father, and went back to the Father : 
 " I came out from the Father . . . 
 and go unto the Father " (John xvi. 28). 
 But all during his earthly ministry the 
 Father was with him : " and yet I am 
 not alone, because the Father is with me " 
 (John xvi. 32). He never doubted the 
 confidence that the Father had in him. 
 When he faced his death, he calmly 
 prayed : " Father, the hour is come ; 
 glorify thy Son, that the Son may glor- 
 ify thee " (John xvii. 2). He could give 
 
68 God the Father 
 
 his disciples no greater measure of his 
 love for them than the Father's love for 
 him : " Even as the Father hath loved 
 me, I also have loved you " (John xv. 9). 
 He was doing what he did " that the 
 world may know that I love the Father " 
 (John xiv. 31). 
 
 In the Garden of Gethsemane he did 
 not incur the Father's displeasure, for he 
 only asked that the cup pass, " Father, if 
 thou be willing" (Luke xxii. 42). And 
 even as on the cross the Son cried out 
 that the Father had forsaken him, yet it 
 was for this very purpose that the Father 
 had sent him into the world. " For 
 God so loved the world that he gave 
 his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth on him should not perish, but 
 have eternal life " (John iii. 16). The 
 heart of Christ was torn with grief at the 
 thought of separation from his disciples, 
 but he ventured to say that, if they really 
 knew what it meant for them and for 
 him that he go, they would not grieve. 
 
The Son 69 
 
 " If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, 
 because I go unto the Father " (John 
 xiv. 28). Henceforth he " is in the 
 bosom of the Father" (John i. 18). But 
 the Father is forever nearer to us and we 
 come, as Thomas did, and say to Jesus, 
 "My Lord and my God " (John xx. 
 28). Jesus told Mary Magdalene to say 
 to the disciples for him : "I ascend unto 
 my Father and your Father, and my God 
 and your God " (John xx. 17). So we 
 draw near to the Father, for Jesus in 
 heaven is the God-man still, our Brother 
 and Friend, our God and Saviour. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Relation of the Father to the 
 Holy Spirit. 
 
 " And I will pray the Father and he shall give you anothe 
 Comforter, that he may be with you for ever, even the Spirit 
 of truth." (Johnxiv. 16). 
 
 w 
 
 E are not here concerned with 
 metaphysical speculations. 
 
 The Fact of the Trinity 
 
 There is no technical discussion of the 
 Trinity in the New Testament. But the 
 fact is clearly revealed in various parts of 
 the Scriptures. The Gospels form no 
 
 70 
 
The Holy Spirit 71 
 
 exception. If we had no knowledge of 
 the Holy Spirit, the teaching of Jesus 
 would make necessary a dual God. His 
 own deity is indubitable. However, a 
 Triune God is the manifest unfolding 
 of Christ. If he reveals the Father, he 
 also declares his equality with the Father. 
 If he claims deity for himself, he also as- 
 serts the deity of the Holy Spirit. Jesus 
 does not give a detailed discussion of the 
 nature of the Trinity. But the essential 
 fact revealed is that God is one : " The 
 Lord our God, the Lord is one " (Mark 
 xii. 29). This is not a new revelation, 
 for the Old Testament is uniformly 
 monotheistic in teaching and Jesus here 
 is quoting the Old Testament. 
 
 But beside this cardinal fact in the 
 teaching of Christ lies the other fact of 
 his own deity and that of the Holy Spirit. 
 We may not be able to state in scientific 
 formula the idea of the Trinity. Three 
 Persons in one nature may seem intan- 
 gible to us. Be it so. We must dis- 
 
72 God the Father 
 
 criminate sharply between the fact of the 
 Trinity and theories about the Trinity. 
 What Christ reveals is not a mere mo- 
 dal Trinity. It is not that God manifests 
 himself now as Father, now as Son, now as 
 Holy Spirit. The rather all three Persons 
 co-exist in the one essence and co-work in 
 the salvation of men. Humility well be- 
 comes us all in applying to the infinite 
 Godhead the metes and bounds of our 
 finite reason. Christ himself is sufficient 
 guarantee for the truth that he reveals 
 even if it is incomprehensible to our mind. 
 He is the truth and can speak only the 
 truth. We may rest in him. 
 
 Jesus himself under the Spirit's Guidance in 
 his Earthly Life 
 
 The very birth of Jesus illustrates the 
 intimate and vital union of the three 
 Persons in the Godhead. The angel said 
 to Mary that Jesus was to be begotten 
 of the Holy Spirit : " The Holy Spirit 
 shall come upon thee, and the power of 
 
The Holy Spirit 73 
 
 the Most High shall overshadow thee " 
 (Luke i. 35), and he is to be God's Son 
 for this very reason : " Wherefore also 
 the holy thing which is begotten shall 
 be called the Son of God " (ibid.). At 
 the baptism of Jesus likewise the Father 
 audibly expressed his approval of the Son 
 while the Holy Spirit appeared in bodily 
 form like a dove and rested on Jesus 
 (Luke iii. 22). It is not here claimed 
 that this significant event explains clearly 
 the relations that subsist in the Trinity, 
 but only the vital reality and close con- 
 nection of Father, Son, and Spirit. We 
 may not say that Jesus was not under the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit before this 
 time, but simply that now in a formal 
 manner as he enters upon his public 
 Messianic mission the Father and the 
 Spirit set the seal of their approval upon 
 him. 
 
 It is beyond dispute that Jesus in his 
 earthly life was under the control of the 
 Holy Spirit as well as in subjection to the 
 
74 God the Father 
 
 will of the Father. Jesus was led of 
 the Spirit into the wilderness (Matt. iv. 1), 
 and in the temptation there the Spirit was 
 with him. In his first sermon at Naza- 
 reth he said : " The Spirit of the Lord is 
 upon me" (Luke iv. 18). He main- 
 tained that he wrought his miracles by 
 the Spirit of God (Matt. xii. 28), though 
 evidently with no reflection on the power 
 of the Father nor of his own power. 
 The way in which the divine power 
 worked in him in the case of the mira- 
 cles was by the Spirit. We need not as- 
 sert that Christ did not draw upon his own 
 divine power. To do so would lay too 
 much stress upon the difference between 
 Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus lived the 
 life of God : " My meat is to do the will 
 of him that sent me " (John iv. 34) ; and 
 in full fellowship of the Holy Spirit: 
 " In that same hour he rejoiced in the 
 Holy Spirit, and said, I thank thee, O 
 Father " (Luke x. 21). So reads the cor- 
 rect text here. 
 
The Holy Spirit 75 
 
 The Holy Spirit a Person in the Same Sense 
 that the Father is a Person 
 It is necessary at least to call attention 
 to this important fact, since some Chris- 
 tians fail to perceive it. The passages 
 just quoted concerning the birth and life 
 of Jesus bear witness to the distinct per- 
 sonality of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit 
 is not merely the power of God or the 
 influence of God. Father, Son, and 
 Spirit are repeatedly mentioned together 
 on the same plane of personal reality. In 
 the discourses in the upper room (John 
 xiii-xvii.), Jesus many times assumes 
 the personal existence of the Holy Spirit 
 in as true a sense as he himself existed. 
 Let one quotation suffice : " But the Com- 
 forter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the 
 Father will send in my name, he shall 
 teach you all things " (John xiv. 26). In 
 the Great Commission Jesus sends forth 
 the disciples to baptize " in the name of 
 the Father and of the Son and of the 
 Holy Ghost" (Matt, xxviii. 19). The 
 
76 God the Father 
 
 teaching of Christ is clear on this sub- 
 ject. 
 
 The Order of the Persons in the 'Trinity 
 
 In his earthly career the Son is under 
 the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but the 
 other facts given seem clearly to show 
 that this is not the normal situation. We 
 hesitate to lay special emphasis on such a 
 point as this, for, of course, in the order 
 of the Godhead there is perfect harmony 
 as well as identity of essence. And yet 
 when the three are spoken of together 
 it is usually in the order of Father, Son, 
 and Spirit. And more than this, the Son 
 himself asserts an order of rank over the 
 Spirit in one respect : " But when the 
 Comforter is come, whom I will send 
 unto you from the Father, even the 
 Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from 
 the Father, he shall bear witness of me " 
 (John xv. 26). In John xiv. 26, he had 
 said : " whom the Father will send in 
 my name." Moreover, after the resur- 
 
The Holy Spirit 77 
 
 rection Jesus "breathed on them and 
 saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy 
 Spirit" (John xx. 22). Jesus said: 
 "The Father is greater than I " (John xiv. 
 28). In point of rank therefore it seems 
 clear that there is a difference in the 
 Trinity. 
 
 But the Son "is in the bosom of the 
 Father,'' and the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, 
 " shall glorify me ; for he shall take of 
 mine, and shall declare it unto you " 
 (John xvi. 14). Moreover, the Holy 
 Spirit " shall not speak from himself ; 
 but whatsoever things he shall hear, 
 these shall he speak " (John xvi. 13). 
 As the Son on earth spoke for the 
 Father, so the Holy Spirit would speak 
 from the Father and reveal the Son to 
 men. The Son came to manifest the 
 Father to the world in himself. The 
 Spirit would come to reveal to men 
 the Son and thus the Father. As the 
 Son glorified the Father, so the Spirit 
 would glorify the Son. As the Son 
 
78 God the Father 
 
 owed his birth to the Holy Spirit, so 
 men would become children of God by 
 the Spirit, though to be sure in a differ- 
 ent sense than is true of Jesus. We 
 despair of any effort to put in intelligible 
 form the basal and eternal facts of the 
 glorious Trinity, but none the less we 
 reverently and joyfully accept God as re- 
 vealed by Christ as Father, Son, and Spirit. 
 This is more than an economic or a 
 metaphysical Trinity. But we do not 
 have three separate Gods. Christianity 
 is not polytheistic. Electricity is light, 
 heat, and power. Radium bids us all to 
 be slow to say dogmatically what cannot 
 be true in the realm of the eternal. 
 
 Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is Blas- 
 phemy against God 
 
 Jesus would not brook an insult to his 
 Father nor to the Holy Spirit. The 
 Pharisees were not able to deny the real- 
 ity of the miracles of Jesus, but in des- 
 peration they attributed them to Satan, 
 
The Holy Spirit 79 
 
 accusing Jesus of being in league with 
 the devil. They hoped thus to offset the 
 effect of his works. But Jesus boldly 
 claimed to work them by the Spirit of 
 God (Matt. xii. 28), and accused them 
 of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, 
 which sin is eternal and has no forgive- 
 ness (Mark iii. 29 f.). In fact Jesus held 
 blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to be 
 worse than blasphemy against the Son : 
 "And whosoever shall speak a word 
 against the Son, it shall be forgiven him ; 
 but whosoever shall speak against the 
 Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him " 
 (Matt. xii. 32). This is true not because 
 the Holy Spirit is greater than the Son, 
 but because there was less excuse for it. 
 The Son of man was in human form, 
 and perhaps more excuse was possible 
 when he was treated as a mere man. But 
 the Holy Spirit was not man at all, but 
 God alone, and the works thus manifestly 
 wrought by the Spirit of God were dia- 
 bolically attributed to Satan. It was the 
 
80 God the Father 
 
 climax of malevolence, when the very 
 works of God, and plain works of God, 
 were credited to the power of Satan. 
 This is indeed a Use majeste in the high- 
 est sense of that term. The full deity 
 and the real personality of the Holy Spirit 
 are implied in the teaching of Christ con- 
 cerning the unpardonable sin. It is not 
 hard to see the justice of this hard pen- 
 alty. The depth of the iniquity of the 
 Pharisees is thus apprehended against 
 whom Jesus later let loose the vials of 
 his just wrath (Matt, xxiii.). 
 
 The Promise of the Father to Send the 
 Spirit 
 
 We are not to think that the Holy 
 Spirit was not in the world at all before 
 the day of Christ. No more are we to 
 say that God had no kingdom on earth 
 before John the Baptist proclaimed the 
 advent of the kingdom of God. In a 
 new sense the kingdom came with the 
 coming of Christ, as in a new sense it will 
 
The Holy Spirit 81 
 
 be fully come when Christ comes again 
 to claim his own. So in a new and 
 richer sense the Holy Spirit was to come 
 when Jesus went back to the Father, 
 although before that day Jesus had said 
 that the heavenly Father would " give 
 the Holy Spirit to them that ask him " 
 (Luke xi. 13). He had also previously 
 spoken of the coming of the Holy Spirit 
 as "rivers of living water" "which they 
 that believed on him were to receive' ' 
 (John vii. 39 f.). John adds this also : 
 " For the Spirit was not yet given/ ' re- 
 ferring to the day of Pentecost. He 
 wrote at the close of the century and was 
 looking back to the great day when the 
 Spirit of God began a new era in Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 To the distressed disciples Jesus prom- 
 ised a Comforter who should be with 
 them when he was gone : " And I will 
 pray the Father, and he shall give you 
 another Comforter, that he may be with 
 you forever " (John xiv. 16). In fact, 
 
82 God the Father 
 
 said Jesus, "if I go not away, the Com- 
 forter will not come unto you " (John 
 xvi.7), "but," he adds, "if I go, I will 
 send him unto you," thus identifying his 
 work with that of the Father. 
 
 At Jerusalem before the ascension, 
 Jesus repeated the promise of the Father 
 in specific terms: "And behold I send 
 forth the promise of the Father upon 
 you" (Luke xxiv. 49), adding: "Ye 
 shall receive power, when the Holy 
 Spirit is come upon you ' ' (Acts i. 8). 
 Clearly then the Holy Spirit was to take 
 up the work of the Son and to carry it 
 on to the end. But we are not to think 
 of a merely absentee Christ who has 
 withdrawn to the glory of heaven. He 
 is at the right hand of the Father as our 
 High Priest, Advocate, and Elder 
 Brother, who pleads our cause on high 
 with the Father while the Holy Spirit is 
 Christ's advocate on earth with men. 
 Indeed through the Holy Spirit Jesus is 
 with us " always, even unto the end of 
 
The Holy Spirit 83 
 
 the world " (Matt, xxviii. 20). So then 
 all three Persons of the Trinity are ac- 
 tively engaged in the work of redemp- 
 tion. 
 
 It is possible in a general way to speak 
 of the Old Testament dispensation as 
 that of God the Father, the dispensation 
 in the Gospels as that of Jesus the Son 
 of God and the Son of man, and the 
 apostolic dispensation as that of the Holy 
 Spirit. But this can be said only by way 
 of accent , not of separate work. For 
 the Holy Spirit is not ignored in the Old 
 Testament and the coming of the Mes- 
 siah is the one great hope that lights up 
 the Old Testament times. In the min- 
 istry of Jesus the supreme fact is the full 
 revelation of God the Father in the Son 
 while he himself is in constant com- 
 munion with the Spirit. When the Son 
 returned to the bosom of the Father, the 
 Holy Spirit is in control of the kingdom 
 of heaven on earth, and yet the chief 
 Work of the Holy Spirit is to make effec- 
 
84 God the Father 
 
 tive the work of the Son on the basis of 
 whose atoning death it is possible for 
 men to come back to God the Father. 
 The Spirit, then, is the Father's ever- 
 present Messenger who convicts " the 
 world in respect of sin, and of righteous- 
 ness, and of judgment" (John xvi. 8). 
 The Spirit's unutterable groanings in our 
 hearts are understood by the Father who 
 listens for the cry of his helpless chil- 
 dren (Rom. viii. 26 f.). 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Relation of God to His World. 
 
 " As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I 
 them into the world " (John xvii. 18). 
 
 F J'VZ'E have no formal discussion of 
 yp cosmological theories by Jesus 
 
 nor does he use technical 
 phrases about this theme. In this as in 
 all things Jesus uses the language of life 
 and not the systematized expressions of 
 the schools. 
 
 The World View of Jesus 
 
 It need not, however, be assumed that 
 Jesus did not have a world view, a welt- 
 
 85 
 
86 God the Father 
 
 anschauung. Jesus had a world view, 
 but used the term in a variety of senses. 
 He felt himself apart from " this world " 
 and came "for judgment" into it (John 
 ix. 39). I am come a light into the 
 world " (John xii. 46). He even said : 
 " I am the light of the world " (John viii. 
 12). His primary object in coming is 
 not simply to judge, " but to save the 
 world" (John xii. 47). Clearly then 
 Jesus had a world outlook. He took 
 the world upon his heart in a large way 
 and did not have a limited world range. 
 Satan offered him in subtle temptation 
 " all the kingdoms of the world and the 
 glory of them " (Matt. iv. 8), the goal of 
 Alexander's ambition, of the Cassars, of 
 Napoleon. We may not, then, dismiss 
 what Christ has to say on this subject 
 with the idea that Jesus was merely a 
 narrow provincial of Judea who had no 
 world ideas of importance. 
 
 We must remember that his favorite 
 title for himself was " The Son of man," 
 
God and His JVorld 87 
 
 by which he meant not merely a man, 
 but the representative man, the son of 
 the race who gathered up in himself the 
 ideals and hopes of the best in the world, 
 the man who was such as God meant 
 him to be. As Son of man and Son of 
 God Jesus had the largest and the truest 
 outlook on the world of any man who 
 has ever lived. He can tell us what God 
 the Father thinks of the world and how 
 men should regard it. " The things 
 which I heard from him, these speak I 
 unto the world" (John viii. 27). The 
 words of John reinforce, if need be, this 
 claim of Jesus, for <c all things were made 
 by him ; and without him was not any- 
 thing made " (John i. 3). " He was in 
 the world, and the world was made by 
 him, and the world knew him not" 
 (John i. 10). It is presumptuous, then, 
 to say the least, to posit ignorance of the 
 world by Christ, the Creator of the 
 world. How much in his human state 
 Jesus condescended not to know, or did 
 
88 God the Father 
 
 not know, since he grew in knowledge, 
 we do not understand. But certainly we 
 cannot limit his knowledge of the world 
 as that of a mere man of the first century 
 in Judea. 
 
 The Senses in Which the Term World is 
 Used by Jesus 
 
 It is in the Gospel of John that we 
 find the word " world " used so much. 
 In Mark and Luke each it occurs three 
 times only and but nine times in Mat- 
 thew. In John we have it 78 times and 
 only 184 in all the rest of the New Tes- 
 tament. How is it used ? The usual 
 word for world as used by Jesus is cosmos. 
 Twice only does he use the word oikou- 
 mene, the inhabited earth, and both of 
 these are in the discourse on the Mount 
 of Olives concerning the destruction of 
 Jerusalem and the Second Coming 
 (Matt. xxiv. 14; Luke xxi. 26). Here 
 the world is the earth as the habitation 
 of men. Cosmos meant originally orderly 
 
God and His JVorld 89 
 
 arrangement, then ornament as in 1 Pet. 
 iii. 3, " the outward adorning of braiding 
 the hair." It was natural for this word 
 to be applied to the orderly and orna- 
 mental arrangement of the universe. So 
 Jesus speaks of the glory which he had 
 with the Father " before the world was " 
 (John xvii. 5), where he uses it for the 
 universe itself. The word is also used 
 by Jesus for the earth simply when he 
 says : " If a man walk in the day, he 
 stumbleth not, because he seeth the light 
 of this world " (John xi. 9), again : " I 
 am no more in the world " (John xvii. 
 11). Then also we find the Master using 
 the term for the inhabitants of the earth, 
 as when he said : " I came out from the 
 Father, and am come into the world " 
 (John xvi. 28). So also : " The field is 
 the world" (Matt. xiii. 38). 
 
 Besides Jesus spoke of the world as sin- 
 ful and different from his disciples : " If 
 ye were of the world, the world would 
 love its own, but because ye are not of the 
 
90 God the Father 
 
 world, but I chose you out of the world, 
 therefore the world hateth you " (John 
 xv. 19). Again Christ conceived of this 
 world as distinct from the world to come : 
 "Ye are from beneath ; I am from above ; 
 ye are of this world ; I am not of this 
 world " (John viii. 23). Thus he spoke 
 to his enemies after the feast of taber- 
 nacles. To Pontius Pilate Jesus said 
 simply : " My kingdom is not of this 
 world " (John xviii. 36). Clearly then 
 the term had a varied content in the 
 mind of Christ. He had a world con- 
 sciousness and knew that he had entered 
 upon a world conflict and was to win a 
 world conquest. 
 
 God the Author of the Universe 
 
 With Jesus the world had a " begin- 
 ning " (Matt. xxiv. 21) and so is not eter- 
 nal. He will say at the judgment: 
 " Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
 the kingdom prepared for you from the 
 foundation of the world " (Matt. xxv. 34). 
 
God and His World 91 
 
 There was a time when he had glory 
 " before the world was " (John xvii. 5). 
 Moreover, the world will have an end 
 (Matt, xxviii. 20), though here an- 
 other word (awn) is used which means 
 age. Jesus speaks of Satan as the prince 
 of this world, but he will be cast out 
 (John xii. 31). He by no means ac- 
 knowledges Satan as the creator or right- 
 ful master of the world. He is distinctly 
 a usurper who will be displaced by 
 Christ. Jesus does not in so many words 
 say that God created the universe, but 
 that is the whole implication of what he 
 does say in the passages already quoted. 
 His idea is evidently the same as that of 
 John who speaks of the world as being 
 created by the Logos (Christ) who is the 
 Son of God (John i. 10). The Father 
 is the ultimate creator and the Son 
 wrought the Father's will. Jesus called 
 himself " the light of the world " (John 
 vii. 12), but was doubtless here speaking 
 of moral and spiritual light, though he is 
 
92 God the Father 
 
 in fact the force that holds the universe 
 together as Paul shows (Col. i. 17). He 
 is indeed the life of the world (Johnvi. 
 33 ; xi. 25) in every sense of that term. 
 It is not possible to reconcile the teach- 
 ing of Jesus about the Father's relation 
 to the world with materialism in any 
 form. Naturalistic evolution is repug- 
 nant to the fundamental conceptions of 
 Jesus. So is every theory that postulates 
 the eternity of matter. 
 
 Hence God is More than the Universe 
 
 The immanence of God as Father and 
 as Son is implicit in many of the sayings 
 of Jesus. There is no divorce between 
 God and his world. When Jesus calls 
 himself the light and the life of the world, 
 he is doubtless thinking of the moral 
 and spiritual life of men. This is the 
 main thing. God himself is spirit and 
 our immortal souls are our main con- 
 cern. " For what doth it profit a man, 
 to gain the whole world, and forfeit his 
 
God and His World 93 
 
 life ? " (Mark viii. 36). But Jesus spoke 
 also to the winds and the waves and they 
 obeyed his will (Mark iv. 41). Jesus 
 does not think it incongruous for the 
 divine will to be exercised on inanimate 
 nature. The loaves and fishes alike re- 
 spond to his call and thus testify to the 
 immanent power of God (Mark vi. 41). 
 
 But if God is present in his world, he 
 is more than his world. The world is 
 not God in any sense of the term, 
 whether the universe, the earth, the 
 people, or moral evil in the world. This 
 last certainly was other than God and is 
 due to the devil who is under suffer- 
 ance in the world and whose dark mys- 
 terious existence and power over men 
 Jesus does not explain, though he freely 
 recognizes his baleful influence. But 
 when Jesus says God is spirit (John iv. 24) 
 he pointedly denies that the material uni- 
 verse is God or a part of God, thus re- 
 jecting pantheism and monism. What is 
 true of the whole is true of the parts, and 
 
94 God the Father 
 
 so neither the earth nor humanity can 
 be God. God is a Spirit and a Person 
 who has supreme power over the uni- 
 verse. It is his world for he made it. 
 It is the expression of his will, but there 
 is a difference between subject and ob- 
 ject. The creative activity of the Father 
 is continuous. He has not tied himself 
 up in his own laws, but exerts a con- 
 stant control in nature. " My Father 
 worketh even until now, and I work " 
 (John v. 17). 
 
 God has life in himself and has given 
 the Son to have life in himself (John v. 
 26). Spontaneous generation is a futile 
 theory, for life is in God. It is not 
 strange then that the greatest modern 
 scientists, even those who are not Chris- 
 tians or even theists as Spencer and Hux- 
 ley, frankly confess their ignorance of 
 the mystery of life. Life cannot be put 
 under the microscope. It is not a chem- 
 ical process nor a part of a cell tissue. 
 Life is in God. God alone gives life as 
 
God and His World 95 
 
 he wills. Life works the cells and builds 
 the marvellous structures in the physical 
 world. But life will never be shown to 
 be a mere mechanical process. Not even 
 radium is life as some excited materialists 
 are saying. God is life. 
 
 God Loves the World 
 
 God does not acknowledge the devil's 
 claim to ownership of the world. There 
 is evil, terrible evil in the world. It was 
 a good world when God made it. It is 
 a marred and ruined world now, but 
 none the less God loves it. His pity 
 towards it is all the greater because of 
 the evil wrought in it. God does not 
 view with unconcern the moral situation 
 in the world. If Jesus did not himself 
 speak the words recorded in John iii. 
 16, as possibly he did not, they at any 
 rate fully express his revelation of the 
 Father's attitude toward the world: 
 " For God so loved the world, that he 
 gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
 
96 God the Father 
 
 ever belie veth on him should not per- 
 ish, but have eternal life." God does not 
 wish the world to perish, nor any part of 
 it. " For God," the passage (John iii. 17) 
 continues, " sent not the Son into the 
 world to condemn the world ; but that 
 the world should be saved through 
 him." 
 
 The Father has indeed " given all 
 judgment unto the Son" (John v. 22), 
 but the Father prefers that in every case 
 the Son shall bring salvation rather than 
 condemnation. " For I came not to 
 judge the world, but to save the world " 
 (John xii. 47). "To save the world." 
 That is the profoundest philosophy of 
 Christianity as expounded by the author 
 of the gospel. The Father wished to 
 bring back to himself a world that had 
 wandered away from him. This is the 
 tragedy of the universe. This is the story 
 of divine love that dwarfs into littleness 
 all others. The Father gave his only be- 
 gotten son for a world that had learned to 
 
God and His IVorld 97 
 
 hate its Creator, that had spurned a 
 Father's love, and that refused to come 
 back home and be reconciled. To bring 
 harmony into the universe again, to save 
 the lost, the Son gave his own life a ran- 
 som on the cross, a victim to the hate of 
 the world for which he died. This cruel 
 death was necessary as a basis for the 
 atoning work of the Son and to make it 
 possible for the Father to save those that 
 believe. But it is none the less the cli- 
 max of human sin. 
 
 The attitude of the Father towards 
 publicans and sinners on the one hand and 
 the self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees 
 on the other is set forth in a matchless 
 manner in the great parable of the Prod- 
 igal Son (Luke xv. 11-32). We shall 
 need to come back to this parable again 
 under another point of view. But here 
 let us see the Father's desire that both 
 the elder and the younger sons should 
 dwell in his house. He did not drive 
 the younger away nor did he make him 
 
98 God the Father 
 
 come back, but, O, what a welcome he 
 gave him when he did come back with 
 a repentant heart. He did not make the 
 elder brother sulk in the fields, but he 
 would not drive away the lost son now 
 found again, not even to please the elder 
 brother. The heart of God yearns for 
 the world to be his. For this purpose 
 Christ sent the disciples on their world- 
 wide mission (Matt, xxviii. 19). The 
 conquest of the world, no more no less, 
 is the goal of Christianity, the furthest 
 reach of the Father's love. 
 
 But His Kingdom is not of This World 
 
 If it were, there would be no need of 
 it and no room for it. If Christianity is 
 " other- worldliness, " that is precisely the 
 thing most needed for the world. The 
 world's hunger is for something other 
 than itself, something to make it better 
 than it is. No world- originated system 
 could or can make the world better than 
 the world. Hell was tugging at the world 
 
God and His World 99 
 
 to pull it down and was already victor. 
 The only hope was from above. The 
 constant claim of Jesus was : " I am from 
 above " (John viii. 23). The kingdom 
 that he set up was not of this world 
 (John xviii. 36), was prepared for them 
 before the foundation of the world 
 (Matt. xxv. 34), was an invisible king- 
 dom in the heart (Luke xvii. 20 f.), and 
 was to win. " I have overcome the 
 world " (John xvi. 33), Jesus said. He 
 spoke as a Conqueror and he is still con- 
 quering. " In the world ye have tribu- 
 lation ; but be of good cheer " (John xvi. 
 33). The day will come when " the 
 kingdom of the world is become the 
 kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ " 
 (Rev. xi. 15). Till then God is in Christ 
 reconciling the world to himself. We 
 are the messengers of God and Christ 
 to speed the message, to further the mis- 
 sion of Christ to the world, to win the 
 world to Christ, for he alone can bless 
 and save a world lost in sin. 
 
 tofC. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Relatio7t of God to the Unsaved. 
 
 " For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which 
 was lost" (Luke xix. 10). 
 
 yti RE the wicked children of God ? 
 yjf That depends upon what one 
 means by the term " children of 
 God." Is God the Father of the un- 
 saved ? That likewise depends on the 
 idea in the term " Father." As in most 
 controversies, the terms need definition 
 if we are to proceed intelligently in the 
 apprehension of the relation of God to 
 the unsaved. The expression " universal 
 fatherhood of God " has become a party 
 ioo 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 101 
 
 shibboleth to some extent in our day. 
 Not always do the persons who use it 
 understand each other. The Universal- 
 ists mean that all men are indeed the spir- 
 itual children of God and will be mem- 
 bers of the family of God in heaven. 
 Those who hold the other extreme deny 
 that any are in any sense the children of 
 God save those who are born again into 
 the family of God by the renewal of 
 heart through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 We were Created in the Image of God 
 
 This early statement in Genesis is ac- 
 cepted by all as an accurate statement of 
 man's original spiritual condition except 
 it be anti-Christian evolutionists who deny 
 the spiritual kinship to God. The orig- 
 inal likeness to God is in the spirit, not 
 in the body which is of the earth. But 
 on the physical side we are the children 
 of God in the sense that he is the Creator 
 of all things. But clearly more than this 
 is involved in the image of God which 
 
102 God the Father 
 
 was stamped in our souls. God has re- 
 lations to men that he does not have to 
 the beasts of the field. 
 
 Alienation from God 
 
 The background of the life and work 
 of Christ is just this. The world had 
 gone away from God. The world was 
 lost. Something had come in to break 
 the previous relation to God. No longer 
 are men, save an elect few, on terms of 
 fellowship with God. They are out- 
 casts from the family of God, aliens from 
 the commonwealth of Israel, without 
 God, in fact hostile towards God. If such 
 men are still children of God, they are dis- 
 obedient children who have rebelled 
 against the Father, who have left home, 
 and who have gone over to the enemy 
 of the Father. They have caused them- 
 selves to be disinherited, have sold their 
 birthright, and have refused all overtures 
 to return to the Father's love and home. 
 This in fact seems to be the conception 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 103 
 
 of the unsaved that underlies the teach- 
 ing of Jesus. Hence it is that not all 
 who hear the glad news of salvation will 
 be saved. They are in the enemy's 
 country and will not give up their new 
 pleasures for what they have left and 
 may get by returning. When the seed 
 is sown, the soil may be very hard and 
 beaten, or stony, or thorny. Or perhaps 
 the tares grow right in the midst of the 
 wheat. " The good seed, then, are the 
 sons of the kingdom ; and the tares the 
 sons of the evil one" (Matt. xiii. 38 f.). 
 Here "good" is not good by nature, 
 but by virtue of the choice to become V 
 sons of the kingdom. 
 
 The Condemnation of the Father 
 
 The unsaved are under the displeasure 
 of the Father. If John the Baptist called 
 the Pharisees "offspring of vipers" (Matt, 
 iii. 7), so did Jesus : " Ye offspring of 
 vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak 
 good things ? " (Matt. xii. 34). This was 
 
104 God the Father 
 
 at the time of the blasphemous accusa- 
 tion. But at the close of the terrible de- 
 nunciation on the last day in the temple, 
 when Christ let loose the pent up indig- 
 nation of the years, he said : " Ye ser- 
 pents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall 
 ye escape the judgment of hell ? " (Matt. 
 xxiii. 33). He had poured vials of wrath 
 against these consummate hypocrites who 
 juggled with the consciences of men and 
 the teachings of God and made their 
 proselytes twofold more sons of hell than 
 they were themselves (Matt. xxii. 15). 
 
 Certainly there was unusual provoca- 
 tion to have called forth such denuncia- 
 tion from the gentle Christ who was a 
 volcano only to the enemies of God his 
 Father. And yet the fact that Jesus 
 could with justice so characterize these 
 men makes it impossible to think of them 
 as actually belonging to the family of 
 God. They can only be called renegade 
 children. They had accused Jesus of 
 being in league with Satan and thus hav- 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 105 
 
 ing power to cast out demons, when in 
 fact they were themselves guilty of the 
 unpardonable sin in thus attributing the 
 manifest work of the Holy Spirit to the 
 devil (Matt. xii. 31 f.). They are " guilty 
 of an eternal sin " (Mark iii. 29). Again 
 in a strenuous controversy with the 
 Pharisees in Jerusalem at the feast of tab- 
 ernacles six months before his death, 
 Jesus expressly denied that they were 
 the children of God, and said in plain 
 terms that they were children of the 
 devil. " If God were your Father, ye 
 would love me" (John viii. 42). "Ye 
 are of your father, the devil, and the 
 lusts of your father it is your will to do ,J 
 (John viii. 44). They were the literal 
 descendants of Abraham, but were not 
 the spiritual children of Abraham (John 
 viii. 39). So then God had created 
 them ; but they now belonged to the 
 family of the devil. 
 
 Judas is repeatedly said to belong to 
 the devil (as John vi. 70). The poor de- 
 
106 God the Father 
 
 moniacs were wholly under the power 
 of demons, the agents of Satan. It is 
 not possible to deny successfully the re- 
 ality of the demoniacal possessions and 
 maintain the spiritual supremacy of 
 Christ. The efforts to do so are all futile. 
 But, it may be replied, these are ex- 
 ceptional cases. They are specimens of 
 the worst elements in society from the 
 spiritual point of view. It yet remains 
 to show that the bulk of the unsaved are 
 not in the family of God. Jesus had 
 pointedly said in the Sermon on the 
 Mount that, unless the righteousness of 
 the people exceeded that of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees they should not enter the 
 kingdom of heaven (Matt. v. 20). Later 
 he accused the Pharisees of making void 
 the word of God because of their tradi- 
 tion (Matt. xv. 6). But Jesus made a 
 much broader statement when he said to 
 the Galilean throng in the synagogue at 
 Capernaum : " No man can come to me 
 except the Father which sent me draw 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 107 
 
 him " (John vi. 44). This he said when 
 he was explaining to the unspiritual pop- 
 ulace that he was a spiritual Messiah. 
 This announcement helped to break the 
 charm of his power over them. If that 
 was the kind of Messiah that he claimed 
 to be, and not a great Jewish king, they 
 wished none of him. But the whole 
 passage serves to show the distance from 
 God and Christ at which the unspiritual 
 multitude dwells. It is not merely the 
 leaders who are away from the Father, 
 but the people as well. "Ye have seen 
 me, and yet believe not" (John vi. 36). 
 More than all this, the impulse to come 
 to Christ comes from the Father. It is 
 a hopeless situation out of Christ, what 
 Paul calls "dead in trespasses and sins." 
 Christ even speaks of " this evil genera- 
 tion " (Matt. xii. 45). Christ is himself 
 the test of character and the door to eter- 
 nal life. " No one cometh unto the 
 Father, but by me " (John xiv. 6). All 
 who do not thus " come " by him are 
 
108 God the Father 
 
 lost. "He that belie veth not has been 
 judged already" (John iii. 18). If this 
 last passage is the teaching of the evan- 
 gelist only, it is certainly in harmony 
 with the teaching of Jesus as to the con- 
 dition of the unsaved. 
 
 Hell and Eternal Punishment 
 
 Jesus taught that the wicked would 
 spend eternity in hell in the outer dark- 
 ness away from the presence of the 
 Father. "The outer darkness" (Matt. 
 viii. 12 ; xxii. 13 ; xxv. 30) is one of the 
 most vivid descriptions of the state of 
 the lost used by the Master. They are 
 away from God who is light, away from 
 the company of the redeemed. Another 
 picture is presented under the image of 
 the undying worm : " where their worm 
 dieth not " (Mark ix. 48). Hades does 
 not mean place of torment itself, but 
 merely the unseen world ; yet in Luke 
 xvi. 23 it is used evidently for that part 
 of the unseen world where torment is, 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 109 
 
 for the wicked rich man in Hades "lifted 
 up his eyes, being in torments.' ' This 
 is not a temporary state for " there is a 
 great gulf fixed " (Luke xvi. 26) between 
 the wicked rich man and Lazarus. This 
 is a parable, but it correctly represents 
 Christ's idea of the fate of the wicked. 
 Moreover, Jesus often expressly uses the 
 term Gehenna for the place of the lost. 
 It is not simply " the hell of fire " (Matt. 
 v. 22), but the place where the soul and 
 body of the wicked are sent by God the 
 Father (Matt. x. 28). It is impossible 
 for the Pharisees whom Jesus denounc- 
 ed to escape Gehenna (Matt, xxiii. 33). 
 These are terrible pictures of a place and 
 state of eternal punishment. Certainly 
 they do not have to be taken literally 
 any more than the picture of heaven as 
 a city with streets and river. But the 
 figure in both cases falls short of the 
 reality. Each man makes a hell for him- 
 self in the memory of his sin and the 
 lashing of his conscience. The law of 
 
no God the Father 
 
 heredity reinforces the teaching about 
 hell. If there is eternal progress in holi- 
 ness, there is also eternal progress in evil. 
 We must not let sentimental notions 
 about the fatherhood of God destroy the 
 real teaching of Christ about the Father. 
 Jesus himself called the wicked " lost " 
 (Luke xix. 10). At the judgment day he 
 will say : " Depart from me, ye^ cursed, 
 into the eternal fire which is prepared for 
 the devil and his angels " (Matt. xxv. 41). 
 This awful doom is solemnly repeated in 
 measured words at the close of the same 
 discourse on the Mount of Olives : " And 
 these shall go away into eternal punish- 
 ment : but the righteous into eternal life " 
 (Matt. xxv. 46). It is useless to seek to 
 whittle away the meaning of " eternal " 
 with " punishment' ' It is the very word 
 that is used with " life." The arguments 
 that will disprove the eternity of the 
 " fire " and the " punishment " will like- 
 wise destroy the eternity of the "life." 
 They stand or fall together. Hence we 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 1 1 1 
 
 are not to say that God is the Father of 
 all men in the sense that he will not 
 punish unforgiven sin. To say that is 
 not only to contradict the plain teach- 
 ing of Christ on the subject, but is also 
 to have an inadequate conception of sin, 
 God's view of sin, and God's own nature. 
 
 God Seeking his Lost Children 
 
 But least of all should we attribute 
 malice to the Father in the punishment 
 of the unsaved. Jesus not only taught 
 us to pray for our enemies, but he did 
 so himself as he hung on the cross (ac- 
 cording to what is probably the correct 
 text in Luke xxiii. 34) : <c Father, forgive 
 them ; for they know not what they do. ,, 
 The three immortal parables in the fif- 
 teenth chapter of Luke show us the 
 yearning love of the Father for the lost. 
 If the shepherd goes after the one lost 
 sheep, so the Father has sent his Son to 
 save the publicans and sinners. And 
 there is joy in heaven when the lost is 
 
1 1 2 God the Father 
 
 found. If the woman searches for the 
 lost piece of money and rejoices when 
 she finds it, so there is joy in the pres- 
 ence of the angels of God over one sin- 
 ner that repenteth. But this is not all. 
 If the prodigal son, after wandering in 
 sin, repents and comes back with humble 
 confession on his lips, he finds the 
 Father watching for him. " For this 
 my son was dead, and is alive again ; 
 he was lost, and is found " (Luke xv. 24). 
 That is it. The lost children are dead 
 children, dead to the influence of the 
 Father's love, and have lost connection 
 with him. This is precisely the work of 
 Christ, to bring to life again the dead chil- 
 dren, to find the lost sons and daughters, 
 and bring them home again (John v. 25). 
 
 Reconciliation Possible in Christ 
 
 But there must first be reconciliation. 
 Home will not be home so long as the 
 wicked feel as they do toward the 
 Father. Christ's blood "is shed for 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 113 
 
 many unto remission of sins" (Matt. 
 xxvi. 28). He gave his " life a ransom 
 for many " (Mark x. 45). This was not 
 an accident. The death of the Son was 
 part of the plan of the Father, who 
 " gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
 soever believeth on him should not per- 
 ish, but have eternal life " (John hi. 16). 
 The death of Christ was known to him 
 from the beginning of his ministry. He 
 knew that they would destroy the temple 
 of his body and that he would raise it 
 again (John ii. 19). He was the bride- 
 groom who would be taken away (Mark 
 ii. 20). He died not as an example to 
 men, but to save men. His death for 
 sin forms the basis of the reconciling 
 grace of God. God provided the sac- 
 rifice for sin in the voluntary offering 
 of his Son. This basis for reconcilia- 
 tion makes it possible for the love of 
 God which sent the Son to offer pardon 
 for sin. But the pardon must be ac- 
 cepted. There must be confession of 
 
 H 
 
1 1 4 God the Father 
 
 sin. The prodigal son cannot come back 
 with a rebellious heart as if he had never 
 been away. He would not be happy if 
 he did so come. To confess a wrong is 
 the only manly thing to do. The cul- 
 prit cannot make atonement, but he can 
 make confession. God himself has pro- 
 vided the atonement in Christ, but the 
 sinner must confess his guilt. This is 
 the straightforward plan of redemption 
 as taught by Jesus. Thus the Father 
 will win back the erring children who 
 have gone astray, who have lost their 
 place in the Father's family, and who 
 are willing to come back on the Father's 
 terms. They are gracious terms and bear 
 hard on none. 
 
 Surely the Father could ask no less 
 than loving obedience when he offers 
 so much. He has already shown his own 
 boundless love for sinners in the gift of 
 his Son. He has a right to expect love 
 and service in return. To those who 
 will love Christ, the door is opened 
 
Relation to the Unsaved 1 1 5 
 
 wide. " But as many as received him, 
 to them gave he the right to become 
 children of God, even to them that be- 
 lieve on his name" (John i. 12). This 
 is John's interpretation of the relation 
 between God and the unsaved. Christ 
 offers the " right" of sonship to every- 
 one who will believe on his name. This 
 is the only way for those who have lost 
 their spiritual birthright (and all have) to 
 get it back. We must " become chil- 
 dren of God." 
 
 Otherwise the Condemnation Remains 
 
 God is love. This is the greatest fact 
 about God. God is the Father. Jesus 
 made this plainer to men than it ever 
 was before. But these great and glori- 
 ous truths do not exhaust the truth about 
 God. He is the " Holy Father " (John 
 xvii. 11) and the " Righteous Father" 
 (John xvii. 25). This righteousness is 
 as true as his fatherly love, in fact his 
 love is shown in his fatherly righteous- 
 
n6 God the Father 
 
 ness. He is absolutely "good" and alone 
 in such goodness (Mark x. 18). He will 
 not pass transgression by without satis- 
 faction to his own sense of right. For 
 sin is with God a terrible reality, not a 
 mere accident, misfortune, or disease. 
 He holds us responsible for our sins. 
 We are guilty. God is willing to accept, 
 in fact himself provided, the priestly sac- 
 rifice of his own Son for human sin. 
 That is the limit of even divine love. 
 The depth of the riches of the love of 
 God in Christ no man will ever know. 
 To refuse such love confirms eternally 
 the condemnation already resting on the 
 sinner who deserves his punishment, who 
 has sinned against the light of nature, 
 conscience, and often even revelation. 
 The awful cloud of the wrath of the 
 Father rests on the rebellious children 
 who have spurned his love and mercy. 
 No wrath is quite so terrible as the right- 
 eous wrath of a loving Father. A chief 
 punishment in that wrath will be eternal 
 banishment from the Father's face. 
 

 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Relation of God to Believers. 
 
 "If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father 
 will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode 
 with him " (John xiv. 23). 
 
 Is God the Father of all Men 
 
 X>LEARLY it is not true that unre- 
 y^j generate men are no more the 
 children of God than the beasts of 
 the field. It is true that some scientists 
 conceive that all animals have souls, that 
 in the spiritual realm men differ from 
 other animals only in degree, not in na- 
 ture. But, whether in degree or nature, 
 
 117 
 
1 1 8 God the Father 
 
 men are like God in a sense not true of 
 the lower animals. Man is indeed the 
 crown of God's creation and his destiny 
 puts him far above other created beings 
 in the world. But, while all this is true, 
 the general Fatherhood of God, which 
 has an element of truth in it, and a very 
 precious truth, has been much over- 
 worked in our day. It is by no means 
 the case that men have only to recognize 
 the fact that they are the children of 
 God in order to enter into the privileges 
 of sonship. The sin of which men are 
 guilty towards God cannot be covered 
 up in such a cavalier fashion as that. 
 
 If in one sense men are naturally chil- 
 dren of God, in another they are by na- 
 ture children of wrath, being born in 
 sin and conceived in iniquity. Besides 
 inheriting original sin they become such 
 disobedient children that they have for- 
 feited all claims to the Father's favor, 
 have left his love and care, gone to the 
 enemy's country, and can be called the 
 
Relation to Believers 119 
 
 children of the world, in fact the chil- 
 dren of the devil. This is the actual 
 situation which must not be obscured 
 by the truth that is contained in the 
 general fatherhood of God over men, a 
 fatherhood made inoperative by sin. The 
 rebellious child, poisoned by sin, has 
 been justly disinherited by the Father. 
 He can no longer call God his Father. 
 
 Becoming Sons of God 
 
 So serious and vital is the restoration 
 to the favor of God that it is spoken of 
 by Jesus as a new birth. " Except a 
 man be born anew, he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God (John iii. 3). Nico- 
 demus stumbled helplessly before this 
 radical truth. Three times Christ ear- 
 nestly and solemnly reiterated that we 
 must be born anew or from above, if 
 we are to enter the kingdom of God. 
 In the spiritual life, then, we must start 
 all over again as a little child begins his 
 life. The entrance upon the new life 
 
120 God the Father 
 
 is a birth of the Spirit of God (John iii. 
 5, 7). So far have we fallen from our 
 high spiritual estate that we are lost. 
 We have broken connection with God, 
 and are utterly unable to restore it. Un- 
 til we obtain this initial spiritual experi- 
 ence signified by the new birth, we 
 cannot lay claim to membership in the 
 kingdom of God. By this new birth 
 we at once enter upon the privileges 
 and blessings of the kingdom. It is not 
 possible to make this language of Jesus 
 signify merely a recognition of sonship 
 on man's part. It is a vital religious ex- 
 perience by which one enters into defi- 
 nite relation with God. 
 
 It is true that this is a restoration of 
 a relation that once existed between God 
 and man in the beginning, a relation 
 that was broken by man's sin. To all 
 intents and purposes it is a new relation. 
 We must begin de novo and can claim 
 no " rights " by reason of the beginning. 
 God's love has brooded over us in all the 
 
Relation to Believers 121 
 
 ages, has planned the means by which 
 we may return to his favor, but none 
 the less he demands a definite experience, 
 the obtaining a new heart on the part of 
 the one who comes back to him. There 
 must be a positive turning away from sin 
 and a definite acceptance of God as Father 
 and Christ as Saviour from sin. The New 
 Testament calls this experience on man's 
 side repentance, conversion, and faith. 
 But this great surrender to God is due in 
 every case to the work of the Holy Spirit 
 and is in connection with, and logically 
 the result of, the new birth of the Spirit. 
 The Father enables those who believe to 
 become his children. " But as many as 
 received him, to them gave he the right 
 to become children of God, even to them 
 that believe on his name " (John i. 12). 
 It is the Evangelist who says this and he 
 is speaking of the Son. It is only through 
 the Son that the Father opens the door 
 to his love. The "right" or "power," 
 it will be observed, is a gift. We cannot 
 
122 God the Father 
 
 claim any " rights " with God save jus- 
 tice. That we shall receive, and that is 
 our very undoing, for eternal punishment 
 is retributive and not corrective. This 
 life is the probation period. The future 
 life is the place of eternal states with re- 
 wards and restrictions. The " right " to 
 " become " children of God will be 
 " given " to them that believe. 
 
 Here we face one of the ultimate prob- 
 lems in theology, the relation between 
 divine sovereignty and human free agency. 
 We know both to be facts, but we are 
 unable to offer any solution of the rela- 
 tion between them. We may be sure 
 that the exercise of God's elective grace 
 is in love, that it respects man's independ- 
 ence, and that it gives no one a ground 
 of complaint against God. We may also 
 freely preach a universal gospel which 
 is the power of God unto salvation 
 to all who believe. God does not ap- 
 point the ministers of the Word to 
 select the subjects of his grace. He 
 
Relation to Believers 123 
 
 does that himself. Ours to offer a 
 free gospel to all and press it home on 
 the hearts of men. God will be faithful 
 to his part of the work. Hyper-Calvin- 
 ism is as unscriptural as extreme Armin- 
 ianism. Neither point of view embraces 
 the whole truth. We must " believe on 
 his name/' but we are " born, not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor 
 of the will of man, but of God " (John i. 
 13). This is what Paul calls "adop- 
 tion " (Rom. viii. 15), " whereby we cry, 
 Abba, Father/' The signal and the 
 supreme truth in it all is that the 
 Father has made it possible for us to 
 become his children in the real and 
 vital sense. 
 
 The Choice of the Father and the Choice of 
 the Child 
 
 No one can come unto Christ unless 
 the Father draw him (John vi. 44). God 
 is life and the sinner is dead. His will 
 is ruined by sin. He loves sin and is at 
 
124 God the Father 
 
 home with selfish gratification and indul- 
 gence. The impulse to return to God 
 must come from God. Out of the mass 
 of rebellious sinners, who are no longer 
 in his family, the Father chooses the 
 elect, those whom he wills to be his. It 
 is idle for us to speculate about the 
 grounds of this choice. There is no 
 merit in any of us. We have all sinned 
 and come short. Nor do we know the 
 processes by which the Spirit of God 
 works. But we know this. The rebel- 
 lious child must will to come back. His 
 own will must respond to the will of the 
 Father. In the blending of the will of 
 the Father and the will of the repentant 
 sinner we have the great initial experience 
 of the Christian life. The will is king 
 in the realm of spirit. It is a solemn 
 crisis when the awakened conscience bat- 
 tles for the spiritual victory. " Ye will 
 not come to me, that ye may have life " 
 (John v. 40). It is just this element of 
 will, of choice, that gives moral charac- 
 
Relation to Believers 125 
 
 ter to the acts of men, that makes us 
 godlike in prerogative. 
 
 Reconciliation is the favorite term of 
 Paul for this spiritual process. It is not 
 used by Jesus, but the idea occurs at 
 every turn. The Father was looking for 
 the prodigal to return and was glad to 
 hear the words of confession from his 
 lips. The joy in the heart of the Father 
 and of the new-found son is the joy of 
 reconciliation. Likewise there is " joy 
 in heaven over one sinner that repent- 
 eth " (Luke xv. 7) as is brought out in 
 the story of the lost sheep and also of the 
 lost coin (Luke xv. 10), though, to be 
 sure, the element of reconciliation is not 
 distinctly emphasized. " Forgive is a 
 word that Jesus often uses of the Father 
 in relation to the sinner (Matt. vi. 14 f.). 
 God does not forgive our sins without 
 reparation. The outraged law must be 
 satisfied. Jesus therefore offered himself 
 a "ransom for many " (Matt. xx. 28). 
 The death of Christ makes a basis for 
 
126 God the Father 
 
 reconciliation. The cross is the hardest 
 word that can be spoken against sin. It 
 cost the Father the blood of his own Son 
 to make it possible to forgive sinners. 
 But the basis of reconciliation is not ac- 
 tual reconciliation. The work is not 
 fully achieved till the sinner accepts 
 heartily the terms of reconciliation. 
 Then he comes to God and is restored 
 to the family of God. The choice to 
 become a child of God is the highest 
 exercise of man's moral nature. If the 
 Father chooses the child and adopts him 
 into his blessed family, no less the child 
 chooses the Father and wills to become 
 a member of this glorious household of 
 faith. 
 
 How does the Father feel towards those 
 wayward children who have wandered 
 astray ? If we knew the terrible heinous- 
 ness of sin and the bright holiness of God, 
 we might answer. The nearest parallel 
 that we can find is in the lives of boys 
 and girls who have brought disgrace on 
 
Relation to Believers 127 
 
 the family name. They are outcasts. 
 Their names are never mentioned. In- 
 dignation, just indignation, is felt by 
 father and mother, at the treatment such 
 children have given them. And yet, 
 along with the indignation, there is un- 
 utterable sorrow and deathless yearning 
 for the lost son, the lost daughter. De- 
 tectives may be employed to find them. 
 Message after message may be sent that 
 forgiveness awaits them if they will re- 
 pent and come back. There is the 
 trouble, that word " repent." In despera- 
 tion one day the son or daughter comes 
 back with a broken heart and confesses 
 all. This is a poor parallel and fails at 
 many points, most of all in the failure to 
 set forth the awfulness of sin and the 
 need of propitiation, not mere confession. 
 But the double emotion of righteous 
 anger and compassionate love is set forth. 
 Let us in all our theories and explanations 
 never wander from the circle of God's 
 surpassing love, a love that held not back 
 
128 God the Father 
 
 the Son himself that some of the lost 
 might be found, a love too holy to for- 
 give without justice to his own sense of 
 right and confession by the sinner. 
 
 The Privileges of Children of God 
 
 The first one is the right to say 
 " Father " again. That of itself is worth 
 more than all that the kingdom of Satan 
 offers. The first word that the prodigal 
 was going to say and did say on his re- 
 turn was " Father." He did not wish 
 to say it in his sinful exile. We need 
 not, nor perhaps can we, decide in each 
 instance when Jesus says " Your Father " 
 whether the audience was composed 
 wholly of disciples or not. Certainly in 
 the Sermon on the Mount, when he uses 
 " Father " in relation to men sixteen 
 times, he was addressing the disciples in 
 the presence of a mixed multitude ac- 
 cording to both Matthew and Luke. The 
 same thing is true in Matt. xiii. But if 
 he does so speak, this fact would not 
 
Relation to Believers 129 
 
 mean, when he says " Your Father " that 
 he was contemplating under this expres- 
 sion those who were rebellious children 
 and whom he elsewhere calls children of 
 the devil. Let us acknowledge at once 
 that when Jesus says " Thy Father," 
 " our Father," "your Father," " your 
 heavenly Father," he has in mind those 
 who are in vital relation with the Father, 
 the members of the family of God, the 
 kingdom of heaven. Jesus does not say 
 that the unsaved are already children of 
 God. But this fact by no means proves 
 that the unsaved are not disinherited chil- 
 dren, lost children of God, whom the 
 Father is anxious to save, and whom the 
 Son came to save. Who are the saved in 
 truth but the lost children who have been 
 found? Before they were found they 
 were just like the rest not yet found. 
 The once lost but now found child can 
 say " Father." That is his privilege. 
 
 Prayer is the breath, the atmosphere 
 of the children of God. Gratitude and 
 
130 God the Father 
 
 petition are on the lips of the child and 
 in his heart as he communes with his 
 Father. The coldly critical spirit that 
 looks on prayer as an " interference " with 
 the laws of God has a pitifully narrow 
 idea of the life between father and child. 
 Jesus taught the disciples to pray and 
 say "Our Father " (Matt. vi. 9). It is 
 idle to ask if the unsaved can pray. Cer- 
 tainly they can, but it is not communion 
 of spirit such as the restored child en- 
 joys. It is rather a cry in the dark, a cry 
 for help, for mercy. Such a cry is heard, 
 but the richness of prayer belongs to the 
 soul that has come back to the Father 
 and rejoices in his love. 
 
 There is fear still in the child's heart 
 towards the Father. It is sad to see a 
 child lose fear for his father, for he has 
 lost respect for him. The Christian has 
 small ground to fear those who can harm 
 only the body, but we all should fear 
 God (Matt. x. 28-30), both in the sense 
 of reverence and dread, though finally 
 
Relation to Believers 131 
 
 perfect love casteth out fear. Our love 
 for God must not be flippant, effervescent, 
 nor too familiar. The sense of fear is 
 necessary to the high and holy love which 
 should burn in our hearts towards the 
 Lord of All. Such fear will not prevent 
 the blessed peace and fellowship which 
 constitute the kingdom of heaven as an 
 inner state of the heart. This fellowship 
 rests on trust, and trust is just the essen- 
 tial bond between us and God. He de- 
 mands our confidence. He has done 
 enough for us to deserve our unhesitating 
 trust for present and future. He has a 
 full hand of spiritual mercies for the 
 child who exercises unreserved trust. 
 This is the privilege of a child of God, 
 to trust him. " Be not anxious " is the 
 message that Jesus brings as the secret 
 of a happy life. Put your treasure in 
 heaven, " for where your treasure is, 
 there will your heart be also " (Luke xii. 
 34). 
 
132 God the Father 
 
 The Father s Care 
 
 Such trust is amply justified on the 
 part of God's children. Why worry 
 about food and raiment? "Your 
 heavenly Father knoweth that ye have 
 need of all these things " (Matt. vi. 32). 
 Look at the lilies of the field in their 
 royal purple. See the birds of the 
 heaven as they carol their joy. Look at 
 the sparrows, not one of whom is for- 
 gotten in the sight of God. " But the 
 very hairs of your head are all numbered. 
 Fear not ; ye are of more value than 
 many sparrows " (Luke xii. 6 f.) These 
 and other strong expressions Jesus used 
 to set forth the providential care of the 
 Father for his children. 
 
 The teaching lifts man into dignity. 
 If God cares this much for men, they 
 must be worth something. Clearly 
 Jesus put a higher estimate upon a man 
 than those who make him merely the 
 victim of iron laws, mechanical forces. 
 The supreme truth here is that God 
 
Relation to Believers 133 
 
 does have a special care for his children, 
 for those who trust him. It is the love 
 of the Almighty Father that finds the 
 petty details of human life not too small 
 for his interest and concern. He does 
 the least : he counts the hairs of our 
 head. He does the greatest; he gives 
 us the Holy Spirit. He does everything 
 for us that makes for our spiritual well- 
 being. Not that he abrogates the laws 
 of life nor removes from us the necessity 
 of personal activity and struggle with our 
 environment. But the Father knows, 
 cares, and helps. All else is easy when 
 this is true. The Father and the Son 
 make their abode with the believer 
 (John xiv. 23). The union with Christ 
 secures union with the Father, a union 
 that is vital and eternal and fruitful (John 
 xv. 1-10). 
 
 The Duties of Children 
 
 Willing obedience is the highest form 
 that love can take towards one's father. 
 
134 God the Father 
 
 It should not be a cross to hearken to 
 the voice of God, if we really love him. 
 The reason that children find it hard to 
 obey is because self is assertive. But in 
 the religious life the very essence of 
 spirituality is submission to the will of 
 God. It is sin that makes the child set 
 himself in resistance to the father. 
 Obedience does not save, but obedience 
 is a test of salvation. By their fruits ye 
 shall know them. By obedience we find 
 the doors opened to spiritual growth. If 
 any man is willing to do his will, he shall 
 know of the teaching. It is not enough 
 for the child of God to talk about the 
 privileges of sonship and disregard God's 
 purpose. We are saved to serve. 
 
 Jesus sends us forth as the Father sent 
 him. We cannot call ourselves loyal 
 sons of God because we have correct 
 ideas of the way men become children 
 of God while we lead disobedient and 
 sinful lives. We must hear the call of 
 God to send the gospel to all the world 
 
Relation to Believers 135 
 
 as well as to have correct teaching and 
 lead holy lives. As with Christ, so with 
 us, our meat and drink should be to do 
 the will of our Father. If the Father 
 and the Son really dwell in us, this will 
 be our highest joy. Duty becomes hap- 
 piness, for our self-will is lost in the will 
 of our Father whose we are and whom 
 we serve. " If ye love me, ye will keep 
 my commandments " (John xiv. 15). 
 
 The Destiny of Children 
 
 It is to be with the Father forever. 
 For this purpose the Son will come again 
 and take us to the Father. He has 
 " many mansions " ready. He comes, 
 we may believe, in the death of every 
 believer and takes him to God. He will 
 come to raise the bodies of all in the end. 
 Meanwhile the child is to be like the 
 Father. He is to be perfect as the 
 Father is perfect (Matt. v. 48). He 
 is to be, for example, merciful as the 
 Father is merciful (Luke vi. 36). We 
 
136 God the Father 
 
 know little as to the details of heaven 
 and hell. But this much is certain, that 
 hell is the fulfilment of the irrevocable 
 choice of evil made here. It is a contin- 
 uous confirmation of that love of sin and 
 identification with sin. So heaven is fel- 
 lowship with the Father and increasing 
 likeness to the Father. "We shall be 
 like him, for we shall see him as he is." 
 Jesus is our Elder Brother and we are to 
 be his brethren. God is his Father in a 
 sense not true of us (John xx. 17), and 
 yet he calls us " brethren/' We are his 
 " brothers " and " sisters. " " For who- 
 soever shall do the will of God, the same 
 is my brother, and sister, and mother ,: 
 (Mark iii. 34 f.). 
 
 It was to bring this to pass that Jesus 
 left his throne on high, became a servant 
 to men, suffered the rebuffs from the 
 religious leaders of the time, endured the 
 shame of the cross, died for our sins, and 
 rose again. He is not ashamed to call us 
 brethren (Heb. ii. 11). This is the high 
 
Relation to Believers 137 
 
 destiny of those who believe in God the 
 Father and Jesus Christ whom he has 
 sent. These are the real children of God, 
 not those who were the literal descend- 
 ants of Abraham. The real Israel to 
 Jesus, as to Paul, is the spiritual Israel. 
 The true family of God are the elect 
 who love him, the church for which 
 Jesus died and which he washed with 
 his blood. " Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the 
 world " (Matt. xxv. 34). 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Jesus Conception of God Compared 
 with the Apostolic Teaching. 
 
 " He shall glorify me : for he shall take of mine and de- 
 clare it unto you " (John xvi. 14). 
 
 " Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and 
 having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, 
 he hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear " (Acts ii. 33). 
 
 " jD ACK to christ " has been the 
 
 J^j watchword of modern New 
 Testament theology. It is a 
 good word to hearken to, provided 
 no unnatural antithesis is made be- 
 tween Jesus and his Apostles. The 
 historical method of Biblical study can 
 138 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 139 
 
 be as arbitrary and unreliable in its re- 
 sults as the purely theological method if 
 proper poise and balance be not pre- 
 served. It is literally true that it has cost 
 a real struggle for the modern world to 
 brush aside mediaeval theological con- 
 ceptions that obscured the person and 
 teaching of Jesus. The battle for the 
 restoration of the original gospel has been 
 greatly prolonged and is still going on. 
 But the historical Christ stands in clearer 
 outline to-day than at any time since the 
 fourth century A. D. 
 
 The Supremacy of Christ 
 
 The result is that on all hands men 
 acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus as 
 teacher of religion and morals. His 
 spiritual ideal is the highest that the 
 world has ever had. The moral and 
 spiritual isolation of Jesus is the greatest 
 miracle of the world. The theories of 
 men fail to explain him on grounds of 
 natural development. All do not accept 
 
140 God the Father 
 
 the necessary consequence of his su- 
 premacy in character, works, words, and 
 claims. All do not accept him as being 
 the Son of God in essence as well as in 
 character. But still his unique position 
 is unchallenged. Indeed, so sharply 
 does Jesus now stand out against the 
 theological refinements of the middle 
 ages that there is a strong tendency on 
 the part of some to minimize the im- 
 portance of the Apostolic teaching. The 
 vagaries of the school-men are laid at the 
 door of Paul who is said to have mis- 
 understood Jesus and his teaching and 
 to have rabbinized Christianity. " Less 
 of Paul and more of Christ/ ' they say. 
 
 All this has a specious sound and may 
 catch the unthinking. It is a far cry 
 from Paul to Augustine, not to say An- 
 selm or Thomas Aquinas. Is Paul more 
 like Augustine or Jesus in his theology ? 
 Undeniably Augustine is much indebted 
 to Paul and may have interpreted Paul 
 at some points apart from his relation to 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 141 
 
 Jesus ; but there is much in Augustine 
 that does not come from Paul or Jesus. 
 It was the boast of Paul that he had a 
 direct revelation of the gospel of Jesus 
 (Gal. i: 11 f.). We take it that medie- 
 valism was a perversion of Paul, not that 
 Paul perverted the teachings of Jesus. 
 At any rate we must not seek for Paul's 
 theology through the eyes of Augustine, 
 but study Paul for ourselves. This is 
 not to say that the world is not under a 
 great debt both to Augustine and Calvin 
 for their interpretations of Paul. But 
 we must not charge Paul with the ex- 
 cesses or excrescences of even the great- 
 est of theological teachers. We have 
 the words of Paul and the words of 
 Jesus. 
 
 The First Interpreters of Jesus 
 
 This is a happy phrase of a recent 
 writer. We must frankly admit that 
 while the Apostles were with Jesus they 
 failed to understand him. He was not 
 
142 God the Father 
 
 like his environment and they were. 
 They expected a temporal kingdom just 
 before he ascended on the clouds to 
 heaven : " Lord, dost thou at this time 
 restore the kingdom to Israel ? " (Acts i. 
 6). They contended over the first places 
 in such a kingdom even on the night of 
 the betrayal (Luke xxii. 24). Hence also 
 the doubt that held them fast when Jesus 
 rose from the dead. Slowly they were 
 convinced that he had risen from the 
 grave. Along with new faith came new 
 hope and joy, but they were still power- 
 less to carry out the Lord's commission 
 to take the world for him. Nor did they 
 yet apprehend fully either the person of 
 Christ or his teaching. They had indeed 
 a much richer store of material now that 
 Jesus had risen from the grave. They 
 occupied a far better standpoint on this 
 side of the empty tomb. The words of 
 the risen and triumphant Christ were 
 ringing in their ears. But even yet they 
 did not fully grasp the significance of the 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 143 
 
 career of Jesus of Nazareth. But in ten 
 days after Jesus went back to the Father 
 a transformation came over Peter and the 
 rest who were waiting for the promise 
 of the Father (Acts i. 4). 
 
 Jesus had promised to send the Holy 
 Spirit to bring all things to their remem- 
 brance and to teach them all things 
 (John xiv. 26). "He shall take of mine 
 and declare it unto you" (John xvi. 14). 
 The fulfilment of this promise on the 
 great Day of Pentecost is the cardinal 
 fact in the apostolic history and teaching. 
 These men at once enter upon a dis- 
 tinctly new epoch. They grasp securely 
 and clearly the spiritual significance of 
 the kingdom of God and form a true 
 estimate of the work, person, and teach- 
 ing of Jesus in connection with it. There 
 will be development after this day, but it 
 will be development in harmony with 
 this epoch. Once Peter will signally fail 
 in courage, not in grasp of spiritual truth 
 (Gal. ii. 11-21), and will woefully sin. 
 
144 God the Father 
 
 It is not in harmony with the facts to say 
 that after Pentecost the Apostles are as 
 inadequate guides to the teaching of 
 Jesus as they were before. Jesus had 
 said that they would understand all things 
 when the Holy Spirit came, and the 
 record shows the fulfilment of that 
 prophecy. 
 
 We cannot then, in view of this teach- 
 ing of Christ, carelessly brush aside the 
 Apostolic teaching as unnecessary or as 
 incorrect. He expressly said that he had 
 yet many things to say, but that they 
 could not bear them then. " Howbeit 
 when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he 
 shall guide you into all the truth " (John 
 xvi. 12 f.). Luke begins the Acts by 
 speaking of what " Jesus began both to 
 do and to teach " (Acts i. 1). The 
 Apostolic teaching justifies the prediction 
 of Christ. These first interpreters of 
 Jesus who speak under the new en- 
 lightenment of the Holy Spirit strike the 
 same note about the Father that Jesus 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 145 
 
 did. The Acts of the Apostles is a 
 proper sequel to the Gospel of Luke as 
 the author feels and says (Acts i. 1). 
 Peter pointedly identifies the events on 
 the Day of Pentecost as the fulfilment 
 of the promise of the Father which Jesus 
 had made : " This Jesus did God raise 
 up, whereof we are witnesses. Being 
 therefore by the right hand of God ex- 
 alted, and having received of the Father 
 the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath 
 poured forth this, which ye see and 
 hear" (Acts ii. 32 f.). Stephen boldly 
 announced the purely spiritual nature of 
 God who "dwelleth not in houses made 
 with hands" (Acts vii. 48), a teaching 
 in exact harmony with that of Jesus to 
 the Samaritan woman (John iv. 21 f.), 
 but entirely too advanced for the cere- 
 monial and sacramental Pharisees who 
 saw in it a desecration of the temple. 
 
 It required, it is true, a vision for Peter 
 to see that Gentiles could be saved with- 
 out first becoming Jews. Jesus had 
 J 
 
146 God the Father 
 
 said : " Other sheep I have, which are 
 not of this fold " (John x. 16). Jesus had 
 also made all meats clean when he re- 
 buked the pettifogging Pharisees who 
 had a doctrine about eating with un- 
 washed hands (Mark vii. 19). But it 
 was not till Peter actually stood inside of 
 the house of Cornelius the Gentile that he 
 was able to say : " Of a truth I perceive 
 that God is no respecter of persons : but 
 in every nation he that feareth him, and 
 worketh righteousness, is acceptable to 
 him ,, (Acts x. 34). He did not mean 
 that Cornelius was already saved before 
 he came, for he expressly states that he 
 was to speak words " whereby thou shalt 
 be saved, thou and all thy house " (Acts 
 xi. 14). What he means is that Cornelius 
 can be saved and remain a Gentile. God 
 will be Father of Gentlies as well as 
 Jews. This is indeed a great light ; it is 
 the same light that Jesus shed, but that 
 Peter had until now been too blind to 
 see. 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 147 
 
 The Gospel Records Later in Date than the 
 Earliest Epistles 
 The facts just appealed to follow nat- 
 urally the closing scenes in the Gospels. 
 It may be replied that the Acts of the 
 Apostles was not written till some time 
 after the events here recorded. This is 
 true, but it is also true of the Gospels 
 themselves. In neither case, however, 
 is the testimony properly invalidated. It 
 is evident from the prologue to Luke's 
 Gospel (Luke i. 1-3) that there were 
 written sources before his Gospel was 
 undertaken, probably Mark and Mat- 
 thew, and still earlier and, perhaps, 
 briefer sketches. There were still also 
 eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus whom 
 Luke consulted. The life and words of 
 Jesus had been preached over a large 
 part of the Roman Empire. Luke was 
 an historian in method and spirit. The 
 same careful accuracy claimed in his 
 Gospel (Luke i. 3) is exhibited in the 
 Acts. 
 
148 God the Father 
 
 But, while all this is true, it can be 
 justly said to those who seek unduly to 
 depreciate the Apostolic teaching in com- 
 parison with that of Jesus that we only 
 have the words of Jesus in the writings 
 of his disciples and followers. If we 
 may not believe the interpretation of 
 John's Epistles, why his Gospel? If 
 Peter's Epistles are to be discredited, 
 why accept Mark's Gospel written under 
 his influence ? If Paul is a false inter- 
 preter of Jesus, why follow Luke, Paul's 
 companion and admirer ? If James, the 
 champion of true Judaism, does not un- 
 derstand Jesus, why listen to Matthew's 
 Jewish Gospel? Certainly I and II 
 Thessalonians antedate the earliest of our 
 Gospels and probably James, I and II 
 Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans, with 
 possibly a number of other Epistles. 
 We must on historical grounds listen to 
 the Apostolic teaching if we wish to pre- 
 serve the Gospels as genuine records of 
 the teaching of Jesus. 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 149 
 
 The Earlier and the Later Epistles Give 
 the Same View of the Father 
 
 In I Thessalonians, the earliest of 
 Paul's Epistles and dating probably A. D. 
 52, we find him saying : " God the 
 Father" (i. 1), "our God and Father" 
 (i. 3 ; iii. 11). Likewise in II Thessa- 
 lonians, written a few months later, we 
 see him writing, " God our Father " 
 (i. 1 ; ii. 16). In James we read of "the 
 Father of lights" (i. 17) and of " pure 
 religion and undefiled before our God 
 and Father " (i. 27). So also James says 
 that with the tongue we bless " the Lord 
 and Father " (iii. 9). 
 
 In Paul's Epistles of the second and 
 third groups (land II Cor., Gal. Rom., 
 Phil., Col., Eph.) we meet very often 
 the expressions God the Father, God 
 our Father. The personal letter to 
 Philemon does not so speak of God. In 
 Hebrews xii. 9 God is called "the 
 Father of spirits." In I and II Peter, 
 Jude, I and II John (not III John) we 
 
150 God the Father 
 
 likewise see the expression God the 
 Father. In the Pastoral Epistles God 
 is not specifically called Father, but 
 rather " God our Saviour " (I Tim. i. 
 1 ; Titus i. 3 ; II Tim. i. 10). In the 
 Revelation of John only twice is God 
 called Father (i. 6 ; xiv. 1) and then he 
 is spoken of as the Father of Jesus the 
 Lamb of God. But there is no radical 
 difference in conception in the various 
 Apostolic writings save in the Pastoral 
 Epistles. This group is dominantly ec- 
 clesiastical and soteriological in idea, and 
 hence Paul seems to prefer Saviour to 
 Father. Each writer approaches the 
 idea of God the Father from his own 
 standpoint. But it is the same God and 
 Father of us all who is presented whether 
 in Thessaloniansor in Ephesians, whether 
 in James or Paul, whether in John or 
 Peter. 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 151 
 
 The Teaching of Christ about the Father 
 the Norm of the Apostolic Teaching 
 The Apostles speak of God as Father 
 much more frequently than do the Old 
 Testament writers. They have caught 
 the new accent of Jesus whose great aim 
 was so to reveal the Father to men that 
 reconciliation would be made between 
 God and man on the basis of his atoning 
 death. The word Father is on the lips 
 of Jesus at every turn and he uses it far 
 more frequently than do the authors of 
 the Acts and Epistles. This is but nat- 
 ural. No one had the right to speak in 
 such familiar terms of the Father as did 
 Jesus. God was his Father in a sense 
 not true of others, and to set forth the 
 Father was his highest aim, while the 
 Apostles, taught by the Spirit, bore wit- 
 ness to Christ. But under the tutelage 
 of the Holy Spirit the teaching of Jesus 
 bears rich results. The Apostles pro- 
 claim God as Father in exactly the same 
 sense that Jesus announced him to men. 
 
152 God the Father 
 
 God is the Father of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ (Eph. i. 3) in a special sense. He 
 is in some sense the Father of all men, 
 as Paul says : " Our God and Father of 
 all, who is over all, and through all, and 
 in all " (Eph. iv. 6), where he seems to 
 be speaking of God in his eternal rela- 
 tions to all the universe, though the con- 
 text here clearly points to the saved. 
 Compare what Paul said on Mars Hill : 
 " For we are also his offspring. Being 
 thus the offspring of God we ought not 
 to think that the Godhead is like unto 
 gold, or silver, or stone, graven by 
 art and device of man " (Acts xvii. 
 28 f.). 
 
 But this general sonship of all men 
 does not save them. God " commands 
 men that they should all everywhere re- 
 pent " (Acts xvii. 30). The fact that 
 God is the Father of our spirits does not 
 constitute us members of the family of 
 God, the household of faith. " If any 
 man hath not the spirit of Christ, he is 
 
The Apostolic Teaching 153 
 
 none of his " (Rom. viii. 9). " As many 
 as are led by the Spirit of God, these are 
 sons of God " (Rom. viii. 14). These 
 alone " have the spirit of adoption where- 
 by we cry, Abba, Father/ ' These alone 
 are children of God, heirs of God, and 
 joint heirs with Christ (Rom. viii. 15 f.). 
 This is in exact accord with the teaching 
 of Jesus concerning God the Father who 
 in one sense is the Father of all men, but 
 on the other hand includes in his family 
 and kingdom only those who have been 
 born again, who have made peace with 
 the Father by Christ's death and through 
 a repentant heart. It is probably in this 
 same twofold sense that Paul uses the 
 term Saviour as applied to God when in 
 I Tim. iv. 10 he speaks of God as "the 
 Saviour of all men, specially of them 
 that believe." He sends the rain on all 
 (Acts xiv. 17) as Paul showed at Lystra. 
 But he is Father and Saviour of those 
 that believe in a special and glorious 
 sense not true of those who are still in 
 
154 God the Father 
 
 the " far country " and whose destiny 
 will be the outer darkness away from 
 the Father's home and the Father's 
 love. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Jesus Conception of God the Ruling 
 Idea in Theology. 
 
 " Sir, we would see Jesus " (John xii. 21). 
 " Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us " (John xiv. 
 8). 
 
 /T has been hard for men to see God, 
 though he is not far from any of us. 
 We have blinded our eyes so that we 
 cannot see. We grope helplessly in the 
 dark. The light of reason is clear enough 
 to show us that God is, but sin has such a 
 grip on our wills that we cannot act on 
 this light. We have in our sinful pride 
 wandered away from God. We flounder 
 
 !55 
 
156 God the Father 
 
 in a sea of doubt as we struggle back to- 
 ward God. 
 
 Theology a Changing Quantity 
 
 There is theology and theology. 
 There is evangelical theology and 
 rationalistic theology. There is sacra- 
 mental theology and experimental the- 
 ology. Radical differences divide the- 
 ology into opposing camps. Some of 
 these lines of divergence reappear in every 
 age. The emphasis on the form as a 
 means of salvation as opposed to the spirit- 
 ual reality was, if possible, sharper in 
 Christ's day than in ours. Mere tradi- 
 tionalism suits some minds and costs less 
 expenditure of mental energy than a vital 
 spiritual experience. In each type of 
 theology there is growth and adaptation. 
 All life is change, and a live theology is 
 ever seeking new light from the word 
 of life. Theology is man's attempt to 
 interpret the revelation of God in Christ 
 and the Bible and the world. This at- 
 
Ruling Idea of Theology 157 
 
 tempt varies in different men and in 
 different epochs of the world. Each 
 age comes into possession of a new angle 
 of vision, a new vantage ground of inter- 
 pretation ; precisely as science is not ab- 
 solute, but is ever changing its concep- 
 tions of the universe. The truth in the 
 old remains, while the new is tested for 
 its truth. 
 
 This is not saying that one form of 
 theology is as good as another. Far from 
 it. The truth is the goal of theology. 
 Much truth has long been won and this 
 cannot be taken away from us. But we 
 do not yet apprehend all truth. We are 
 still pressing on. Theology is not un- 
 reliable because of this changing flow of 
 life. It would be unreliable and useless 
 if it were not able to assimilate new truth 
 and adjust itself to new conditions. Life 
 will crack the hardest moulds in rock or 
 mind in time. Theology should be 
 neither old nor new, but embrace the 
 truth in both. 
 
158 God the Father 
 
 God the Center of all Theology 
 Theology is the doctrine of God which 
 we formulate. There is this common 
 bond, then, in all theology worthy of 
 the name. It is an honest effort to pre- 
 sent orderly conceptions of the truth 
 about God in all his relations, and espe- 
 cially in his relation to man. It is but just 
 to say that while the word theology has 
 God as the center, not all theology pre- 
 serves this etymological truth. Some 
 theology is man-centered and not God- 
 centered. But clearly the right way to 
 approach the discussion of man is from 
 the point of view of God. We need 
 the man Christ Jesus to show us what 
 God the Father is, but even here he is 
 showing us God, and it is God who has 
 sent his Son in the flesh to reveal himself 
 to us. Christ is not man's effort to find 
 God, but God's endeavor to reveal him- 
 self to men. We can never reach the 
 truth about God or man if we put man 
 in the center of our theological system. 
 
Ruling Idea of Theology 159 
 
 Christ the Starting Point of Modern The- 
 ology 
 Christ is the most clearly drawn char- 
 acter in history. His picture fills the eye 
 of the civilized world. It is no mere pic- 
 ture. The reality of this supreme per- 
 sonage is the chief fact in history. His 
 ethical teachings satisfy the demands of 
 the enlightened conscience. His spirit- 
 ual sympathies touch the hearts of men. 
 He is the world's Ideal become real. 
 Jesus is then the meeting place for those 
 who love God and those who merely 
 love their fellowmen. The theological 
 and the non-theological can find common 
 ground in him. If we expect to win the 
 sceptic, the agnostic, the worldly, the in- 
 different, the grossly sinful, the only hope 
 of so doing is in Jesus. The modern 
 apologetic, if it is to become effective 
 and not be a mere dialectic, must start 
 with the acknowledged truth in the per- 
 son of Jesus. The enemies of religion 
 well understand this obstacle in their 
 
160 God the Father 
 
 path. Lines of opposition that start far 
 away from Christ are laid ultimately 
 against his supreme position in the hearts 
 of men. So long as Christ rules the lives 
 of men, Christianity dominates the world. 
 
 Christ's Conception of God the Truth 
 
 God is absolute and we cannot take in 
 the absolute, for we are finite. Jesus 
 did not reveal God in abstract argument. 
 He revealed God in the concrete, in 
 himself, the only begotten Son. God is 
 like Jesus. If men wish to get definite 
 conceptions of God the Father, let them 
 look at Jesus. Jesus simply, but abruptly 
 said : "I am the truth." We get lost in 
 the mazes of argument and the truth 
 escapes us. In Jesus the truth is trans- 
 parent and is personified. Hence the 
 revelation of God the Father in Christ 
 is final. The prophecies pointed in 
 outline to him. The Apostles sought 
 by interpretation to explain him. We 
 aim to group together the entire picture 
 
Ruling Idea of Theology 161 
 
 in prophecy, historical fact, and interpre- 
 tation. But we shall fail even thus to 
 see correctly Christ and God in Christ 
 unless we experience God in our hearts. 
 For Christ came not to reveal the Father 
 simply as an intellectual or historical fact, 
 but as a spiritual experience in the life 
 of the sinner. This is ultimate truth 
 verified in the spirit of man who is 
 brought again into vital union with 
 God by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Christ's Conception of God Unifies 
 Revelation 
 
 All the slow stages of Israelitish history 
 culminate in the teaching of Jesus about 
 God the Father. The prophets in those 
 different epochs fall into harmony around 
 this great organizing idea. The Apos- 
 tolic writings flow out normally from 
 this stream of truth. Type finds its ful- 
 filment. Symbol gathers up the love of 
 God in the death of Christ. The spirit 
 conquers the letter. The right interpre- 
 
1 62 God the Father 
 
 tation with open Bible and open mind 
 becomes possible. Thus alone the reader 
 gains access to the historical and spiritual 
 interpretation of Scripture. 
 
 Christ's Conception of God Satisfies the 
 Reason and the Facts of Life 
 
 The reason is not surrendered when 
 one becomes a Christian. Rather is it 
 satisfied. .The necessary limitations of 
 the human mind make possible greater 
 freedom in other directions. The first 
 step in intellectual progress is made when 
 one recognizes his limitations. We can- 
 not explain all the problems of the uni- 
 verse. We cannot solve the mysteries 
 in our own complex nature. Jesus him- 
 self in his twofold nature is the supreme 
 mystery. And yet, waiving the mystery 
 that is insoluble, the mind has rest in 
 Jesus, the God-man, the mediator be- 
 tween God and man. He satisfies our 
 need of a helper to intercede with God 
 for us. His perfect character commands 
 
Ruling Idea of Theology 163 
 
 the allegiance of our hearts. We are 
 willing to listen to such a man when he 
 speaks of the highest and most vital 
 things. The fact of sin calls for a Saviour. 
 Baffled mankind need no longer be 
 beaten by the tempter if refuge be taken 
 in Christ. 
 
 To Know God we Must Know Christ 
 
 Let this be our last word about Christ 
 and the Father. He would not have 
 come to earth if it had not been neces- 
 sary. He knew how he would be treated 
 before he came. He offered his life 
 a ransom for many. If men could find 
 God without his help, he would not have 
 come at all. Before the Incarnation, 
 some had found God, it is true. To 
 some God the Father manifested himself 
 directly. To some the Son appeared in a 
 theophany. To some the Holy Spirit 
 spoke. But the world as a whole was 
 in darkness. Even the Jewish world 
 knew not God in spirit and in reality. 
 
164 God the Father 
 
 When the Son of God came to his own 
 people, descendants of Abraham and nat- 
 ural heirs of the kingdom promised to 
 David, they did not recognize him. His 
 own people knew him not. 
 
 But out of the great world Christ has 
 found a spiritual Israel, true sons of God, 
 who have responded to the message 
 which he has brought to men. The 
 Father calls and those who are willing to 
 be his children hear his voice. It is not 
 difficult to find God now, since Jesus has 
 brought him near to our minds, and since 
 the Holy Spirit presses home that mes- 
 sage to our hearts. The sublime fellow- 
 ship of the risen Christ is ours, if we will. 
 " Go unto my brethren, and say to them, 
 I ascend unto my Father and your Father, 
 and my God and your God " (John 
 xx. 17). 
 
 The joyful task before the true children 
 of God is to make known Christ's view 
 of the Father. We shall best do this as 
 we help men see Jesus. It is not alone 
 
Ruling Idea of Theology 165 
 
 by word of exposition that this sublime 
 work is to be performed. If we walk as 
 Jesus walked, in his spirit and with his 
 ideals, we shall show that God the Father 
 indeed dwells in us. 
 
 What the world most hungers for is 
 not intellectual arguments to prove that 
 God exists, but the life that silently, but 
 genuinely witnesses to the presence of 
 God in heart, word, and deed. The 
 practice of the presence of God here and 
 now is the greatest sermon to the un- 
 saved and is the foretaste of heaven itself. 
 If God is to be our Father hereafter, he 
 must be our Father here. Jesus brought 
 God the Father vividly and powerfully to 
 the hearts of men in this life. He left 
 that impression and that reality in the 
 world as a permanent theological concep- 
 tion and as a vital religious experience. 
 The best teacher of the presence and 
 guidance of the Father is he whose life 
 is most like the life of Jesus. The union 
 of the believer with Christ the true Vine 
 
1 66 God the Father 
 
 should be fruitful. " For to me to live is 
 Christ." That is Paul's motto and no 
 higher can be expected, for that is to let 
 the Incarnate Word rule the life. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Summary. 
 
 " I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God 
 and your God " (John xx. 17). 
 
 /T may be well to take a bird's-eye 
 view of the whole argument as to 
 the Teaching of Jesus concern- 
 ing God the Father. It is impossible 
 to overestimate the importance of the 
 subject of this volume. It is not exag- 
 geration to say that it is the most vital of 
 all themes to sinful men. The very fail- 
 ure of men to reach adequate truth about 
 God accents the value of the revelation 
 of the Father in the Son. There was 
 
 167 
 
1 68 God the Father 
 
 much revealed truth about God in the 
 Old Testament, but this was not properly 
 apprehended. It was not till God ex- 
 pressed himself in bodily form in the 
 person of Jesus Christ that the idea of 
 God became real, tangible, sympathetic, 
 winsome, dominating. In Christ the old 
 truth became clearer, and new truth 
 about the Father became possible. 
 
 The doctrine of the Trinity becomes 
 thus not only a necessity, but a comfort- 
 ing truth of the Godhead. As Jesus 
 revealed the Father in himself, the Holy 
 Spirit reveals the Son to us that we may 
 know the Father. 
 
 God is Lord of creation. He is person 
 and not the material universe. It is 
 God's world, but the world is not God. 
 Men are like God in a sense that animals 
 are not. We bear the image of God in 
 our immortal spirits, an image so blurred 
 by sin that we no longer deserve to be 
 called the children of God who is in fact 
 the Creator of our souls and bodies. But 
 
Summary 169 
 
 what we have lost can be restored by the 
 new birth of the Holy Spirit. This new 
 spiritual birth is made possible by the 
 atoning death of Christ as the sacrifice for 
 sin. Those who are thus reconciled to 
 God become members of the family of 
 God, enter the kingdom, and have eter- 
 nal life. 
 
 The apostolic teaching is an interpreta- 
 tion of the teaching of Jesus by men who 
 were specially equipped by personal ex- 
 perience with Jesus and his followers. 
 More than this they had also, for Jesus 
 had promised them the Holy Spirit 
 to be their teacher. It is natural and 
 proper that the fundamental and ax- 
 iomatic truths of Christ should receive 
 fuller expansion in the Apostolic teaching. 
 It is a false antithesis to depreciate the 
 apostolic teaching by the teaching of 
 Jesus. They were not only the first and 
 authoritative interpreters of Christ, but 
 we should not have the words of Jesus 
 save for what they have written. Jesus 
 
170 God the Father 
 
 wrote only in the hearts of men, with the 
 Spirit, not with pen and ink. 
 
 The ruling idea in present day theology 
 is Jesus' teaching concerning God the 
 Father. It is bound to be the dominant 
 conception in all spiritual Christianity. 
 A formal theology that hides Christ from 
 men behind theological phrases conceals 
 God from men. It is when men see 
 Christ that they know God. Jesus is 
 the Saviour from sin and not theology, 
 not even orthodox theology. Christo- 
 centric theology is the kind that should 
 enlist the mind and heart of the teacher of 
 men, and even this theology should not 
 come between Christ and the sinful 
 heart. 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 A 
 Alienation from God, 102. 
 Anselm, 140. 
 Apologetic of Jesus, 65. 
 Apostolic teaching, 138. 
 Aquinas, 140. 
 Atheism, 2, 6. 
 Augustine, 140. 
 
 B 
 
 Becoming sons of God, 119. 
 Believers actual children of God, 117. 
 Buddha, 33. 
 Buddhist, 11. 
 
 C 
 Center of all theology, 158. 
 Character of God according to Jesus, 37. 
 Children of God, who are, 1 1 7 f. 
 
 duties of, 133. 
 
 privileges of, 128. 
 
 destiny of, 135. 
 
 171 
 
172 Index of Subjects 
 
 Choice of the Father and choice of the child, 123. 
 
 Christ the starting point, 159. 
 
 Christ's conception of God true, 160. 
 
 Claim of Jesus about his message, 31. 
 
 Confucius, 33. 
 
 Created in image of God, 101. 
 
 E 
 Earlier and later Epistles, 149. 
 Eternal life, 109. 
 Eternal punishment, 108. 
 Evil, origin of, 4. 
 Evolution, 3, 4, 8, 11. 
 
 F 
 
 Father and the Son, 43. 
 
 Fiske, 8. 
 
 First interpreters of Jesus, 141. 
 
 G 
 
 Gospels and earliest Epistles, 147. 
 
 H 
 
 Hades, 108 f. 
 
 Haeckel, 7. 
 
 Harmony in work of Father and Son, 61. 
 
 Heaven, 109. 
 
Index of Subjects 173 
 
 Hegel, 8. 
 
 Helen Keller, 2. 
 
 Hell, 1 08. 
 
 Holy Spirit, a person, 75. 
 
 and Jesus, 72. 
 
 and the Father, 70. 
 
 blasphemy against, 78. 
 
 promises of the Father about, 80. 
 Hope for a godless world, 2. 
 Homer, 12. 
 Huxley, 94. 
 
 I 
 Importance of a knowledge of God, 1 . 
 Interflow of knowledge between the Father and 
 the Son, 59. 
 
 J 
 
 Johannine question, The, 25. 
 Judaism, 9. 
 Jupiter, 12. 
 
 K 
 
 Kelvin, 7. 
 
 Kingdom of God, 98. 
 
 Knowing God, 163. 
 
1 74 Index of Subjects 
 
 L 
 
 Lost children of God, in. 
 
 Love of the Father sends the Son, 25. 
 
 M 
 Materialism, 7. 
 
 Modern ideas about God, 1, 6 ff. 
 Mahomet, 33. 
 
 N 
 Nature of Father and Son, 52. 
 Norm of the apostolic teaching, 151. 
 
 O 
 
 Old Testament, attitude of Jesus toward, 14. 
 basis of Jesus' teaching, 14. 
 character of God in, 21. 
 God's covenant with men in, 22. 
 progressive character of, 16. 
 teaching about God the Father, 
 
 18. 
 two views of, 16 f. 
 
 Paul, 140. 
 Plato, 10. 
 
Index of Subjects 175 
 
 Q 
 
 Qualified to reveal the Father, 27. 
 
 R 
 
 Reason and Christ's conception of God, 162. 
 Reconciliation possible in Christ, 112. 
 Revealer of God to men, 24. 
 Ritschlianism, 9, 33, 59. 
 Romanes, Geo. J., 8. 
 Ruling idea in theology, 155. 
 
 S 
 Satan, 5. 
 
 Satisfaction of the Father in the Son, 67. 
 Socrates, 14, 
 Son and the Father, 43. 
 Son of God, 56 f. 
 Son of man, 58. 
 Spencer, 7, 94. 
 Stephen, Sir Leslie, 7. 
 Supremacy of Christ, 139. 
 
 T 
 
 Theology a changing quantity, 156. 
 Trinity, fact of, 70. 
 
 order of Persons in, 76. 
 
1 76 Index of Subjects 
 
 u 
 
 Unifying power of Christ's conception, 161. 
 
 Unique relation between Father and Son, 44. 
 
 Unitarian, 33. 
 
 Unity, character between Father and Son, 63. 
 
 Universal fatherhood of God, 1 1 7 f. 
 
 Universe, God more than, 92. 
 
 Unsaved and God, 100. 
 
 W 
 
 World, God's revelation to, 85. 
 
 God's love for, 95. 
 
 senses of term with Jesus, 88. 
 World view of Jesus, 85. 
 
 Zeus, 12. 
 Zoroaster, 33. 
 
INDEX OF TEXTS 
 
 1 1 Samuel vii. 
 
 *3 
 
 [6, 22 
 
 Matthew viii. 
 
 12 108 
 
 i Chronicles xvii. 
 
 12 f. 
 
 x. 28 
 
 109, 130 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 32 f. 
 
 xi. 27 
 
 34 
 32, 49. 62 
 
 Psalm lxviii. 5 
 
 
 20 
 
 28 
 
 33.51 
 
 lxxxix. 3-5 
 
 
 22 
 
 xii. 28 
 
 74. 79 
 
 ciii. 13 
 
 
 20 
 
 3i f. 
 
 79. I0 5 
 
 Jeremiah xxxi. 
 
 9 
 
 J 9 
 
 34 
 
 45 
 
 103 
 
 107 
 
 Hosea xi. 1 
 
 
 J 9 
 
 xiii. 
 
 128 
 
 Malachi ii. 10 
 
 
 20 
 
 38 
 xiv. 33 
 
 89, 103 
 3 1 
 
 Matthew i. 23 
 
 
 3o 
 
 xv. 6 
 
 106 
 
 iii. 11 
 
 
 36 
 
 xvi. 16 f. 
 
 35,49 
 
 1 7 
 
 
 64 
 
 33 
 
 99 
 
 iv. 1 
 
 
 74 
 
 xvii. 5 
 
 13.46 
 
 8 
 
 
 86 
 
 xviii. 10 
 
 49 
 
 v. 20 
 
 
 106 
 
 xix. 26 
 
 4i 
 
 22 
 
 
 109 
 
 xx. 28 
 
 125 
 
 48 
 
 
 !35 
 
 xxii. 13 
 
 108 
 
 vi. 9 
 
 40, 1 3° 
 
 15 
 
 104 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 77 
 
1 7 8 
 
 Index of Texts 
 
 Matthew xxii. 
 
 29 
 
 15 
 
 Mark vii. 19 
 
 146 
 
 42-45 
 
 15 
 
 ,53 
 
 viii. 36 
 
 93 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 41 
 
 ix. 7 
 
 36 
 
 xxiii. 33 
 
 104, 
 
 109 
 
 x. 18 
 
 163, 116 
 
 xxiv. 14 
 
 
 88 
 
 27 
 
 40 
 
 21 
 
 
 90 
 
 45 
 
 n 3 
 
 xxv. 30 
 
 
 108 
 
 xi. 18 
 
 108 
 
 34 90, 99, 
 
 1 37 
 
 xii. 29-31 
 
 15, 7 1 
 
 41,46 
 
 
 no 
 
 xiv. 36 
 
 51 
 
 xxvi. 28 
 
 
 n 3 
 
 62 
 
 56 
 
 63 f. 
 
 56 
 
 ,58 
 
 
 
 xxvii. 46 
 
 
 61 
 
 Luke i. 1—3 
 
 H7 
 
 xxviii. 18 
 
 
 62 
 
 32 
 
 44 
 
 19 
 
 76,98 
 
 35 
 
 44,73 
 
 20 
 
 83 
 
 ,9 J 
 
 ii. 14 
 52 
 
 45 
 47 
 
 Mark i. 1 1 
 
 3 1 
 
 ,45 
 
 iii. 22 
 
 43, 73 
 
 ii. 10 
 
 
 32 
 
 29 f. 
 
 79 
 
 20 
 
 
 lr 3 
 
 iv. 18 f. 
 
 27, 74 
 
 iii. 29 
 
 
 105 
 
 vi. 36 
 
 135 
 
 32 
 
 
 60 
 
 x. 16 
 
 35 
 
 34 f. 
 
 
 136 
 
 21 
 
 5i, 74 
 
 iv. 1 
 
 
 74 
 
 22 
 
 33,5i 
 
 4i 
 
 
 93 
 
 xi. 13 
 
 81 
 
 vi. 14 f. 
 
 
 125 
 
 xii. 6 f. 
 
 132 
 
 4i 
 
 
 93 
 
 xv. 7 
 
 125 
 
Index of Texts 
 
 179 
 
 Luke xv. 10 
 
 
 
 125 
 
 John 
 
 iii. 1 
 
 6 2 
 
 5,44, 
 
 11-32 
 
 
 
 97 
 
 
 
 68, 
 
 95, 113 
 
 xvi. 23 
 
 
 
 108 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 96 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 44, 108 
 
 xviii. 19 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 iv. 
 
 10 
 
 
 32 
 
 xix. 10 
 
 100, 
 
 no 
 
 
 21 f. 
 
 
 145 
 
 xxi. 26 
 
 
 
 88 
 
 
 23 
 
 
 50 
 
 xxii. 24 
 
 
 
 142 
 
 
 24 
 
 
 38,93 
 
 42 
 
 
 5i 
 
 ,68 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 32, 74 
 
 xxiii. 34 
 
 
 
 in 
 
 v. 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 48,94 
 
 xxiv. 49 
 
 
 
 82 
 
 
 18 
 19 
 
 
 48 
 61 
 
 John i. 1 
 
 28, 
 
 29 
 
 ,59 
 
 
 20 
 
 50, 59, 96 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 
 23 f. 
 
 
 62 
 
 10 
 
 
 87 
 
 , 9 1 
 
 
 25 
 
 56, 
 
 94, 112 
 
 12 
 
 115, 
 
 121 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 61 
 
 *3 
 
 
 
 123 
 
 
 30. 
 
 
 59 
 
 14 
 
 28, 
 
 29 
 
 ,43 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 36 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 39 
 
 
 14, 15 
 
 18 
 
 29, 
 
 43 
 
 ,68 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 124 
 
 ii. 16 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 vi 
 
 32 f. 
 
 34, 49, 92 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 n 3 
 
 
 36 
 
 
 107 
 
 iii. 3 
 
 
 
 119 
 
 
 44 
 
 34, 
 
 107, 123 
 
 5,7 
 
 
 
 120 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 35 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 57 
 
 
 35 
 
i8o 
 
 Index of Texts 
 
 John vi. 65 
 
 35 
 
 John 
 
 xii. 31 
 
 
 9i 
 
 70 
 
 105 
 
 
 44-50 
 
 26 
 
 vii. 12 
 
 86, 91 
 
 
 47 
 
 
 86,96 
 
 16 
 
 59 
 
 xii- 
 
 -xvii. 
 
 
 66, 75 
 
 39 f - 
 
 81 
 
 xiii. 
 
 3 
 
 
 62 
 
 vii-x. 
 
 66 
 
 xiv. 
 
 6 
 
 36, 
 
 55, 107 
 
 viii. 16, 19 
 
 36 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 64 
 
 23 
 
 90,99 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 155 
 
 27 
 
 87 
 
 
 9 
 
 24,37,68 
 
 39 
 
 105 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 55 
 
 42 
 
 105 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 *35 
 
 44 
 
 105 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 70, 82 
 
 49 
 
 49 
 
 
 23 37, 
 
 JI 7, i33 
 
 55 
 
 50 
 
 
 26 
 
 75 
 
 > 7 6 , 143 
 
 ix. 39 
 
 86 
 
 
 28 
 
 
 64,89 
 
 58 
 
 29 
 
 XV. 
 
 1-10 
 
 
 J 33 
 
 x. 15 
 
 50 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 90 
 
 16 
 
 146 
 
 
 26 
 
 
 76 
 
 3°. 33. 
 
 34-3 6 57 
 
 xvi. 
 
 7 
 
 
 82 
 
 xi. 4 
 
 50 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 84 
 
 9 
 
 89 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 50 
 
 25 
 
 92 
 
 
 12 f. 
 
 
 77^ i44 
 
 4i 
 
 51, 60 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 138, 143 
 
 xii. 21 
 
 155 
 
 
 28 
 
 
 16, 67 
 
 27 
 
 46 
 
 
 32 
 
 
 67 
 
 28 
 
 3 6 > 6 9 
 
 xvii. 
 
 2 
 
 
 67 
 
Index of Texts 
 
 181 
 
 John xvii. 
 
 3 
 
 42 
 
 Romans viii. 9 
 
 J 53 
 
 5 
 
 54, 89 
 
 > 9 1 
 
 14 
 
 !53 
 
 6 
 
 
 42 
 
 15 123, 
 
 J53 
 
 ii 
 
 54, 89, 
 
 115 
 
 26 f. 
 
 84 
 
 18 
 
 20 f. 
 
 
 85 
 
 54 
 
 Galatians i. 11 f. 
 
 141 
 
 23 
 
 
 55 
 
 ii. 11-21 
 
 H3 
 
 24 
 25 f. 
 
 xviii. 36 
 
 16, 
 9c 
 
 43 
 115 
 
 ,99 
 
 Ephesians i. 3 
 ii. 12 
 
 152 
 2 
 
 xx. 17 69, 136, 
 167 
 
 164, 
 
 Colossians i. 17 
 
 92 
 
 22 
 
 
 77 
 
 1 Thessalonians i. 1 
 
 149 
 
 28 
 
 
 69 
 
 3 
 
 149 
 
 Acts i. 1 
 
 144, 
 
 i45 
 
 iii. 11 
 
 149 
 
 4 
 8 
 ii. 32 f. 
 
 
 H3 
 
 82 
 
 i45 
 
 1 Timothy i. 1 
 
 150 
 
 
 iv. 10 
 
 J53 
 
 vii. 48 
 
 
 i45 
 
 11 Timothy i. 10 
 
 150 
 
 x. 34 
 
 xi. 14 
 
 
 146 
 146 
 
 Titus i. 3 
 
 150 
 
 xiv. 17 
 
 
 !53 
 
 Hebrews ii. 11 
 
 136 
 
 xvii. 27 
 28 f. 
 
 
 2 
 152 
 
 xii. 9 
 
 149 
 
 30 
 
 
 152 
 
 James i. 27 
 
 149 
 
182 
 
 Index of Texts 
 
 James iii. 9 149 
 
 1 Peter i. 3 89 
 
 1 John i. 1 28 
 
 Revelation i. 6 
 
 150 
 
 xi. 15 
 
 99 
 
 xiv. 1 
 
 150 
 
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the 
 Kingdom of God and the Church 
 
 BY 
 
 Geerhardus Fos> Ph.D., D.D. 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 " This is a thorough yet compact study of Christ's teaching on the 
 Kingdom and the Church." Auburn Seminary Review. 
 
 "A vigorous and discriminating discussion of a vital theme. . . will be 
 read with help and satisfaction by a large audience. ' ' The Baptist Ar- 
 gus. 
 
 "The discussion in this volume is of a great question, and the treat- 
 ment is attractive and luminous." The Herald and Presbyter. 
 
 "A scholarly volume. . . . the whole argument is well expressed and 
 worthy of profound consideration." The Examiner. 
 
 " Scholarly, comprehensive and condensed. The discussion shows 
 wide reading of the literature of the subject, evangeucal conviction and 
 feeling, and great skill in the use of exegetical power. The conclu- 
 sions reached, as briefly restated in the closing chapter, will commend 
 themselves to earnest and moderate men, and the whole discussion will 
 be fascinating and suggestive to trained students." N. Y. Observer. 
 
 "Impartial, reverent and very careful. . . . Dr. Vos' standpoint is at 
 once modern and temperate. His study will be of value, not merely to 
 the trained student but to the general reader as well. ' ' The Church- 
 man. 
 
 " The author has given a clear, strong, convincing argument in re- 
 gard to his conception of the nature and place of the Kingdom of God 
 in the world. It is a book that is profitable for reading, study and re- 
 reading. " The Midland Methodist. 
 
 "A scholarly exposition of what is recognized to be the dominant 
 theme of Christ's teaching. Especially valuable is the exegesis of Pe- 
 ter's confession and Christ's consequent declarations." The Congrega- 
 tionalist. 
 
 i imo. Cloth bound. Pp. vi, 203. Price 75 cents. 
 
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning His 
 Own Mission 
 
 BY 
 
 Frank Hugh Foster, Ph.D., D.D. 
 PRESS NOTICES. 
 
 " The style is clear, the thought elevated, the topics treated of are, 
 in their logical deductions, extremely practical. Students of the Bible 
 generally will find this a very useful volume to peruse and possess." 
 N. Y. Observer. 
 
 " If this first volume of this series is a fair specimen and representative 
 of those that will follow, the series will not lack in ability or interest. 
 Dr. Foster's position is that of the conservative scholar who neverthe- 
 less is familiar with current critical investigations. The style of presen- 
 tation is clear and admirably adapted to the needs of the layman and the 
 student." The Interior. 
 
 1 * This is a wonderfully interesting, suggestive and stimulating little 
 book." The Baptist Teacher. 
 
 il A very thoughtful and helpful book. . . will be found instructive 
 and quickening. ' ' The Examiner. 
 
 "The book is the work of a thorough scholar, is conservative yet 
 progressive, and gives a remarkably wholesome presentation of a very 
 important subject." The Baptist Argus. 
 
 " Scholarly but popular. . . will be found extremely useful to all who 
 desire a concise but accurate and comprehensive presentation of the lead- 
 ing teachings of Jesus concerning his mission." Baptist Review and 
 Expositor. 
 
 "Clear and simple enough for the intelligent layman, but not unhelp- 
 ful to the clergyman who wants clearer ideas as to his Lord's atoning 
 work." The Treasury. 
 
 i imo. Cloth bound. Pp. viii, 136. Price 75 cents. 
 
SEP 7 1904 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: June 2005 
 
 PreservationTechnologieJ 
 
s 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 ODOHSDIT^S 
 
 ■^■Bimmm