YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

THE SON OF MAN.

THE SON OF MAN:

Studies in His Life and Teachings.

BY

GROSS ALEXANDER, S.T.D.,
Professor of New Testament Exegesis
in VanderbiU University.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY JNO. J. TIGERT, D.D., LL.D.,
Book Editor, Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

FIFTH THOUSAND.

Cincinnati:
JENNINGS & PYE.
iqoi.

Copyright, 1899,
BY
Bakbbe and Smith, Agents.

DEDICATED
WITH REVERENT AFFECTION TO THE
MEMORY OF MY FATHER,
CHARLES HOLLEDAY ALEXANDER,
AND OF MY MOTHER,
ELIZA DRANE ALEXANDER.

Prefatory Note.
This unpretending book was written at the
suggestion and by the request of others. It is
neither a life of Jesus, nor a treatise on his
teachings, but consists of studies of some of
the important phases of his life and teachings.
The author prepared materials for other studies,
but these were excluded by the limits of the
book. The treatment is intended to be popular,
though the methods and results of critical study
have not been ignored. Some of the papers
have been given before public assemblies, and
were prepared with that in view.
I have not hesitated to avail myself of the
help of others, as the references in the body of
the book will show. I am especially and deep
ly indebted to the great German scholars Keim,
Weiss, and Wendt, and to the late lamented
Dr. A. B. Bruce, of Scotland, though I have
not been able to agree with them in all their
(vii?

viii Prefatory Note.
views. From Dr. Weiss I derived great assist
ance in the study of the sinlessness of Jesus.
For a knowledge of the times and conditions,
nothing is equal to the monumental work of
Dr. Emil Schiirer on " The History of the
Jews in the Time of Christ." Much help was
derived from it, especially in writing the first
Study. To others credit is given where their
Works are quoted.
To the Rev. Dr. Jno. J. Tigert,»the friend
of my boyhood, and still more of my later
years, I wish to express my thanks for his
patient reading of manuscript and proofs, for
many valuable suggestions, for the encourage
ment he has given me at every stage of the
work, and for his kind and generous note of
Introduction. May the blessing of God, which has been
sought in the preparation of these pages, be
given in the reading of them, so that they may
not have been written in vain.
August 22, 1899.

Contents.

PAGE
Introduction. . . '.  xi
I.
The Conditions and the Beginnings  i
II.
The Supernatural Birth of Jesus  28
III.
The Baptism and Its Meaning. . . . b  45
IV.
The Equipment of Jesus  55
V.
The Test in the Desert  61
VI.
The Kingdom of God  99
VII.
Conditions of Entering the Kingdom  124
VIII.
The King, the Law, and the Kingdom  143
IX.
Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father  155
X.
The Daily Prayer of God's Child  196
(ix)

x Contents. X I. PAGE
Jesus and the Old Testament  219
XII.
The Transfiguration  , 256
XIII.
The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. . ,  265
XIV.
The Resurrection of Jesus  , ,  327

Introduction.
The religion of Christendom, purified of the
accretions of nineteen centuries, is an achieve
ment of the consciousness of Jesus. Christian
ity is the ripe fruit of Christ's inner life, A
man, not a book, was the organ of supreme
divine revelation. The office of the criticism
and theology of the New Testament, as ap
plied to the Gospels, is to identify and describe
this man ; to fix his place in history ; to meas*
ure, so far as this is possible, his divine altitude
on the background of his own times, and by
the ever-lengthening shadow he casts upon all
subsequent times ; to trace the course of his
thought and determine its fundamental catego
ries ; to study the sources of the authority and
permanency of his teaching ; to attain to some
comprehension of his unique intimacy with the
Father ; and to bring home to the hearts of the
men of this generation the value which he him
self attached to his life and to his death. (xi)

xii Introduction.
The man, rather than the record, has done the
work. Criticism is a means to an end. It deals
with documents, but its end is a Person and the
facts of his life ; which were originally independ
ent of any record, and may be made real to us
of to-day. It begins with evidence and ends with
history. The trend of theology in the closing
decades of our century reveals the certain char
acter of the theology of the century yet unborn :
it will be biblical, historical, scientific ; it cannot
be dogmatic, speculative, ecclesiastical. It will
not undertake the solution of every problem
in heaven and earth ; for it will recognize the
rights and provinces of natural science and of
psychology and philosophy. Its deepest ap
peal will be to the inalienable moral nature of
man, "to every man's conscience in the sight of
God"; and it will be clothed in the terms of a
transparent rationality Its center and its cir
cumference will be Christ.
The reconstruction in theology which the
new methods are effecting, and will still more
effect, does not proceed from any doubt of the
truth of the Christian religion or any dissatis-

Introduction. xiii
faction with its foundations. That truth is abso
lute, and those foundations are divine. Rather
theologians have gained a new comprehension
of the absoluteness, the vitality, the universal
ity, and the divinity of Christ's religion; and
because some of the old theologoumena contain
these elements in such scant measure, scientific
theology has given itself to the task of their en
largement and vivification ; with Edwin Hatch
we hear " the solemn tramp of the science of
history marching in our day almost for the first
time into the domain of Christian theology."
In this volume Professor Alexander makes
the first contribution to biblical theology ema
nating from our ministry or Church ; and a
most noteworthy contribution it is. It is found
ed on exact and familiar knowledge of New
Testament Greek ; it shows an easy mastery of
the principles of historical and documentary
criticism ; its author has saturated himself with
t 2 world's best literature relevant to his theme ;
the tone and spirit of the volume are reverent
and deeply religious. Some of the " Studies,"
such as those on the Temptation, on the King-

xiv Introduction.
dom of God and the Conditions of Membership
therein, and the Daily Prayer of God's Child,
have been to me the source of great spiritual
illumination and peace. They are the ripest
fruit of the expositor's genius, and Superior to
anything on the same topics I have seen. Each
of the " Studies " possesses its own character
istic and fundamental importance, as students
of current theology will readily recognize ; but,
among them, the chapters on the Self-con
sciousness of Jesus and on the Resurrection
are worthy of special mention for the rigidly
scientific and relatively exhaustive discussion
of these vital topics, determinative of the uni
versal and eternal significance of the Christian
faith. Jno. J. Tigert.
Nashville, 18 August, 1899.

THE SON OF MAN:
STUDIES IN HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS.

I.
The Conditions and the Beginnings.
It is not always time that "the age makes
the man," but it is true that a knowledge of
the age does much to explain the man. In
order to understand the life of one who has
left his mark on his own and succeeding
generations, it is necessary to know, as far
as possible, the age in which he lived and
the historical conditions in the midst of which
his development took place, his message was
delivered, and his work was done. Without
such knowledge, much of what he did and
said cannot be readily understood, and much
is often sadly misunderstood ; nor is it pos
sible, without such knowledge, to estimate
his influence and to measure the results of his
life. On the other hand, a thorough knowl
edge of the conditions, of current modes of
thought, of the character and relations of
parties and their leaders, in short, of the in-
(1)

2 The Son of Man.
tellectual, moral, social, and political status
of the people, will in many cases clear up
what would be obscure and prevent misun
derstanding. It will therefore be necessary
at the outset to take a brief, summary survey
of the conditions which obtained in the land
of Palestine in the time of which we write.
The class of men who had most influ
ence in determining the condition of the
people of the Holy Land at the period in
question was that of the so-called Scribes.
This unfortunate translation, however, is
quite misleading. For though they were
originally copyists of the law, eventually
they became the interpreters of the Scrip
tures and the doctors of the law.1
The origin of this class is probably to be
!The Hebrew word means, according to Gesenius,
"one skilled in the sacred books and in the law."
The corresponding Greek word, ypa/i/iaTevc, is denned
by Thayer as follows : •*' In the Bible a man learned in
the Mosaic law and in the sacred writings." Other
words for the same class in the New Testament are
voiioStSaamfuoc = " teacher of the law " ; vo/uk6c = " one

Conditions and Beginnings. 3
found in the time of Ezra,1 who "was a
ready scribe (sopher) in the law of Moses,
and who had prepared his heart to teach
in Israel statutes and judgments." (Ezra
vii. 7, 10.) Ezra was, moreover, to " set
magistrates and judges who were to judge
the people and teach them the laws of
God." (Ezra vii. 25.) This was prob
ably the beginning of that process of inter
preting, expounding, and extending the
law of Moses which continued, with per
haps some interruptions, to the time of
Jesus, and which long before his time
learned in the law''; 'pa/3/Si = " my great and honora
ble master." They were the interpreters, expounders,
amplifiers, and judges of the law ; and, if they continued
in the time of Jesus to be copyists of the law, this was
a comparatively insignificant part of their work. The
German word expresses the meaning exactly, and
avoids any suggestion of scribe in the sense of sec
retary or writer: Schriftgelehrte = " a man learned in
the Scriptures.''
1 Compare Schurer, History of the Jews, Div. II.,
vol. ii. 54.

4 The Son of Man.
had produced its legitimate results, one of
which was that huge body of commentaries
and casuistical definitions and extensions
which was known in the time of Jesus as
"the traditions of the elders." This was
afterwards reduced to writing in that mass
of rubbish which we now have as the Tal
mud, and which, with a gem here and
there, remains, on the whole, a continent of
mud. The appointment by Ezra of men
who were to " teach the laws of God" was
probably the germ out of which was devel
oped that institution which was so universal
in the days of Jesus and the apostles, and
which exercised a deeper and more far-
reaching influence than the temple itself
with its solemn ritual — the synagogue. The
synagogue was a school, a Sabbath school,
where not the children alone, as in our
modern Sunday schools, but all the people
gathered together to listen to the reading,
interpretation, and definition of the Scrip
tures by rabbis (scribes) trained in rabbin-

Conditions and Beginnings. 5
ical schools.1 As Schiirer has pointed out,
"the professional employment of these so-
called scribes referred, first and chiefly, to
the law. Their task was a threefold one:
"1. The more careful theoretical devel
opment of the law itself." * By this he
means the development of the general pre
cepts of the law by endless casuistical dis
cussion, definition, and extension.
"2. The teaching of the law to their
pupils. "3. Its practical administration, i. e.,
the rendering of legal decisions as learned
assessors in courts of justice." 2
For as the civil law of the Jews was em
bodied in their sacred scriptures, the rabbis
were in fact jurists or lawyers, in the modern
English sense of the word. It is not possi
ble, without illustrations from the Talmud,
to understand what absurd extremes they
1 Recall how Saul of Tarsus was trained under Gama
liel in the rabbinical school at Jerusalem.
2 Schiirer, History of the Jews, Div. II., vol. i. 320.

6 The Son of Man.
went to in their " theoretical development"
of the law.
An example may be found in connection
with their rules and regulations concerning
the observance of the Sabbath. The law
of Moses ohly prohibited work on the
Sabbath in a general way. The rabbis,
however, undertook to define accurately
and exhaustively what work was forbidden.
They enumerate thirty-nine kinds of work
that were included in the prohibition. One
of these, to take an example, was the tying
of a knot; another was the untying of a
knot. But this was not definite enough.
They must go further, and specify what
kinds of a knot they were the tying or un
tying of which on the Sabbath rendered a
man guilty, and what kinds did not. Then
follows the enumeration of those kinds of
knots which must not be and those which
may be tied or untied on the Sabbath. So
as to lighting a fire, writing a letter, bear
ing a burden, and endless other nothings.

Conditions and Beginnings. 7
But besides these thirty-nine -works, many
other actions, not properly classed as works*
were forbidden.
Similar, but more minute and tedious still,
were their ordinances concerning the ob
jects and acts that rendered a man unclean.
These consisted of casuistical extensions of
the Mosaic ordinances concerning clean
ness and uncleanness. The Levitical leg
islation defined the various kinds of ani
mals that were clean or unclean;1 it enu
merated the symptoms and conditions con
nected with leprosy2 that rendered a man
unclean, as well as conditions connected
with certain forms of sickness, and especial
ly with the birth of children,3 etc. It pre
scribes also the methods of purification by
various washings and sacrifices. But am^
pie as were these enactments, they are but
poor and scanty compared with those found
in the Talmud. No less than twelve trea
tises deal with matters pertaining to the
1 Lev. xi., Deut. xiv. 2Lev. xiii. "Lev. xii.

8 The Son of Man.
law of cleanness and uncleanness. The
enumeration of the chief kinds of unclean
ness forms the basis of all these discus
sions. But with each of the chief kinds,
each of the following questions had to be
discussed and determined, with opinions of
various rabbis on the points involved: (i)
Under what circumstances such unclean
ness is incurred; (2) In what manner and
to what extent it may be transferred to oth
ers; (3) What objects and utensils are, and
what are not, capable of contracting defile
ment by contact with an unclean object;
(4) What means and regulations are pre
scribed for the removal of uncleanness.
We give some examples of their answers
to the last two questions: As to the kind
of utensils that could contract defilement
by contact with an unclean object, that was
determined, first by the material of which
these were composed, and secondly by their
form, that is, whether hollow or flat. For
example, in case of hollow earthen vessels

Conditions and Beginnings. g
the air in them contracts uncleanness from
an unclean object, as a corpse or a leper,
and propagates it to any person or thing
coming in contact with the vessel; but not
the outside of such vessels. The purifica
tion of such vessels can be brought about
only by their being broken, for then they
can no longer contain the air which serves
as a medium of holding and propagating the
uncleanness. But to what extent must the
breaking go in order to effect the purifica
tion of the vessel? An exact answer must
be given to this question also. A fragment of
a vessel is still esteemed a vessel, and there
fore capable of contracting and propagat
ing uncleanness. But how much of a frag
ment? That depends on the size of the
original vessel. If it be the fragment of a
vessel holding a log (about three and one-
third gills), and the fragment be sufficiently
large to hold enough for anointing the little
toe with, then it is still capable of contract
ing and propagating uncleanness. There

io The Son of Man.
are also similar prescriptions as to drinking-
cups, tables, doors, bolts, knockers, hinges,
keys, bridles, etc.
A few examples illustrating their way
of answering the question concerning the
ways and means of removing uncleanness
may be given : First, they distinguished six
kinds of water to be used in lustrations and
purifications. i. The water in ponds, cisterns or pits,
is, if not defiled itself, suitable for the legal
washing of the hands from contracted de
filement. 2. Running spring water is suitable for
the heave and for washing the hands.
3. Collected water amounting to forty
seah (= one and three-fourths peck) may
be used for a legal bath for oneself or for
utensils. 4. A small spring with more water poured
into it may also be used for purification.
5. Running water arising from mineral
or warm springs may be used, notwith-

Conditions and Beginnings* 1 1
standing this fact, because it purifies itself
in running.
6. Clean spring water. This is especial
ly suitable for running sores and for the
sprinkling of lepers.
These are the basis and starting point for
yet further series of definitions and distinc
tions which lose themselves in endless detail.
Extremely minute also were the direc
tions concerning the washing of the hands
and the correct way of pouring on the
hands. It was needful that the hands
should always have water poured on them
before eating. But it must be discussed
and determined ( i ) from what vessels such
pouring should take place ; ( 2 ) what water
was suitable for it; (3) who might pour it;
(4) how much of the hands was to be poured
on.1 And so it was throughout. Under
the bondage of the casuistical habit, and by
1 Passages like Mark vii. 2-23 will have new mean
ing in the light of these facts. These examples are
given by Schiirer, Div. II., vol. ii. 106 ff.

12 The Son of Man.
the application of the casuistical principle,
"the law" was brought to bear upon every
act and every most trivial detail of the daily
life, and everything, essential or indiffer
ent, moral or unmoral, was brought and
kept under the insupportable bondage of
this endless and senseless definition, dis
tinction, restriction, and prohibition. "At
every step, at the work of his calling, at
prayer, at meals, at home and abroad, from
early morning till the close of the day, from
youth to old age, the dead formula fol
lowed the Israelite who was zealous for the
law. Life was a continual torment to the
earnest man, who felt at every moment
that he was in danger of transgressing the
law."1 For ethics this Pharisaic rabbin-
ism substituted casuistry; for principles,
rules; for the spirit, the letter; for insight,
authority; for worship, forms; for the
word of God, a God-dishonoring tradi
tion; for spirituality, the most absolute and
1 Schiirer, Div. IL, vol. ii. 125.

Conditions and Beginnings. 13
intricate externalism.1 And if any at
tained proficiency in the knowledge and ob
servance of these endless and burdensome
prescriptions, their pride of self-righteous
ness and their conceit of superiority be
came inordinate.2 On the other hand, any
man who ignored or transgressed these
rules and ordinances was a lawbreaker and
accursed, while any one who held and
taught that they were not binding was a
revolutionist and a traitor.
These rabbis required and received from
their pupils the most absolute reverence,
greater than that due to parents 3 and equal
to that due to God. They claimed that their
words were to be esteemed more highly than
those of the prophets, and were more pre
cious than the law itself. " My son," they
1 Gould's Commentary on Mark, p. xxi.
2 For example, the Pharisees in general. In par
ticular, see Paul'6 autobiographical sketch in Philip-
pians iii. 4-6.
3 Compare Mark vii. 10-13.

14 The Son of Man.
said, " be more careful about the teaching
of the rabbis than about that of the law,
and let your fear of the rabbi be like the
fear of God." They were honored by
God himself, and their praises were pro
claimed by the angels in heaven.1
The important fact for those who would
understand the life of Jesus is that in his
lifetime these rabbis (scribes) formed a
firmly compacted class who were in prac
tically undisputed possession of spiritual
supremacy over the people.
The Pharisees were not the same as the
scribes or rabbis. The Pharisees were a
religious and theological party, while the
rabbis had an official status as the "teachers
in Israel," though as a matter of fact many
of the scribes were of the Pharisaic party.2
1 Edersheim, Life and Times of the Messiah, I. 94.
2 Compare Mark ii. 16, Revised Version: "And the
scribes ofthe Pharisees"; Luke v. 30: "The Pharisees
and their scribes," i. c, the scribes who were of their
party.

Conditions and Beginnings. i e
But a man could be a Pharisee without
being a rabbi (scribe), and a man could be
a rabbi (scribe) without being a Pharisee.
The Pharisees were those who seriously
and consistently strove to carry out in prac
tice the ideal of a legal life set up by the
rabbis.1 They practiced and preached that
minute and servile legalism and literalism
which under the influence of the rabbis
were the determining and dominating char
acteristics of the whole development of the
people of Israel in the period between their
return from the exile and the birth of Jesus.
The Pharisaic party was distinguished from
the mass of the people only by its greater
strictness and consistency.2 That they
were thus distinguished from the mass of
the people is implied in the word Pharisee,
which means a " separatist." But though
they thus separated themselves from the
common people, and from their level of
1 Schiirer, Div. II., vol. ii. 10. 2fiid.

1 6 The Son of Man.
superiority looked down on them, it was by
reason of this very sanctity and religious
superiority that they had such influence
over the people. Practically, they held al
most absolute sway in the nation, both re
ligiously and politically.
Even their political views were accepted
and followed by the mass of the people,
while in matters of religion they simply
dictated to the people their doctrines and
their observances.1 According to Josephus,
there were six thousand of them, and there
was a practically unbroken solidarity among
them. The Sadducees represented the priest
hood, and by reason of the historical con
tinuity and prestige of that class they were
the aristocrats of the nation. They were
thus removed from the common people, but
in such a way as to have little influence
with them. In theology and religion they
1 Josephus, Ant. XVIII. i. 3.

Conditions and Beginnings. 17
represented a revolt from the doctrines
and practices of the Pharisees and rabbis.
They adhered to the law of Moses and re
jected the accumulated additions and tradi
tions of the latter class.1 Finding nothing
clear, as they thought, in the law of Moses
concerning the resurrection or a future life,
they denied both.
They held that God had very little to do
with this world, that men were free and
able to do right or wrong, as they chose,
and that they were practically independent
of God. They held that man's aim and end
are limited to this world. The highest good
and the true destiny of this existence are to
be sought in a pleasant life, in riches and
honor, in avoiding punishment by acting
justly and showing a placable disposition,
in leaving a posterity, and in dying without
hope or fear for soul or body.2 Unlike the
ijosephus. Ant. XVIII. i. 4.
** Hippolytus, quoted by Keim, "Jesus of Nazara," I.
360. 2

1 8 The Son of Man.
Pharisees, they were not interested in a
kingdom of God. There was no need of a
future King and a Messianic renovation
and revolution. So long as man lived up
rightly and enjoyed rationally, this life was
happy enough.1 They were satisfied to be
let alone. Their only care was to hold
their rank and position and to do nothing
that would provoke their mighty masters,
the "Romans, to come and take away
their place and nation," as they bluntly
put it.2 If any man did anything to bring
them into this peril, he was either a fanatic
or a traitor; and in either case it was the
most elementary dictate of common sense,
as well as the simplest rule of statesman
ship, that this one should be sacrificed for
the many.3 Not only did most of them ac
quiesce in the rule of the Romans, some of
them even supported the claims and the
policy of the Herods, and are called " He-
!Keim, I. 361. 2John xi. 48. 3John xi. 50.

Conditions and Beginnings. 19
rodians" in the New Testament.1 They
were not unfriendly to the culture of the
Greeks, and did not refuse to adopt Greek
customs and names. Thus they were in
every particular the very antithesis of the
Pharisees. But they were few in number,
and were overshadowed in every way by
the Pharisees. There is a passage in Jose
phus which shows clearly the ascendency
and supremacy of the latter class as com
pared with the Sadducees. "As to the
Sadducees, nothing really is effected by
them. For when they come into any offi
cial position they follow, though unwill
ingly and by constraint, what the Pharisees
say, since otherwise the multitude does not
tolerate them." 2
Long before the time of the New Testa
ment, the power of the Pharisees had grown
so great that they did not hesitate to resist
their own kings. In one instance they
led the people in revolt from Alexander
1 Mark iii. 6 and xii. 13. 2 Josephus, Ant. XVIII. i. 4.

20 The Son of Man.
Jannagus, a prince of the heroic and fa
mous Maccabean family, who was king
from 104 B.C. to 78 B.C. They pro
longed the fight for six long and bitter
years, though it was at the cost of the lives
of more than fifty thousand of their adher
ents. At last he succeeded in overmaster
ing them, though not in conquering them,
and on his deathbed Alexander advised his
wife and successor to yield to them. She
did so. And, as Josephus says, "though
she had the name of regent, yet the Phari
sees had the authority. For they restored
such as had been banished and set at lib
erty such as were prisoners, and in short
they differed in nothing from lords. She
also restored again those usages which the
Pharisees practiced according to the tradi
tions of their forefathers, and she required
the people to be obedient to them." x
This conflict at once illustrates their soli
darity and reveals their temper toward any
1Josephus, Ant. XIII. xvi. 2.

Conditions and Beginnings. 21
man of whatever rank or title or power or
quality that would dare to question their
right to lead the people in matters of reli
gion. Politically the Pharisees were op
posed with all the fierce intensity of their
natures, strengthened by the most bitter
race prejudice and a fiery and fanatical re
ligious zeal, to the rule of a foreign and
Gentile power over the land and people of
God; and they clung with the tenacity of
desperation to the expectation of a Messiah
and a Messianic kingdom as their last hope.
But the Messiah they waited for must be
the Messiah of their sort, conforming to
their views, confirming their traditions, and
adopting their policy. And woe to the pre
tender who should, by opposing their views,
setting aside their traditions, and rejecting
their policy, attempt to lead the people away
from them. Their history had revealed a
temper and a tenacity that would oppose
him to the death, whoever and whatever he
might be.

22 The Son of Man.
Besides these leading classes and the
great mass of the common people, there
were two other classes, who, in opposite
directions, were removed from the influ
ence of the ruling castes.
There were the social outcasts, the sin
ners who had abandoned themselves to
lives of open immorality and sensuality;
and, with these, the publicans, those traitors
who for hire lent themselves to the serv
ice of the hated Gentile power that held
in subjection the elect people of Jehovah.
Over against these was the small remnant
of devout souls, for the most part in the
. homes of the lowly, who, wearied with the
endless, cumbrous and meaningless com
ments of the teachers of the Scriptures,
turned from them to seek in the Scriptures
themselves spiritual comfort and guidance,
who in the mood and attitude of faith and
patience and hope were waiting for the
consolation of Israel.
So far as the heathen world was con-

Conditions and Beginnings. 23
cerned, their condition was no better; it
was perhaps worse. We can give only a
general and summary view. If we could
transport ourselves backward two thousand
years into the midst of the Roman empire
in the days of Augustus Cassar; if we
could blot out the four Gospels and the rest
of the New Testament; if we could erase
from our minds the memory of the portrait
and the person of Jesus, and all recollection
of his words, his teachings, and his life, and
all knowledge of the noble ideals of char
acter and the noble characters of history
that have been formed under his creative
inspiration — in short, if we could put our
selves in the moral and intellectual condi
tion of the Romans of the Augustan age,
we should be sure of none of the great
truths concerning God and man and duty
and destiny which are now the common
property of all men.
Nature was an impenetrable mystery;
man, an inexplicable enigma; truth, a mat-

24 The Son of Man.
ter of philosopher's guess; virtue, a blind
and uncertain risk; and death, at once the
refutation and extinction of hope. Dark
ness seemed to cover the earth and gross
darkness the peoples.
But it came to pass in those days that there
went out a decree from Cassar Augustus,
that all the world should be enrolled for tax
ation. And from a rural town that hung on
a slope of one of the hills of the obscure
land of Galilee, a young Jewish woman of
the peasant class accompanied her husband,
probably on foot, to a town in the southern
province of Judea, that they might be en
rolled in the district to which their family be
longed. There, somewhere in the vicinity
of the ancient town of Bethlehem, in circum
stances of deep poverty and painful humil
iation, was born, of that young woman, the
helpless babe that was to grow up into the
Prophet of Nazareth, the Man of Galilee,
who should touch and renovate the decay
ing world, and revolutionize the moral con-

Conditions and Beginnings. 25
dition and history of mankind. Returning
after a time to their lowly home in the heart
of the hills of central Galilee, the Boy grew
in the quiet seclusion of this remote re
treat. And when consciousness was born,
there was born with it in the clear, calm
depths of his pure soul the consciousness
that God was his Father.1 This conscious
ness remained throughout, the one determi
native element of his inner life and thought,
the one regulative principle of all his reve
lations and all his actions. It was the heart
of the truth which " came by Jesus Christ."
This truth he apprehended not for himself
alone, but as man for man, as human for
humanity. It was truth which humanity had
never apprehended before, which, in Jesus'
sense, had never been realized by any human
being. God had been variously conceived by
'This was not, could not have been, taught him by
his mother, for when he referred to God as his Father
in his twelfth year, " they understood not the saying
which he spake unto them.'' (Luke ii. 50.)

16 The Son of Man.
men, now as one, now as many, now as dis
tinct from the world, now as one with the
world, now as the author and operator of the
forces of nature, now as their subject and vic
tim. By some the Divinity was conceived as
the natural adversary of men , wantonly inflict
ing innumerable evils upon them, enjoying
with demonic malignity their suffering and
sorrow and bent on their ultimate destruc
tion. "As flies to wanton boys, so are we
to the gods ; they torture us for sport." By
others the Divinity was conceived as so ab
sorbed in concerns of his own as to be whol
ly indifferent to the weal or woe of the race
of mortal men. The highest conception at
tained concerning God, with an individual
exception here and there, was that of ab
solute and autocratic sovereign and mor
al governor, exacting a servile obedience
from men, and meting out to offenders and
delinquents their due penalties with the in-
exorableness of fate, the precision of rab
binical calculation, and the pitilessness of a

Conditions and Beginnings. 27
divine Shylock. But to Jesus God was not
God only, he was also Father. This truth he
declared, he reiterated, he magnified, he il
lustrated in his own spirit and life, he vital
ized and energized with all the force and
beauty of his own unique personality. It
was his mission to give to humanity this con
ception of God and the motives for receiv
ing it, and to reveal to them the way of real
izing it, with all that it meant for humanity.
His new doctrine, unfolded in his teachings
and illustrated in his life, has filled the world
with light. What the world knows to-day
of God and what the world knows of man
in his relation to God more than was known
in the Augustan age, or any age, the world
has learned from Mary's Son.

II.
The Supernatural Birth of Jesus.
We have in the New Testament two in
dependent accounts of the birth of Jesus
from a virgin mother, and apart from
these accounts it is not elsewhere men
tioned. We concern ourselves first with
an examination of the historicity of these
two accounts.
In the first place, the circumstances at
tending the birth are recorded at consider
able length and with considerable fullness
of detail by the most painstaking historical
writer of the New Testament — the author
of the third Gospel and of the Acts of the
Apostles. He exhibits the historical sense
and employs the historical method. In a
preface to his Gospel, which has always been
admired for its dignified common sense, its
comprehensive description of the true meth
od of historical research, and its literary
(28)

The Supernatural Birth offcsus. 29
balance and beauty, he modestly but dis
tinctly declares of himself that in collecting
the materials for his history, so far from
picking up floating reports, he had traced
the course1 of things, that he had traced the
course of things from the beginning,2 that
he had traced the course of all3 things from
the beginning, that he had traced the course
of all things accurately* from the beginning.
The expression, "from the beginning," in
terpreted in the light of the first two chapters
of his Gospel, clearly means that he had
extended his painstaking research to the
circumstances preceding and attending the
birth of Jesus, and gives explicit assurance
that we have the same guarantee of thor
oughness in the investigation of his sources
there as elsewhere.5
Moreover, Luke's opportunities for know-
1 Trapanohrvdelv. 2avu6ev. siraow. iaK0i.3dc.
5 The International Critical Commentary on Luke
gives this critical estimate of Luke's veracity: "In
spite of the severest scrutiny, his accuracy can very
rarely be impugned." Plummer on Luke, page 4.

30 The Son of Man.
ing were of the best. He got his knowledge
from persons who had been "eyewitness
es."1 His incidental remark that Mary
"kept all these things in her heart "2 prob
ably indicates the ultimate source whence
his knowledge of the birth of Jesus was de
rived. At any rate, we know that the moth
er of Jesus survived him, and doubtless so
conscientious and painstaking an investi
gator as Luke's preface indicates, would
naturally search out and avail himself of in
formation that had been derived from the
mother of Jesus herself.
The character of the passage itself, also,
is worthy of attention. It has been well
and beautifully said with reference to both
the New Testament accounts: "The story
of the birth and infancy is told in the first
and third Gospels with a simple grace that
excels the most perfect art. Its theme,
hardly to be handled without being de
praved, is touched with the most exquisite
1ai}T6nTai. Luke i. 2. a Luke ii. 51.

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 31
delicacy. The veil where it ought to con
ceal does not reveal. . . . There is as
little trace of a coarse or prurient as of an
inventive or amplifying faculty. The reti
cence is much more remarkable than the
speech. Indeed, the distinction between
history and legend could not be better
marked than by the reserve of the canoni
cal and the vulgar tattle of the apocryphal
Gospels. . . . Our narratives are pure
as the air that floats above the eternal hills ;
are full, too, of an idyllic sweetness like the
breath of summer when it comes laden with
the fragrance of garden and field."1
In the second place, we find in the Gospel
of Matthew another account of the divine
generation of Jesus. The striking and im
portant thing is not that we have a second
account of the virgin birth, but that this ac
count is totally independent of the other,
agreeing with it in nothing but the single
central fact that Jesus was conceived by
1 Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, page 31.

32 The Son of Man.
the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin
Mary. Matthew gives no hint of the an
nunciation to Mary, but tells only of revela
tions made to Joseph. Luke says nothing of
the revelations made to Joseph, but speaks
only of what pertained to Mary. From
Matthew's account it would seem that Jo
seph did not know of the announcements
made to Mary, but that he became acquaint
ed with the situation in some other way.
And yet it is difficult to conceive that Mary
would not tell him of these announcements
in order to exonerate herself from blame.
"Every motive of honor, of duty, and of
prudence would have constrained Mary to
communicate these announcements to her
betrothed at once," says Beyschlag. While
this is true, it may well be that Joseph's
mind was still so troubled that he needed,
in addition to Mary's account, the divine
message in order to remove the last shadow
of "fear."1 The fact that he did after-
1 Matt. i. 20 : " Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife."

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 33
wards take her as his wife, notwithstanding
the pain of the situation, lends strong con
firmation to the account given by Matthew
that by means of a revelation from God
himself Joseph was assured of the divine
decree concerning Mary.
So far then are the accounts of Matthew
and Luke from being irreconcilable, it is
only on the assumption of their legendary
character that their differences cannot be
explained. For if the supernatural concep
tion of Jesus wras an invention and not a
fact, different accounts of it w*ould be like
ly to have a general agreement, or at the
very least to have something in common,
unless it be assumed that there were two
original and independent inventions of the
same thing, which is altogether improbable.
But if the supernatural conception did take
place, it is neither impossible nor perhaps
improbable that everything took place which
both Matthew and Luke record. In the ab
sence of any actual contradiction in the two

34 The Son of Man.
accounts, their total independence of each
other and their difference in every detail ren
der each one more rather than less prob
able. Moreover, we cannot find any motive for
invention here. The story of the super
natural conception of Jesus could not have
been invented in order to conform either
to Old Testament prophecy or to current
opinion among the Jews as to the man
ner of Messiah's birth. The prophecy of
Isaiah1 to which Matthew2 refers was nev
er before supposed to refer to the Messiah.
Moreover, the word used by Isaiah, and
translated "virgin," by no means refers ex
clusively to an unmarried person, and there
is no proof that the Jews, even in the passage
in question, understood it to mean a virgin
mother. It is interpreted here by Gesenius
to mean " a youthful spouse, a wife recently
married, the primary idea of this word not
being that of unspotted virginity, so that it
1 Isa. vii. 14. 2 Matt. i. 22.

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 35
is incorrectly rendered in the Septuagint by
xapBivos, nor does it primarily signify the un
married state." l In the case of Matthew, it
was the fact of the miraculous birth of Jesus
that suggested to him the prophecy (as given
in the Septuagint), and not the prophecy that
induced him to fabricate a story of the mirac
ulous birth. We know how again and again
Matthew finds in the events of the life of Je
sus fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies.
As to current opinion on this subject
among the Jews, it has been well said,
" Of the miraculous birth of the Messiah,
Jewish expectations at the time of Jesus
afford not a trace." It was foreign to
their thought. Indeed, there was a large
section of the Jews who accepted Jesus as
Messiah and became Christians, but who
persistently refused to accept the story of
his birth. These were the Ebionites, and
they were more distinctively Jewish than oth
er Jewish Christians, holding on to Judaism
1 Gesenius, Heb. Lex.

36 The Son of Man.
while accepting Christianity, and they fur
nish perhaps the best index of current Jew
ish opinion and belief on this subject in the
time of Christ.
We have direct testimony also that the mi
raculous birth of Messiah was not held by
the Jews. In Justin Martyr's work called
"The Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew,"
the latter adduces the alleged miraculous
birth of Jesus as one of the points at vari
ance with Jewish belief concerning Mes
siah, saying, " For we all expect that the
Messiah will be born a man from men."1
Hippolytus is even more explicit. In a pas
sage giving an outline of what the Jews held
concerning their Messiah, he says: "They
say that the Messiah will be born from the
family of David, not from a virgin and the
Holy Ghost, but from a woman and a man,
as it is appointed to all men to be born from
1 Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 49: Kal
yap iravTec fl/iels tov xP*-gtov avBpwirov cf avdpairuii -KpoaSoKafiev
yevrjasaSai. Christian Literature Translation, page 219.

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 37
seed."1 The supernatural conception of
Messiah was, then, contrary to Jewish be
lief in the time of Jesus ; they knew nothing
of it; it was a difficulty and an offense to
them. Jewish Christians would hardly have
invented a story concerning Jesus which
would make it more difficult for their fellow-
Jews to accept him.
Scarcely less difficult is it to account for
the invention of the story on the ground
of dogmatic motives or preconceptions.
In other words, it is difficult to discover
any theological reason for the invention
of it.
As a matter of fact, no theological use is
made of it in the New Testament. It is
not mentioned or alluded to in any book or
by any speaker or writer of the New Testa
ment except Matthew and Luke. What is
more to the point is that no theological use
is made of it in the writings of the age fol-
1 Refutation of All Heresies, p. 138, edition of the
Christian Literature Company.

38 The Son of Man.
lowing the New Testament. That is, it is not
adduced as a proof of the divinity of Jesus
or as an explanation of his character. It
would seem that a theological motive that
would lead men to go so far as to manufac
ture a story of this- sort would also lead
them to make some use of the story. But
the allusions to the miraculous birth of Je
sus in the post-apostolic age are few and
meager, and not of the nature of argument
for his divinity, but only passing refer
ences.1 Neither in the New Testament nor
in the post-apostolic writings is the sinless
ness of Jesus, though everywhere taught or
implied, made to depend on the miraculous
birth; it is not explained by it; it is not
connected with it. Nor is the doctrine of
his divinity mentioned in connection with
the miraculous birth.
1 Examples may be found in Ignatius's Epistle to
the Ephesians, chapters vii. and xviii.; to the Smyr-
nseans, chapter i.; Justin Martyr, Apology I. 46; Dial.
with Trypho, chapter 45. All referred to in Keim, II.
45. 46-

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 39
Not only is there no theological reason
for inventing the story of his birth from a
virgin, and no theological use made of it,
there is apparently one very strong reason
against it. For if Jesus had not a human
father, thus sharing with all men a true
and full human heredity, but was the prod
uct of an immediate divine paternity, it is
difficult to see how he was truly human, a
man among men, and subject to truly human
conditions, as the Gospels consistently de
scribe him. And especially is it difficult to
understand how he endured temptation as
real as those to which men are subjected, as
both the Gospels and the Epistles represent.
In fact, this remains till now one of the
greatest difficulties in the life of Jesus — how
to reconcile his divine paternity with his
genuine and true humanity, and with the
statement that he was tempted in all points
like as we are.1 The fact, then, that the
significance of the miraculous birth was not
*See the chapter on the Temptation.

40 The Son of Man.
made known by those who recorded it, and
has never yet been fully and perfectly ad
justed to other facts recorded by them, is a
presumption in favor of the veracity of their
narratives. Without any outside motive
that we can discover, they simply wrote
down the facts as they got them from their
sources. One of the greatest, ablest, and most
critical scholars of this or any century, a
man free from all the trammels of tradi
tionalism and orthodoxy, who rejects the
Christology of Paul and John, who handles
the records of the life of Jesus without re
serve and without critical mercy, who re
gards the story of his miraculous birth as
unhistorical and untrue, and who summarily
rejects the doctrine of his preexistence, thus
expresses his conviction as to the life and
character of Jesus: "There are points in
this life which far transcend at once all the
attainments and all the consciousness of
those who have been the soundest and the

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 41
most signally commissioned links in the
chain of humanity, and hence at the same
time transcend that chain itself. It is a
whole, a full, a blameless life, no piece
work, no mixture of the lofty and the base;
it is a divine creation, in full force, of larg
est love; for it is the completion of man as
man, the issuing of the creation into the be
ing of the Creator. It is the realized ideal
of God in his creation."1 He continues:
"As little are we able to refrain from the
acknowledgment that in the person of Jesus
a higher human organization was called into
being by that creative will of God that runs
in parallel though viewless course side by
side with processes of creaturely procrea
tion. If it must have a name, it can bear
no better one than that which Paul found
for it at the outset, a new creation in man
kind,2 a consummation, a desensualization,
a spiritualiz ation, a deification of the god-
1 Dr. Keim, Jesus of Nazara, II. 63, 66.
2 Referring to Paul's view of Christ as second Adam.

42 The Son of Man.
like image. It is more than a creation; it
is a divine formation in humanity of his own
being's kin and his own being's like, a com
ing of the essential Godhead to men.1 . . .
And we should not yet do full justice to
the greatness of Jesus if we did not distin
guish the creative action of God in his person
from every other (creative action) in point
of energy, and so far ultimately, in kind as
well, as something by itself and special."2
Here then is a man who, by the demands of
mere reason, apart from faith, feels, and is
constrained to admit, that some special im
mediate creative act of God is necessary to
account for the life of Jesus. Others have
felt the same thing. Thus much, in view
of the facts, reason demands. We find
here, then, in this unconstrained conclusion
of a free-thinking mind, a suggestion of the
meaning of the supernatural conception,
and it carries us a long way toward the
discovery of its significance. For after all,
JKeim, 11.66. * Ibid., 65.

The Supernatural Birth of Jesus. 43
there is no great distance or difference be
tween the special creative act of God, con
sidered by Keim to be necessary to account
for the life of Jesus, and that action of God
to which his birth is attributed in the chaste
and beautiful story of Matthew and Luke.
Approaching it from this outside and inde
pendent point of view, we find that the su
pernatural conception is credible, and even
reasonable; and when we find it also his
torically well attested, there is no good rea
son why we should refuse to believe it or
hesitate to accept it.
While this is true, and while it is true that
to many minds acceptance of the supernat
ural birth makes faith easier because it sup
plies an explanation of the unique person,
character, life, and teachings of Jesus, yet
on the other hand there are earnest minds
to whom belief in the physical miracle is
more difficult than belief in the moral mira
cle. If these, yielding to the power of the
latter, accept and comply with the teachings

44 The Son of Man.
of Jesus and specifically with the conditions
of entrance into his kingdom and his stand
ard of righteousness, they are not excluded
from discipleship. John and Paul and Pe
ter have left on record the gospel which
they preached, the conditions of salvation
as they expounded them, with their interpre
tation of the content of faith ; and yet they
have not mentioned the supernatural birth
of Jesus. Jesus himself preached the gos
pel and expounded the way of salvation
with higher authority than they, and yet he
did not refer to his supernatural birth in the
course of his ministry.

III.
The Baptism and Its Meaning.
When Jesus came to the consciousness of
Messiahship, and how; whether it was by
a gradual process or all at once and sud
denly; these are questions that have been
the subjects of long and earnest study and
much discussion. The latter view is thus
lucidly and strongly stated by one of its
ablest defenders :
"Jesus from childhood was clearly sensi
ble of the fatherly love of God and of his
own filial relationship to God, and he re
mained faithful to that early assurance.
Hence we can well conceive how Jesus,
when he ripened into manhood, possessed
a clearly thought-out general view of the
normal relation of man to God. But at that
earlier time he was not aware of the rela
tion of this conception of his to the setting up
of the long-expected kingdom of God. He
(45)

46 The Son of Man.
shared in the national hopes based on the
Holy Scriptures, and from his own special
way of reading and understanding them, as
well as from his own experience of what
constituted the highest blessedness, he
formed, in contrast to the ideals prevalent
among his countrymen, his idea of the es
sential elements of the blessedness of the
latter-day dispensation. But the knowl
edge that he was called of God to be the
Messiah of the new kingdom did not lie
ready to hand for him long before he en
tered on his Messianic work. It did not
develop itself in h;jm by a gradual process
of reflection, but ... it came to him sud
denly and unexpectedly through a miraculous
revelation. Jesus received this revelation,
which awakened his Messianic conscious
ness, when he was responding to the call of
the Baptist to the Jewish people to prepare
for the approach of the kingdom of God." 1
This view is held by other contemporary
1 Wendt's Teaching of Jesus, I. 96, 97.

The Baptism and Its Meaning. 47
German scholars,1 and by some American
writers.2 While possibly this view may be
correct, it is attended with difficulties which
seem to us to render it improbable. Ac
cording to the idyllic sketch in our third
Gospel, at the age of twelve years Jesus
gives expression to a calm, clear, unclouded
consciousness that God was his Father.
We learn also from the same passage that
at that tender age his understanding was
such as to astonish the wise and learned
men of Jerusalem (Luke ii. 47), and that
from this period, and with this pure con
sciousness of Sonship and this astonishing
insight, he advanced in wisdom and in the fa
vor of God. (Lukeii. 52.) The continuous-
ness of this advance is indicated by the im
perfect tense which is here used.3 With
his quick and penetrating insight he must
have observed, with sadness and sorrow,
JAs Baldensperger and Beyschlag.
2 Gilbert, in Student's Life of Jesus.
3 HpoiKoirrev.

48 The Son of Man.
the fact and the effects of sin among the
people with whom he was daily associa
ted, and contrasted it with his own perfect
purity and tranquillity of heart and life.
Whence came this contrast, and what was
its meaning? he must have asked.
He was profoundly versed in the Old
Testament Scriptures which contained pre
dictions and descriptions of the Messianic
kingdom that was to come, and his after
teachings incidentally reveal how well he
was acquainted with the current expecta
tion (and misapprehension) of that king
dom. And as it is not easy to see how he
could have failed to be aware of the wide
contrast between his own religious experi
ence and moral condition and that of the
people about him, so he must have ob
served the almost equally wide contrast be
tween current interpretations of Old Testa
ment prophecy and his own, between cur
rent views of Messiah's kingdom and his
views. The fact that he had the true view

The Baptism and Its Meaning. 49
of both, and that he found no one else who
did, not even among the wisest men of his
time, must have brought home to him the
suggestion, if not the realization, that he
was a unique person; and this would lead
to further reflection and inquiry.
Further, if he was such a person and had
such unique knowledge of the deeper mean
ing of the Scriptures and the higher possibili
ties of men as the children of God, which is
admitted by all, how is it to be explained that
he was content to remain quietly and idly
in retirement and obscurity in a far inland
mountain town for thirty years or more and
not go forth to give the sinful and sorrowful
world the benefit of his knowledge and ex
perience ? To do this is the universal and ir
repressible impulse ofthe good man who sees
with sadness the sin and sorrow of the world,
and who himself knows the secret of freedom
and peace. Why did not Jesus do this ? How
could he keep from it for these long years ?
If we understand that he was conscious

50 The Son of Man.
of a great mission, a unique mission to the
world, and was awaiting the definite direction
of his Father as to the time of his manifesta
tion, this long season of waiting in obscuri
ty becomes intelligible. Otherwise not. To
one of Jesus' character without this unique
consciousness, waiting in inactivity for long
years and " hiding his light under a bushel ' '
must appear as an unjustifiable and immoral
remissness and waste.
In general, it is far more than likely that
Jesus knew from his mother of the extraor
dinary nature and circumstances of his birth.
This seems to be implied, particularly in the
answer he gave to her at the marriage in
Cana of Galilee, when she hinted to him
that he might afford relief in the emergency
which arose on that occasion. The whole
conversation seems to indicate that they
both understood and had probably talked
together of his earlier history.
The knowledge which Jesus had of the
manifestation and preaching of the Baptist,

The Baptism and Its Meaning. 51
and especially of his proclamation of the
presence of the Messiah in the midst of the
people, would mightily confirm his conscious
ness derived from the sources just enumer
ated. Indeed, we are not left merely to infer
that Jesus understood the meaning of John's
mission and its relation to himself.
On one of the days when John was bap
tizing the people in the river Jordan, Jesus
presented himself for baptism. Fearless
and relentless as John had been in denoun
cing sin, in rebuking sinners of all classes,
and in demanding repentance of all, from the
least to the greatest, his confidence and his
courage failed when he looked upon Jesus.
Overawed in his presence, he said in humil
ity and meekness, " I have need to be bap
tized of thee, and yet dost thou come to
me?" The reply of Jesus implies that he
fully recognized the difficulty and incongru
ity which John saw and felt, and yet in or
der to fulfill what corresponded with the
will of God, that was to be allowed which

52 The Son of Man.
seemed incongruous and could not be com
prehended at the time: " Suffer it to be so
now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness." What I ask is to be con
ceded for the present without your being
able to understand it.
But how did Jesus' baptism fulfill all right
eousness and accomplish the will of God ?
What was the reason for his being baptized
by John, and what was the significance of
this baptism for Jesus ?
The baptism of Jesus at his own request
could not mean that he was conscious of
moral failure or wrong. For he did not
deny John's assumption of his superiority to
him and his baptism. On the contrary, his
reply shows that he was perfectly aware of
the difficulty which caused John's hesitation
and which there really was in his submitting
to the baptism of John.
If, then, Jesus was not aware of his Mes
siahship, we cannot discover any reason for
his submitting to John's baptism. If there

The Baptism and Its Meaning. 53
was not something in his consciousness
which called for his baptism apart from sin
and repentance, there was no reason for his
baptism at all. But if there was something
in his consciousness apart from sin and re
pentance which prompted his desire for bap
tism, that something must have been in con
nection with his Messiahship. If not, what
was it? When he says, " Thus it becometh
us to fulfill all righteousness," he meant that
it was in accordance with and in obedience
to the will of God, of which, it is implied,
he in some way had had a token.
The life of Jesus after his baptism,
says Weiss, differed from his life before
only by its being dedicated from that time
forward to his great divine calling. It was
in this sense that Jesus saw in the com
mand of God summoning him to baptism
the long-expected token from his Father that
the time was come for entering upon his
Messianic career.1 For the sinful people,
1 Weiss, Life of Christ, I. 323.

54 The Son of Man.
baptism was to mark the conclusion of
their life of sin and the beginning of a new
life of righteousness; for Jesus, the sinless
one, it marked the close of his former life
of privacy and inactivity and his entrance
upon one that was entirely new, namely,
the life and work of the Messiah. This
was probably the object and meaning of his
baptism.

rv.
The Equipment of Jesus.
At the time when in obedience to his
Father's will Jesus broke with his former
life of retirement and inactivity and dedi
cated himself to his great divine calling, he
received from his Father an objective tes
timony of recognition as Messiah and as
Son of God, confirming his own subjective
convictions and approving his act of self-
dedication to the Messianic mission. This
objective confirmation and authentication
came to him in the very act of submission
to baptism, when the voice declared, "Thou
art my beloved Son; in thee I am well
pleased."1 But more than this, there came
the equipment for the office and work of
Messiah in the descent of the Spirit, ob
jectively symbolized by the dove. It was
*Mark i. n. (55)

56 The Son of Man.
through the agency of this Holy Spirit, and
not by virtue of his divine nature, that the
New Testament Scriptures represent him as
having supernatural knowledge and exer
cising supernatural power. According to
these Scriptures his supernatural knowl
edge, as exhibited on particular occasions,
and his power to work miracles, were due
to the gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon
him by his Father for the accomplishment
of his Messianic work.
We read in Luke iv. 14 that immediately
after the temptation Jesus returned in the
power of the Spirit into Galilee. This
means that he returned from the Jordan
into Galilee invested or clothed with the
power of the Holy Spirit.1 And this was
at the very beginning of his ministry.
Again, not very long after this, it is said
(Luke v. 17), "The power of the Lord
'The preposition here used for in expresses investi
ture, and is used in this sense in the New Testament
again and again.

The Equipment of Jesus. 57
[that is, Jehovah] was with him to heal."
In another of the Gospels, Jesus himself
says that he cast out demons by the Spirit
of God. (Matt. xii. 28.)
In some instances it appears that he
prayed before working a miracle, as in
the case of the deaf and dumb man in
Decapolis (Mark vii. 34). In Matthew
xxvi. 53 we find him saying, "Thinkest
thou that I could not beseech my Father, and
he shall now send me more than twelve le
gions of angels ? " From this it appears that
even miracles he did not work, might have
been wrought on condition of his praying
for it. Again, he says in John xi. 41, 42,
what implies that he offered special prayer
for the power to perform what seems to us
his greatest miracle, the raising of Lazarus
from the dead. Not only so, it seems to
imply that he was in the habit of asking his
Father for power to work miracles. These
are his words as he stands beside the grave :
" Father, I thank thee that thou heardest

58 The Son of Man.
me. And I knew that thou hearest me al
ways." This fact is recorded of him, let
us remember, in the fourth Gospel, which
is recognized as in advance of the others
in its representations of the divinity of
Jesus. And, further, it is in this fourth
Gospel that Jesus is represented as saying
of himself that the works which he did
his Father had given him to accomplish.
(John v. 36.) In John ix. 3, 4 he speaks
of his miraculous works as the works of
God, of him who had sent him. In John
xiv. 10 he says, " But the Father abiding
in me doeth his works." And in gen
eral, we are told that God giveth the
Spirit to him not by measure. (John iii.
34.) This view, that Jesus performed his
miracles in virtue of his investiture with the
Holy Spirit by God the Father, is the one
held and taught by the apostles after the
wonderful illumination of Pentecost. Peter
so understands it; for he says, on that oc
casion, to the Jews, that Jesus was a man

The Equipment offesus. 59
approved of God by miracles and wonders
and signs which God did by him in their
midst. (Acts ii. 22.) And again, at the
house of Cornelius, he says that God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost and with power. (Acts x. 38. )
That this is the scriptural view of the
supernatural power and the supernatural
knowledge of Jesus, has been discovered
and is now held even by conservative stu
dents of his life. On this point Dr. James
Stalker, an orthodox, evangelical, and spir
itual preacher of Scotland, says: "We
are in the habit of attributing the wisdom
and grace of his words, his supernatural
knowledge of even the thoughts of men, as
well as the miracles he performed, to his
divine nature. But in the Gospels they are
constantly attributed to the Holy Ghost."1
And this scriptural view will suggest, if it
does not furnish, an explanation of some
1 Stalker's Life of Christ, p. 44.

60 The Son of Man.
things which it is otherwise difficult to un
derstand. It may afford us a glimpse into
the reason why in some cases Jesus could
not do many mighty works. It will also rec
oncile for us the supernatural knowledge of
Jesus with those limitations of his knowl
edge which are either expressly declared,
or, as is more frequently the case, implied,
in the records of his life and teachings. In
general, it will enable us in reading the
Gospels to see and accept that we are
reading the life of a man, the life of a
truly human person, who, in interpreting
and describing himself, designated himself
habitually as the Son of man. While we
must not lose sight of the fact that, accord
ing to these same Scriptures, Jesus was in
a true sense divine, his life as recorded in
the Gospels is the life of a man, albeit a
man who was filled with the Spirit of God,
a man* who was, from the beginning to
the end of his life, absolutely at one with
God.

v.
The Test in the Desert.
"Is he then the Son of God who desires
to be nothing but the instrument of the di
vine will, and who will use what is given
him only that he may accomplish the work
which his Father has given him to do?"
His subjection to the experiences of the
wilderness furnishes the test of this. If
he had been a wooden man, if the whole
course of his life had been a mere stage-play
process, the test which he passed through
in the wilderness had been unnecessary;
unless, indeed, this so-called temptation also
was one of the acts in the play. But if he was
man in the full sense, with " nothing human
alien to him," then we can see the necessi
ty and understand the meaning of this test.
We can discover the wisdom of God in sub
jecting him to it before his entrance upon
the actual work of his mission. At the
same time, we can understand also why
(61)

62 The Son of Man.
he himself, conscious of his destination to
a mission, and at the point of entering on
a work, never before assigned to a son of
man, would crave retirement and solitude
for realizing and accepting the full meaning
of it. He was thoroughly acquainted with
the contents of the Old Testament Scrip
tures. He was thoroughly familiar with the
records of the lives of God's servants, the
prophets. He knew, what they had been
called to do, what opposition they had en
countered, what perils they had braved,
what sufferings they had endured, and what
fates they had met, in the doing of it.1
And he knew that his work was greater
than theirs, infinitely more difficult, and
fraught with infinitely greater suffering.
Not only so, he dwells with painful fre-
1He refers again and again to the persecutions and
sufferings o£ the prophets. Matt. v. 12: "For so per
secuted they the prophets which were before you."
See also Matt xxiii. 30-35 (which should be read in
full), and other passages of similar import.

The Test in the Desert. 63
quency during the course of his teaching
on the sufferings of Messiah himself, as
foretold or foreshadowed in the Old Tes
tament. Man as he was, and humanly
agitated with the tumult of emotions that
must have arisen within him on the thresh
old of his untested task, he might well desire
to flee away into an impenetrable solitude
for comprehending it and adjusting himself
to it.1 While this is natural to Jesus, we are
told by Matthew that he was led into the
wilderness by the Holy Spirit in order to be
subjected to temptation by the evil spirit.
However, there is no inconsistency here.
Either the Holy Spirit may have influenced
him through his natural impulses, or may
have imparted a distinct impulse over and
above these. It is not said, nor is it implied
in what is said, that Jesus knew beforehand
1 Similarly Paul, when the revelation came to him
that revolutionized him, sought retirement amid the
solitudes of Arabia for introspection, meditation, aud
¦intelligent adjustment to his new conditions.

64 The Son of Man.
that he was going to be subjected to this
process of temptation by the devil.
While this temptation was a test whether
Jesus desired to be nothing but the instru
ment of the divine will and would use what
was given him only that he might accom
plish his Father's work, at the same time it
would give him a foretaste of the tempta
tions he would have to resist and acquaint
him experimentally with the forces he would
have to encounter and overcome in complet
ing that work. The testing was thus also a
preparation for the mission which he was
to fulfill.
In thinking of the three specific tempta
tions that are recorded in detail, we should
not lose sight of the fact that, according to
two of the accounts, he was under tempta
tion during the whole period of the forty
days.1 What this prolonged temptation or"
1 Tltipa^dfievoc TtooapaKovTa fjfikpac vnb tov Zaxava : Mark
i. 13. See also Luke iv. 2, who uses exactly the same
words except one — 6ia{l67uov.

The Test in the Desert. 65
these repeated1 temptations were, we do
not know, we can only try to imagine. At
any rate, we can try to imagine how pain
ful, how awful, how exhausting the process
must have been, continuing, as it did, for a
month and a third of a month in an unin
habited solitude, without the presence of
friend or companion to comfort or to sym
pathize. During this time we are told that he
fasted. This was probably of set purpose,
though some think it was due to his mental
preoccupation and abstraction. According
to Dr. Weiss, he fasted because of the ne
cessity of the situation in which he was
placed in the wilderness; and it does not
mean, he thinks, that he abstained abso
lutely from the use of food, but availed
himself of the scant supply which the desert
'The present participle may mean either that he
was under a prolonged and unceasing stress of temp
tation, or that he was during the forty days subjected
to repeated temptations.
5

66 The Son of Man.
afforded.1 This is hardly probable, how
ever; for this would not really be fasting,
which is voluntary abstinence from food from
motives connected with religion.2 More
over, Luke says, in so many words, "And
he did eat nothing in those days." 3 When
the evangelists tell us that at the end of the
month and more, he hungered, it is not the
record of an inference of theirs. It is their
way to give a bare record of simple objective
facts, not their own subjective reflections —
a long noticed and a striking peculiarity of
their wonderful histories. When they say
"He hungered," they record, though in a
single word, an objective fact of the expe
rience of Jesus as, doubtless, he had related
it himself, an experience which had been to
him a most painful and never-to-be-forgot
ten reality.
1 Life of Christ, I. 338.
2 See vtjotevu in Thayer's Lexicon. In Acts xxvii. 33,
where Paul tells the people on the ship they had "fast
ed " for fourteen days, the word v/joreha is not used.
3 Luke iv. 2, Kaj oiiii tyayev ovdev.

The Test in the Desert. 67
The First Temptation.
In this desperate extremity, suffering and
faint with an intolerable gnawing hunger, it
occurred to him that he might there alone in
the desert provide for himself bread by will
ing to put forth the miraculous power which
clearly he had the conviction of possessing.
Doubtless the suggestion came to him with
great force and startling plausibility. What
harm or wrong could there be in doing it?
And if he did not very soon get relief by
this or by some means, would he not per
ish? Whatever difficulty we may have in discov
ering why it would have been wrong, it is cer
tainly not difficult to see that it was a very real
and powerful temptation. If the reality of
temptation consists in a real desire for that
which is offered to us and placed within our
reach, if the reality of temptation is meas
ured by the strength of the inward craving
which is appealed to, then there was reality in
this temptation of Jesus. If the self-chosen

68 The Son of Man.
pain and the self-imposed conflict that are in
volved in refusing to yield, and in resisting
to the bitter end — if these go to constitute
the reality of temptation, then was Jesus as
really tempted as we are. There is no want
of human nature so desperate as extreme
hunger. Itis an admitted axiom among men
that a man is excusable for theft or robbery,
or almost any crime short of murder, when
goaded by the pangs of a desperate hun
ger. Men make this allowance for no other
want or craving or passion of human nature.
Without having to suppose that there was
any appetency in Jesus of a sinful nature to
give rise to temptation or to respond to temp
tation, yet there was a craving which, though
innocent in itself, was as real and as power
ful and as intense as any sensuous or fleshly
craving ever experienced by men ; and the
denial of its gratification, when gratification
was at his command, involved suffering as
real and pain as keen as any that we ever
know in resisting temptation.

The Test in the Desert. 69
There are passages in the Gospels which
imply that Jesus existed before he was born
into this world ; nevertheless we believe that
he was as truly tempted as if he had no pre-
existence. It is equally implied that he had
a divine nature, yet he was as truly tempted
as if he had not. He was tempted like as
we are and yet without sin, for the tempta
tion came from without and was addressed
to an innocent though intense craving of the
physical nature which he had in common
with all men.
But wherein would it have been wrong
for him to relieve his hunger by a miracle ?
On this point we shall find it instructive to
compare another experience of temptation
which Jesus had toward the close of his life,
a temptation involving the same principle.
When he was seized by the mob at Jerusa
lem and some of his friends and followers
would have resisted with arms and violence,
he gently restrained them, adding that if he
would pray for it his Father would instant-

70 The Son of Man.
ly {apn) furnish him a host of the heavenly
powers for his defense and deliverance.1
But he would not pray. He could have had
it for the asking — he would not ask. Why
would he not ask? To have availed him
self of supernatural aid for deliverance,
though it was clearly at his command,
would have been to break down at the
crucial point of his life-work. To have
turned aside in that hour and power of
darkness, to have stopped short of the cross,
would have been to wreck the plan of his
life, which, according to the interpretation
of all the schools and all the ages, had its
chiefest fact, its most potent factor, and its
crowning glory in his - gentle and uncon
strained submission to the pain and shame
of crucifixion. The bitter sneer of the by
standers at the cross was sublimely true,
and, like Caiaphas, they spoke wiser than
they knew when they said, "He saved
others; himself he cannot save." For in
1 Matt. xxvi. 53.

The Test in the Desert. 71
saving himself he could not have saved
others. The situation was similar at the time of
the temptation in the wilderness. He was
tempted, in an emergency of his human life,
to make use of powers for his own personal
relief which were put at his command,1 not
for this purpose, but for the accomplishment
of his Father's will and his Father's plan
for the enlightenment and recovery of men.
To have used them for his personal benefit
would have been to make a misuse of them,
and this on general principles. Ministers
of the gospel who are called to positions of
prominence, popularity, and power are often
tempted to use all this for their own personal
advantage. And if they yield to this temp
tation, as alas ! they too often do, they lose
their power and become the objects of uni-
'From what Jesus said as to his ability to secure su
pernatural aid against his murderers at Jerusalem, we
infer that at any other emergency he could have had
it ror the asking.

72 The Son of Man.
versal disapprobation and condemnation.
And if even in an emergency they or any
other class of men make use for their own
relief of what has been committed to them
by others and for others as a trust, it is
deemed immoral and wrong.
But there are yet other reasons why it
would have been an error for Jesus to use
for the relief of his own personal needs,
however urgent, the supernatural power in
trusted to him. He was among men the Son
of man. He was subject to all the condi
tions, limitations, and disabilities of human
nature. His mission was not only to teach
the ultimate and absolute truth concerning
God's relation to man and man's normal re
lation to God, but what is still more impor
tant and necessary, to realize it and to illus
trate it in his own everyday life, and thus
to show the possibility of it and to bring it
home to men's bosoms. Whatever may be
the meaning of his death, this was the
meaning of his life. But to have availed

The Test in the Desert. 73
himself, in the emergencies of his life, of
powers that are denied to men in general,
would have defeated his mission. It would
have removed him at once from the condi
tions of humanity and have made him other
than a son of man.
And yet again, it would have rendered
him incapable of truly sympathizing with
men in their emergencies, their troubles, and
their trials; and in turn this fact would
have made his example powerless to be
get confidence and to create hope in men.
The alternative was to commit himself to his
Father and trust in his care, while he suf
fered and waited. To have yielded to the
suggestion made would have been a cowardly
shrinking from what was involved in living
his life and discharging his task in the world,
among men; and this shrinking would have
meant a distinct distrust in the providential
fatherly care of God his Father, about which
he had so many and such beautiful things to
say to others in his after ministry.

74 The Son of Man.
But there were other elements in this
first temptation. It was complicated with a
subtle suggestion, introduced in a sort of
incidental way, as it were, and intended
either to awaken a desire or to appeal to
an existing desire to prove, by an objective
visible effect of his word, that he was the
Son of God by testing his miracle-work
ing power. For he had not yet put this to
the test. The face meaning of the tempta
tion was, under the agony and stress of an
awful biting hunger in that remote and des
olate solitude, to resort just for once to the
use of supernatural power for much-needed
relief. How entirely reasonable this ! and,
withal, how innocent! But then there
was also that sidewise hint so delicately
suggested, so faintly insinuated as hardly
to be recognized, an undertone scarce au
dible, whispering: "Besides, you may, in
doing this, put to the test that tantalizing
consciousness of power to work wonders,
and so in the same act prove that you are

The Test in the Desert. 75
the Son of God." " Not to do this, when
suggested, is to confess that you are not the
Son of God."
In trying to appreciate the force of this
sidewise suggestion, we should bear in
mind not only that Jesus had never yet
wrought a miracle, but that no miracle had
been wrought for hundreds of years.
To sum up: For Jesus to have yield
ed to his feelings, to have made the deci
sion in his mind and spoken the word of
command with his lips, would have been
a cowardly and selfish abandoning of
a painful post and taking refuge from a
painful situation by falling back on his
exceptional and superhuman powers; it
would have been a distrust of his Father's
faithfulness and care ; it would have been a
misuse of his Father's sacred trust; and
lastly, to have consented to test his miracu
lous power as a proof and credential of his
Sonship would have been to doubt his Fa
ther's word, " Thou art my beloved Son."

76 The Son of Man.
And to have done any one of these things
would have been to fall below the ideal per
sonally, and in consequence to forfeit his fit
ness for the Messianic office and mission.
It is worthy of note that the three record
ed temptations of Jesus are such as no man
ever experienced before, and yet such as are
exactly suited to Jesus in the unique situation
in which he was placed at the opening of
his career. " The story of Christ's tempta
tion is as unique as his character. It is such
a temptation as was never experienced by
any one else, yet just such a temptation as
Christ, and Christ in those peculiar cir
cumstances, might be expected to experi
ence." In particular was the first temptation
suited to such a person and character as
Jesus is by his New Testament biographers
represented to be. What inventor or stream
of tendency could ever have conceived a
temptation, apparently so simple and insig
nificant, in reality so appropriate, so subtle,

The Test in the Desert. 77
so vital, so complex, and so far-reaching
as we have found this first temptation to
be? And yet the statement of it is so
brief, the account so meager, prosaic, and
matter-of-fact, that one feels tempted to
believe that the writers themselves did not
perceive the meaning of it, but only put
down the bare facts as they heard them.
Or, if they did understand it, they restrained
themselves from interpreting, amplifying, and
commenting here as they did throughout
these unique narratives which record the
most startling events and the strangest ca
reer the world ever saw.
Moreover, it seems incredible if these nar
ratives were invented, that the inventors of
them should, with one accord and consist
ently, refrain from attributing any miracle
to their hero until he was thirty years of age
and more, and then have represented him
as refusing to work a miracle when solicited
to do so under circumstances that to men
would seem to render it justifiable, and be-

78 The Son of Man.
sides, have represented that apparently in
nocent and reasonable suggestion as com
ing from the devil.
The view here taken of the first tempta
tion is confirmed by the answer with which
Jesus rejects it. He declined to use any
means for his personal relief that were de
nied to men in general. He has no special
supernatural knowledge or revelation with
which to detect the design or to oppose the
suggestion of the evil one. He relies only
on such means for strengthening himself
against the temptation as were in reach of
any who would avail themselves of them —
the preparation of prayer and the contents
of the sacred Scriptures. And he uses a pas
sage which refers to man in the most gener
al sense, as man. It stands written, "Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by the
word of God." He used these words in their
original historical sense, which answered
exactly to his circumstances at this crisis of
his life. The situation of Jesus in the wil-

The Test in the Desert. 79
derness was similar to that of the Israelites
in the desert at the time to which the words
quoted refer. As the Israelites at that time
were cut off from ordinary supplies, and
were to wait in trustful dependence on God's
''word" implicitly pledging him to provide
for them, though in his own time and way, so
Jesus, though having power to provide means
for his own immediate relief, was like other
men to wait in trustful dependence for the
relief that was pledged in his Father's word,
and not to act in disregard and distrust of
him.
The Second Temptation.
The appeal in the first temptation was
to the deepest need of the physical nature ;
in the second, it was to a religious instinct
and faculty. Under the trying stress of his
circumstances and the satanic temptation,
pressed upon him, Jesus had exhibited in
an extraordinary degree a steadfast, un
wavering trust in his Father. This was his
refuge and strength ; and this is now turned

80 The Son of Man.
into a snare, and made the basis of an ap
peal to go wrong in another direction.
The appeal is enforced by a specific as
surance drawn from those very Scriptures
which had furnished him in part the means
of detecting the meaning ofthe former temp
tation and of resisting it. This temptation
consisted in the suggestion of a trust in God
which, though made to appear warranted by
God's own word, was in fact unwarranted
and presumptuous. It would be all the
stronger because it coincided with the nat
ural reaction produced in his mind by the
consciousness of his victory over the temp
tation to distrust. To throw himself down
from the dizzy height of the temple's top
most pinnacle would be an act of venture
some trust, of extravagant faith, such as
might easily occur to one in Jesus' circum
stances and in the mood of conscious vic
tory. It was as if the tempter had said:
" Thou hast achieved a great triumph over
nature through thy trust in God. Trust him

The Test in the Desert. 81
thou canst, still further, and by a bold ven
ture wherein he will uphold thee, thou canst
yet put him to a decisive test whether thou
art the Son of God. Thou canst securely
•/enture on him to uphold thee and preserve
thee, because in his word there is a specific
assurance that he will give his angels charge
concerning thee, and in their hands shall
they bear thee up. Put him to the test, and
see if he will not give this proof that thou
art his Son, and this indubitable token of
his accompanying presence and power for
the lonely untrodden path and the awful un
tried task that are before thee."
The reply of Jesus shows that this was
the meaning of the temptation: "It is
written, Thou shalt not put the Lord thy
God to a test." To trust God in an existing
and unavoidable emergency is warranted,
is right, is one's prime duty. To create an
emergency for the purpose of wantonly put
ting God to the test whether he will mirac
ulously interpose to save him from a deadly

82 The Son of Man.
peril of his own making, that would not be
trust. It would be a presumptuous sort of
experimenting with God and with death.
To have leaped from the top of the temple
would have put God, if one may so speak,
in this dilemma: If he did not interpose in
a miraculous way for his preservation, in
evitable and immediate death would be the
result. If God did interpose, it would be for
no worthy cause, but only to gratify a mere
prurient desire for a "sign," which Jesus
himself so often and so emphatically rebuked
in others in his after ministry. It would be
far less justifiable than to have relieved his
hunger by a miracle, for that was an emer
gency that came up in the course of duty.
It would therefore be to force upon God
the alternative of leaving him to destroy his
life or of working a stupendous and over
whelming miracle for a wrong end.1 " While
1 " It would have been to force God to do what he
himself in the first temptation had refused to do." —
Fairbairn.

The Test in the Desert. 83
God's protection is promised to the man of
piety when he is in the path of duty, it is
not, when in a self-willed way he chooses
dangerous paths only to put this to the
proof." Jesus' detection of the meaning
of this temptation and his prompt and posi
tive refusal to yield to it are a striking ex
ample of his perfect poise and fine sanity.
Here, also, it is not difficult to see that the
temptation was real, while at the same time
no sin was involved. The impulse to trust
in God is not only innocent, it is a moral
excellence, the root of all righteousness, the
ground of all goodness.
The Third Temptation.
The devil recognizes now, if he did not
know before, and admits that this is an ex
ceptional person, destined to introduce a
new movement and a new . order in this
world. He therefore now shifts his point
of attack and proposes a way by which this
end may be secured and the new order in-

84 The Son of Man.
troduced without a long and sorrowful proc
ess of suffering, suspense, and struggle.
It is generally if not universally under
stood that this was a temptation to avail
himself of the popular view of the Messi
anic kingdom on the part of the Jews of the
time. They believed and expected that the
Messiah would establish a temporal-political
power and bring the nations of the world
into subjection to it.1 Doubtless such a
Prince-Messiah would have been hailed
with frantic joy by the millions of Jews who
were scattered over the world, and at his
call they would have attached themselves
to his person with the wildest enthusiasm.
On one occasion when certain of the Jews
thought this Prince-Messiah had come to
them, they attempted to take him in spite of
his reluctance and make him king — king of
the land of their fathers, king of the an-
'This is more fully developed in the chapter on the
Kingdom of God. See also Study I. on the Condi
tions and the Beginnings.

The Test in the Desert. 85
cient realm of David and Solomon, kino; of
the innumerable Jews who were scattered
throughout the world, from the Indus on
the east to the Tiber on the west.1 What
visions of swift and easy conquest and of
universal empire must have passed before
the mind's eye of the royal Nazarene as the
kingdoms of the world were made to pass
before him ! For there is no exaggeration
in the record when it says that all the king
doms of the world and the glory of them
appeared to his vision and came within
his reach on condition of his adopting the
worldly-political views of the contemporary
Jews and the methods by which the crafty
Herods in his native land and the mighty
Caesar on the Tiber secured and held their
1 The Jews in the provinces of the Roman empire
"were numbered not by thousands, but by millions."
Josephus, Ant. XI. v. 2, says that "beyond the Eu
phrates alone the Jews are an immense multitude, and
not to be estimated by numbers " : fivpiddeg aireipoi. The
Sibylline Oracles say: "Every land and every sea is
filled with them." Cf. Schiirer, II. ii. 220-226.

86 The Son of Man.
place and power. Such a temptation could
assail only a man who had the conscious
ness of a royal dignity and the confidence of
a royal destiny.
But what was the meaning of this temp
tation? Was it a temptation to the indul
gence of ambition, that last infirmity of no
ble minds ; an ambition like that which im
pelled the dreamer of Mecca to set about
the establishment of a power whose sub
jects should bow to Allah and Mahomet;
an ambition like that which moved the
bishops of the Roman See to undertake the
establishment of a hierarchy that should
by the combination of spiritual and tem
poral power bring the world into subjec
tion to God and to the pope? The refer
ence to the "glory" of the kingdoms of
this world seems to imply that there was
an element of this sort in the temptation.
But the strength of the temptation was not
in this. The appeal was chiefly to that pow
erful impulse which human nature has to

The Test itt the Desert. 87
shrink from pain and suffering. We have
seen already how Jesus understood from the
history of the servants of God in the Old
Testament, that as their ministry had brought
on them persecutions and afflictions, much
more would the work of the Messiah involve
persecution, loneliness, and sorrow. Again
and again he refers to the persecutions
which the righteous must endure, and par
ticularly the followers of the Messiah. And
we have hints dropped here and there that
from the beginning he knew that the worst
would befall him. In Mark ii. 20 he saj^s,
" But the days will come, when the bride
groom shall be taken away from them, and
then will they fast in that day A This was
said incidentally when he was speaking on
the relation of fasting to the new kingdom.
Passing over the enigmatical expression in
John ii. 19-21, we find him saying again,
"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wil
derness, even so must the Son of man be
lifted up." This reference to his death is

88 The Son of Man.
also incidentally introduced in his exposi
tion of the way of salvation to Nicodemus.
The suffering that awaited him seems to
have occupied a large place in his mind,
and was continually present to his con
sciousness. At any rate, it is certain that Jesus evinced
this natural human disposition to shrink from
suffering on other occasions in his life. It
is vividly expressed in those words, " I have
a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am
I straitened till it be accomplished!"1 He
' repelled with promptness and decision the
effort of the people to take him by force
and make him king, and immediately with
drew to a place of solitude for prayer.2
When Peter, on the occasion of his confes
sion, undertook to disabuse the mind of Je
sus of the conviction that it was necessary
1 Luke xii. 50.
2 "He withdrew into a mountain himself alone."
John vi. 15. Comp. Mark vi. 46: "He departed into
a mountain to pray.''

The Test in the Desert. 89
for him to suffer humiliation and death, Jesus
repelled the suggestion with a warmth and
an energy which showed that it was all too
welcome to his sensitive and shrinking hu
man nature. On more occasions than one
during his ministry he felt this shrinking to
such an extent that it became each time a
temptation to turn back or to turn aside ; and
he could only put the temptation away by re
minding himself that it was his Father's will
that he should endure. " Now is my soul
troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father, save
me from this hour ; but for this cause came I
unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name."1
On another occasion he said, "The cup
which my Father hath given me, shall I not
drink it?"2 And yet again near the close
he makes a pathetic prayer to his Father
with that childlike, affectionate appeal never
elsewhere used by him: "Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto thee ; remove this
'John xii. 27, 28. "John xviii. 11.

90 The Son of Man.
cup from me : nevertheless, not what I will,
but what thou wilt." l
These expressions help us, in some meas
ure, to realize the force of the temptation
which Jesus experienced in the wilderness to
shrink from the suspense, the loneliness, and
the agony which he knew were involved in the
accomplishment of his mission through self-
sacrifice and the slow process of moral and
spiritual renovation and education. The
temptation was as real for him as any temp
tation ever experienced by us to shrink from
the pain involved in duty. It was, in kind, the
same temptation that he experienced in the
mysterious agony of Gethsemane. If there
was reality in that sorrow of soul which was
unto death, Jesus was as really tempted as we
are. In so far as that agony exceeded any
agony and bitterness of soul ever endured
by man, just so far was Jesus even more bit
terly tempted than men in general are.
'Mark xiv. 36.

The Test in the Desert. 91
If these observations and those concern
ing the reality of the previous temptations
are well founded, we have a hint of the
solution of the difficulty mentioned in the
chapter on the Supernatural Birth, namely,
that the divine paternity of Jesus so differ
entiated him from men in general as to
make it impossible for him to be as really
tempted as men are.
We cannot say, we do not know, wheth
er Jesus was ever tempted to a sinful im
patience or anger, to retaliation, to ha
tred, to falsehood, to covetousness, to jeal
ousy, to envy, to pride, or to any of the
ordinary sins of humanity. And yet he
was tempted to those things which would
have been as wrong for him as the com
mon sins of human nature are for us. He
was tempted to those things the doing of
which would have made him fall below the
ideal, the absolute ideal; which would have
unfitted him to be Messiah. He was tempt
ed to leave undone or deviate from those

92 The Son of Man.
things without which he could not have ful
filled his Father's will. And he was tempt
ed in such a way that it shook his whole be
ing, tempted in such a way that resistance
cost him greater struggles than we have ever
known. The records give us the particu
lars of these sinless but terrible tempta
tions. They were as unique and the rec
ords are as unique as the person and char
acter they describe.
Jesus' reply to this last temptation is a
declaration of his preference of the plan
and will of his Father, whatever of sacri
fice and self-renunciation that might in
volve, to any plan of a worldly sort,
whatever of sacrifice that might enable
him to escape. The establishment of a
worldly sovereignty did not befit the nature
of the Messianic kingdom, but would rather
serve the purposes of sin and Satan in en
tire opposition to the will of God. What
the will of God required was not to gain
the rule over others by worldly means, but

The Test in the Desert. 93
to render loving service to others in the spir
it of self-sacrifice; and this was eminently
true of him who was to be Messiah, for he
came not to be ministered unto, but to minis
ter, and to give his life a ransom for them.1
So Jesus put this temptation aside, though
in doing so he acted in a way contrary to
the views universally held by his Jewish
fellow-countrymen and contemporaries,
who believed that Messiah's kingdom was
to be established by force of arms and to
rule the world; and contrary, as well, to
what the prophecies of the Old Testament
seemed, on their face, to teach concerning
the nature of this kingdom. For did they
not say that Messiah was to rule the na
tions with a rod of iron and to dash them
in pieces like a potter's vessel?2 In the
face of all this, and in spite of his person
al shrinking, he stood fast, though he stood
absolutely alone.
The fact that Jesus had such a temptation
1Compare Wendt, I. 104. 2 Psalm ii. 2.

94 The Son of Man.
at the beginning of his career and put it
aside, means that the thought and plan of a
worldly-political kingdom had been present
ed to his mind and deliberately rejected. It
means that he did not have and try one plan
to begin with, and failing in it, resort to an
other, as even Weiss contends. It means
that he did not change his plan. The same
plan which he had in the middle and in the
end of his ministry he had at the beginning.
This third temptation is a proof that he re
jected any other.
" Here then is one who believes himself
born for universal monarchy and capable
by his rule of giving happiness to the
world. He is intrusted with powers and
can employ means that would make it pos
sible for him to attain that supremacy with
ease. By the use of these powers, unpre
cedented and miraculous, and these means,
which are ready to his command, it is pos
sible for him to establish a universal and
absolute dominion, and so to give to the

The Test in the Desert. 95
race laws that may make it happy. But
he deliberately determines to adopt another
course, to found his reign upon the con
sent and not upon the fears of mankind,
to trust himself with his royal claims and
his terrible purity and superiority defense
less among men, and, however bitterly their
envy may persecute him, to use his match
less powers only in doing them good.
"This he actually did, and that evidently
in pursuance of a fixed plan. In this course
he persevered, although politically, so to
speak, it was fatal to his position, and
though it bewildered his most devoted fol
lowers. And yet, by so doing, he raised
himself to a throne which he has occupied
for nigh two thousand years, and gained an
influence and authority over men greater
far than they have ever allowed to any
ruler or legislator, greater than the most ex
travagant dream of prophet ever attributed
to Messiah himself. ' ' 1
1 Ecce Homo, 22, 23.

g6 The Son of Man.
But Jesus' temptations did not end with
his experience in the wilderness. They
were renewed from time to time dur
ing his life, and that too not only, as
Weiss has observed, when altogether new
tasks were laid upon him as his destined
passion drew near, but also as often as it
was necessary to carry out in detail the fun
damental resolutions which were formed on
the occasion of this temptation in the wil
derness. Not only does the declaration of
the apostles assert that Jesus was tempted in
all points like as we are (Heb. ii. 18; iv. 15),
but Jesus himself also speaks of his temp
tations which his disciples shared with him
(Luke xxii. 28), and he speaks of Peter as
his tempter (Mark viii. 33). The manner
in which he sets himself forth as an example
(Matt. xi. 29; John xiii. 15), or in which he
makes the divine favor, which he enjoys,
dependent on his fulfillment of the divine
will (John viii. 29), is not compatible with a
holiness belonging to him by nature, the at-

The Test in the Desert. 97
tainment of which cost him no moral labor
and no conflict. For him, too, it was neces
sary by constant self-denial to refuse to fol
low the paths that promised him a satisfac
tion of his natural human wishes, and, by
an obedient acquiescence in the divine will,
to resolve on those ways that were right.
As in the case of all men, this was and re
mained the moral task of his life.
Hence the need of prayer (Mark i. 35;
vi. 46; xiv. 35), a need which Luke espe
cially delights in setting forth (Luke iii. 21 ;
vi. 12; ix. 18, 28; xi. 1), and which only he
can feel who has still to strengthen himself
for the fulfillment of the moral task assigned
him. For this moral labor, however, every
situation which furnishes occasion to choose
one's own ways, and promises, in conse
quence, the gratification of his own desires,
becomes a source of temptation. And this
temptation cannot be overcome without a
conflict with natural impulse, which, though
sinless in itself, becomes sinful, if when
7

98 The Son of Man.
the higher divine will demands its sup
pression, the human will yields to it and
carries ' it out, in opposition to the will
of God. This conflict is renewed again
and again as often as life brings new
tasks. Accordingly, Jesus refused to be
called good (Mark x. 18). "There is none
good but one, that is God." Man can only
become good, because even after the most
perfect solution of any given moral prob
lem, new problems are being continually pre
sented to him, until, having reached the end
and goal, he is approved as perfect.
Jesus approved himself in every tempta
tion and gained the victory in every conflict.
Thus he became that which he would not be
called until the trial of his whole life was
accomplished — he became the absolutely
Good, the counterpart of his Father in
heaven.1 1 See Weiss, Life of Christ, I. 351.

VI.
The Kingdom of God.
Immediately after his baptism and trial in
the wilderness, Jesus entered upon his pub
lic ministry. His proclamation, according
to Mark, the oldest Gospel, was that the
kingdom of God was now come. Himself
the solitary fact and token of its advent, he
betrays not the slightest indication of un
certainty or hesitancy, as if his proclamation
were tentative or his plan an experiment.
Never at any point of his after life, or in
any discourse subsequently delivered, does
he announce more clearly or declare more
firmly that the kingdom of God had ap
peared among men. His proclamation is
buoyant in spirit, jubilant in tone. And if
his first announcement of the kingdom in
dicates his certainty of its advent, the fre
quency with which he used the expression
during his whole ministry shows how it de
termined his modes of thought; and the un-
(99)

ioo The Son of Man.
varying consistency with which he adhered
to the conception, in his discourses, parables,
instructions, and actions, shows that from
the beginning to the end of his ministry he
had a fixed plan, which he did not in any
way modify. Nor did he in any instance,
either in his teachings or his actions, di
verge from it.
This plan was the establishment among
men of the kingdom whose advent he pro
claimed. If we read through the Gospels,
particularly the synoptic Gospels, with this
in view, we shall be no less impressed than
surprised at the frequent recurrence of this
conception and its cognates.
But what does Jesus mean by this king
dom of God? In order to understand, it
will be necessary to make a brief study of
the situation and attitude of the Jewish peo
ple at the time of Jesus in connection with
their antecedent history, and with the con
tents of their Scriptures.
The thought of a kingdom of God was

The Kingdom of God. 101
current in the time of Jesus, and was accom
panied by a general expectation of its com
ing. This expectation was based upon the
history and the prophecies contained in the
Old Testament. That history related how
Israel came to be and had been the theocrat
ic people, the people whose ruler and king
was Jehovah himself. And though after
the time of Samuel, the people had human
kings, these were the representatives of Je
hovah who still governed and directed the
nation through them — the government was
still a theocracy, a kingdom of God. This
kingdom was overthrown at the time of the
capture and destruction of Jerusalem and
the deportation of the king, princes, and
people to Babylon, 599-587 B.C.
And even when the exile ended, and by
the decree of Cyrus the people were restored
to their land, the kingdom was not reestab
lished. The house of David had fallen into
obscurity and decay, and the people were un
der the dominion and at the mercy of foreign

102 The Son of Man.
heathen powers. Things had gone on in
this way for hundreds of years, sometimes
better, generally worse, till at last after
many vicissitudes the chosen people of
Jehovah found themselves ruled over and
oppressed by a usurping despot whose name
has become one of the world's synonyms for
tyranny and cruelty.
And yet during all those long and dismal
centuries the people had cherished in great
er or less degree the theocratic hope, a hope
based upon the prophecies contained in their
sacred and divinely inspired Scriptures. Be
lieving these Scriptures, as they did, it is
not wonderful that they still clung to the
conviction that God had not forsaken them.
They believed that their misfortunes were
the result of their disobedience, and that Je
hovah, who had allowed their calamities to
come upon them for punishment and dis
cipline, would some time, somehow, again
"visit" his ancient people and fulfill to them
his ancient pledges.

The Kingdom of God. 103
If we can put ourselves in the place of the
Jews of that day, and with their feelings and
from their standpoint read the promises and
pledges made to them by God through his
prophets, we shall be better able to under
stand how it was they still entertained the
theocratic hope, and what it was they hoped
for. Let us make an actual examination of
some of these Scriptures.
To go no further back than the time of
David, we read in 2 Sam. vii. 13, 16, that
it was said to him by one of the prophets:
" Thy seed shall build a house for me,
and I will establish the throne of his king-
dom forever. And thy house and thy king
dom shall be made sure forever before thee;
thy throne shall be established forever."
We read in Hosea, who was prophet un
der Uzziah and Hezekiah (746-735 B.C.):
"Afterward shall the children of Israel re
turn and seek the Lord their God and Da
vid the king, and shall come with fear unto
the Lord in the latter days." Hos. iii. 5.

104 The Son of Man.
Amos, who prophesied in the days of
Uzziah (760-746 B.C.), says with won
derful distinctness and vividness : ' ' They
shall go into captivity before their ene
mies, for lo, I will sift the house of Is
rael among the nations." Amos ix. 4, 9.
" In that day [the day of return] I will
raise up the tabernacle of David that is fall
en, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will
build it as in the days of old, that they may
possess the remnant of Edom and all the
nations which are called by my name, saith
the Lord." Amos ix. 9-11.
Now take some of the Psalms. In Psalm
ii. 6-9, speaking of the theocratic king,
Jehovah is represented as saying: "Yet
have I set my king upon my holy hill of
Zion. Ask of me and I will give thee the
nations for thine inheritance and the ut
termost parts of the earth for thy posses
sion. Thou shalt break them with a rod of
iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a
potter's vessel."

The Kingdom of God. 105
Psalm Ixxii.: "Give the king thy judg
ments, O God." (ver. 1.) "He shall judge
thy people with righteousness." (ver. 2.)
"In his days shall the righteous flourish."
(ver. 7.) "He shall have dominion also
from sea to sea, and from the river unto
the ends of the earth." (ver. 8.) "All
kings shall fall down before him, all nations
shall serve him." (ver. 11.) "His ene
mies shall lick the dust." (ver. 9.) "His
name shall endure forever; his name shall
be continued as long as the sun, and men
shall be blessed in him." (ver. 17.)
Psalm Ixxxix. : " I have sworn unto David
my servant. Thy seed will I establish for
ever, and build up thy throne to all genera
tions." (verses 3, 4.) " Once have I sworn
by my holiness. I will not lie unto David.
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne
as the sun before me. It shall be established
forever as the moon." (verses 35-37.)
Jeremiah xxx. 8, 9 (626-561 B.C.) : "In
that day they shall no more serve strangers,

106 The Son of Man.
but they shall serve the Lord their God and
David their king, whom I will raise up unto
them." Jeremiah xxxiii. 17: "Thus saith
the Lord, David shall never want a man to
sit upon the throne of the house of Israel."
Ezekiel xxxiv. 23, 24 (592-574 B.C.):
"And I will set up one shepherd over them,
and he shall feed them, even my servant
David; and I the Lord will be their God,
and my servant David (shall be) prince
among them." Ezekiel xxxvii. 24, 25:
"And my servant David shall be king over
them. They shall also walk in my statutes
and do them. And David my servant shall
be their prince forever."
Daniel ii. 44: "And in the days of those
kings shall the God of heaven set up a king
dom, which shall never be destroyed, nor
shall the sovereignty thereof be left to an
other people. But it shall break in pieces
and consume all these kingdoms, and it
shall stands/brewer." Daniel vii. 13, 14, 27:
*' I saw and, behold, there came with the

The Kingdom of God. 107
clouds of heaven one like unto a son of man.
. . . And there was given him dominion and
glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples,
nations, and languages should serve him ; his
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that
which shall not be destroyed. . . . And the
kingdom and the dominion, and the great
ness of the kingdoms under the whole heav
en, shall be given to the people of the saints
of the Most High : his kingdom is an ever
lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall
serve and obey him."
Zechariah ix. 9 (520-518 B.C.): "Re
joice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout,
O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold thy king
cometh to thee."
1 Mac. ii. 57: " David for being merciful
possessed the throne of an everlasting king
dom." The question is not, here, What is the
exact, historical meaning of these prophe
cies? What is here pointed out is that they

108 The Son of Man.
stood in the Scriptures of the Jewish peo
ple, and they stood there as the utterances
of holy men who had been canonized as
prophets of God, whose word, therefore,
could not fall or fail. These Scriptures did
foretell a kingdom, of extraordinary char
acter, which should be the continuation or
the successor of the kingdom of David. The
passages already quoted, if taken to mean
what they say, abundantly witness this.
The kingdom founded by David and
continued for some centuries by his de
scendants and successors, had, as a matter
of fact, lapsed. And yet there stood the
prophecies, uttered, not by one prophet,
nor by the prophets of one period or age,
but by prophets who were contemporary
with David, by prophets between David and
the exile, by prophets who lived during the
exile, and by prophets who lived after the
exile, and so on down to the very close of
the prophetic period. Note the language
of Zacharias in Luke ii. 69, 70: " God

The Kingdom of God. 109
hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in
the house of his servant David, as he spake
by the mouth of his holy prophets which
have been since the world began."
In these prophecies the universal exten
sion and the everlasting duration of the
promised kingdom were plainly set forth.
The fact that the Jews had once had a
kingdom, a kingdom whose head was the
appointee and representative of God, a
kingdom which was manifestly the peculiar
care of God, and the fact that, though this
kingdom had lapsed, nevertheless, the most
marvelous things were predicted by the
prophets of all periods concerning its du
ration and extent, both during its actual ex
istence and still more after its fall — these
facts gave birth to a general expectation
that that kingdom would be restored by
the power of God, and that a prince of
the Jewish people and the house of David,
as the representative of God, would lead its
victorious armies to the conquest of the na

no The Son of Man.
tions of the world. Believing themselves
to be a peculiar people, the elect people of
God, wedded with intense and tenacious
devotion to the conviction that they were
superior to all other peoples, taught and en
couraged by their sacred Scriptures to be
lieve that their kingdom would be restored,
nursing the ever-living tradition that this
would sooner or later be actually accom
plished, it was natural, it was inevitable
that they should be holding themselves in
an attitude of expectancy.
As a matter of history, we find that they
did cherish all through the centuries the
theocratic hope begotten by the events of
the past and the prophecies of the future.
There is the most ample testimony in con
temporaneous Jewish literature x that this ex-
1 Writings of Josephus, the Sibylline Oracles, the
Assumption of Moses, the Psalms of Solomon, the
Book of Enoch, the Fourth Book of Ezra, the Apoc
alypse of Baruch, the Book of Jubilees, the Targums.
Cf. Schiirer, II. ii. 137-154.

The Kingdom of God. m
pectation was widely and eagerly cherished
at the time of the appearing of Jesus, and
doubtless the stirring events closely con
nected with his appearance, such as the
preaching of John the Baptist, etc., intensi
fied this feeling among the Jews. Some
examples :
Josephus, Wars of the Jews, VI. v. 4:
" But now what did most elevate them [the
Jews] in undertaking this war was an am
biguous oracle that was also found in their
sacred writings, how about that time one
from their country should become ruler of
the habitable earth. The Jews took this
prediction to belong to themselves in par
ticular," etc.
Take some extracts from one of the so-
called Psalms of Solomon, written by de
vout Jews about 63-48 B.C. These will
at the same time show how the Scripture
prophecies were interpreted at this period.
Psalm xvii.: "Thou, O Lord, didst
choose David to be king over Israel, and

112 The Son of Man.
didst swear unto him touching his seed for
ever that his kingdom should not fail before
thee." (ver. 5.) "Behold, O Lord, and
raise up unto them [the Jews] their king,
the son of David, in the time which thou,
O God, knowest, that he may reign over
Israel thy servant." (ver. 23.) "And gird
him with strength that he may break in
pieces them that rule unjustl}'." (ver. 24. )
"Purge Jerusalem from the heathen that
trample her down to destroy her." (ver.
25.) "He shall thrust out sinners from
the inheritance, and as potter's vessels with
a rod of iron shall he break in pieces all
their substance." (ver. 26.) "He shall
destroy ungodly nations with the word of
his mouth." (ver. 27.) " He shall gather
together a holy people whom he shall lead
in righteousness." (ver. 28.) "He shall
judge the nations and peoples with the wis
dom of his righteousness." (ver. 31.) "He
shall possess the nations of the heathen to
serve him beneath his yoke. He shall glo-

The Kingdom of God. 113
rify the Lord in a place to be seen of the
whole earth." (ver. 32.) "And there shall
be no iniquity in his days in their [the Jews']
midst, for all shall be holy, and their king
is the Lord Messiah!" (ver. 35.) "He
himself also is pure from sin, so that he may
rule a mighty people and rebuke princes
by the word of his mouth." (ver. 41.)
"He shall not faint all his days." (ver.
42.) "And who can stand against him?"
(ver. 44.) "This is the majesty of the
king of Israel which God hath appointed,
to raise him up over the house of Israel."
(ver. 47.) "Blessed are they that shall be
born in those days, to behold the blessing
of Israel which God shall bring to pass in
the gathering together of the tribes." (ver.
50.) " May God hasten his mercy toward
Israel. May he deliver us from the abomina
tion of unhallowed adversaries. The Lord,
he is our King from henceforth and even for
evermore." (ver. 51.)
This prevailing expectancy is echoed in

114 The Son of Man.
our Gospels, and it is shared by all class
es. The interest which the Pharisees and
leaders of the people at Jerusalem felt is
shown by the embassy they sent to John
the Baptist to know if he was the Messiah,
and if not, what relation he bore to the Mes
siah and the | Messianic kingdom. (John
i. 19-24. ) But the common people as well
shared in the expectation, as is illustrated
in the language of the peasant disciples of
John the Baptist, one of whom, Andrew,
said to Peter, "We have found Messiah,"
and another one, Philip, said to Nathanael,
" Him of whom Moses in the law and the
prophets did write we have found." The
same thing is expressed in the language of
Zacharias: " Blessed be the Lord, the God
of Israel. For he hath visited his people."
(Luke i. 68.) And of Simeon : " Mine eyes
have seen thy salvation, which thou hast pre
pared before the face of all peoples ; a light
for revelation to the Gentiles ; and the glory
of thy people Israel." (Luke ii. 30-32.)

The Kingdom of God. 115
Now there were many differences of
view among the Jews of the time of Jesus
as to the character and characteristics of
the looked-for kingdom. Of these there is
not room to speak. In one leading feature,
however, there seems to have been pretty
general agreement, and that was that, what
ever else it might be, it would be also an
external, national-political kingdom, which,
with Messiah as Caesar, would speedily
subdue all the kingdoms of the world in
fulfillment of the splendid programme out
lined by the prophets of old. This could
be amply confirmed from the Jewish litera
ture of the time, already referred to, but
we do not need to go outside our own Gos
pels to find illustrations of it.
That the Pharisees held this view, is
shown by the question which they asked of
Jesus, " When is the kingdom of God com
ing?" He answered, "The kingdom of
God cometh not with observation," as their
question implied, "but is within you."

116 The Son of Man.
(Luke xvii. 20.) That the people in gen
eral held it, is shown by their effort to take
Jesus by force and make him a king, as
well as by the language of their hozannas
at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusa
lem. His own disciples held this view long and
late. James and John sought chief places
in the kingdom which they supposed was
soon to be set up at Jerusalem. (Matt.
xx. 21.) He delivered the impressive and
solemn parable of the pounds to correct
the impression that because he was near to
Jerusalem the kingdom of God would im
mediately appear. (Luke xix. n.) Aft
er the resurrection they held to this view.
They asked Jesus, "Lord, dost thou at
this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
(Actsi. 6.)
Even the more devout among the people,
those who believed that it would be preemi
nently a kingdom of righteousness, believed,
at the same time, that it would be also a na-

The Kingdom of God. 117
tional-political kingdom. Note the follow
ing language in the benedictus of Zacharias :
" God has raised up a horn of salvation
for us in tlie house of his servant David,
salvation from our enemies and from the
hand of all that hate us; to grant unto us
that we being delivered out of the hand of
our enemies, should serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all
our daj-s." (Luke i. 69, 71, 74.)
From these data it appears that in what
ever the views of Jesus' contemporaries dif
fered, they all agreed at least in this, that
the kingdom would be a national-political
power that would deliver the Jews from the
dominion of heathen governments and give
them independence.
But Jesus did not adopt the current view,
nor did he accommodate himself to it or en
deavor in any way to meet it. In nothing
does he show that he shared it in any de
gree. Nor does he ever betray any dispo
sition to yield to it or to tone down his own

n8 The Son of Man.
view by way of compromising with it. If
so, where is the proof of it?
On the contrary, he everywhere and
always resists and opposes this view,
whether urged by the impulsive multitude
or pressed upon him by his friends and
followers. With the whole world against
him, he stood firm, though he stood solitary
and alone.
Not only did he repudiate the current
worldly view, and consistently refuse to in
corporate any element of it into his own, he
showed himself independent of and superior
to the Old Testament Scriptures themselves
in refusing to adopt or to accommodate him
self to the mixed viewwhich is presentedin al
most all, if not all, the Old Testament proph
ecies concerning the kingdom of God. For
while these declare that it was to be a king
dom of righteousness, or imply it, as being
the kingdom of God, they almost invariably
include worldly elements, such as the em
ployment of physical force in the establish-

The Kingdom of God. 119
ment of it or the exercise of temporal power
over other nations. We can easily correct
these views by reading into them the spirit
ual ideas which we have gotten from Jesus,
but without these, we should probably inter
pret them as the Jews of the time of Christ
did. It is the more surprising that in view
of this feature of the prophetic and scrip
tural representations of the kingdom, Jesus
kept so consistently and so rigidly aloof from
every element of a temporal-national kind.
In Jesus' conception and presentation, the
kingdom of God was purely spiritual and
ethical, without the least admixture of hete
rogeneous elements.
1 . In his initial announcement of the king
dom, he states the conditions of entrance,
and these are purely spiritual and ethical:
" Repent ye, and believe the gospel."
2. In his great discourse on the charac
teristics of members of the kingdom, not one
is laid down that is anything but spiritual
and ethical. Blessed are the poor in spirit,

120 The Son of Man.
for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed
are the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart,
the peacemakers, and they who have a pas
sion for righteousness. Blessed are they
who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom. Worldly pros
perity, position, power are not included.
Even the common necessities of life are
excluded, if a distracting anxiety for them
causes one to make, the kingdom of God and
his righteousness secondary and subordi
nate. Seek^rs^ the kingdom of God and his
righteousness, the secondary thing, accord
ing to the context, being food and raiment.
When we pray, we are to pray first for the
coming of the kingdom of God, and then for
our daily bread.
3. He declared distinctly the kingdom of
God cometh not with observation ; it is not
an external phenomenon that men can ob-^
serve. It is within you.
4. In general, the divine blessings which
he promised his disciples comprised no kind

The Kingdom of God. 121
of external earthly prosperity, and no nation
al supremacy, power, or glory ; nor did he
reckon among works of righteousness any
kind of acts directed to mere political-na
tional ends, but, on the contrary, declared
that to pa}' tribute to the Roman emperor
was a duty to be discharged along with du
ties to God.1
5. And in matters of an apparently unim
portant and trivial character, he adhered
consistently to this purely unworldly view.
He promptly and positively refused to as
sume the function of a judge or arbiter in
temporal matters, as when he was requested
to interfere in the division of an estate be^
tween two brothers.
Jesus did not get his ideas, then, concern
ing the kingdom of God from current opin
ions and teachings, nor indeed does he fol
low the Old Testament itself. He repudiated
one and transcended the other. For while
1 Compare Wendt.

122 The Son of Man.
he does not repudiate the Old Testament
Scriptures, but repeatedly declares his ac
ceptance of them and reverence for them,
he evermore goes deeper than they. If the
Old Testament writers mean what they
seem to mean, then he had a knowledge of
the nature of the kingdom of God to which
they were, in comparison, strangers.
These facts set in bold relief the pro
found originality, the unique originality of
the Man of Galilee. In his apprehension
and comprehension of the kingdom of
God, its character and meaning, he was
solitary. Instead of being helps to the un
derstanding of it, the opinions of his con
temporaries and the outlines given in the
Old Testament would have been hindrances
to any other man. To him they were not.
But his originality seems all the greater in
that he rose above them.
In what is here said, it is not meant that
the Old Testament writers did not hold
spiritual and ethical views of truth and

The Kingdom of God. 123
character. In their descriptions of the
righteousness of individual character and
conduct, and in the expressions of their as
pirations after God and holiness, they, in
many instances, do not fall far short of the
apostles themselves. But, as a rule, when
they speak of the theocratic kingdom, their
conceptions are more or less mixed with
elements of a worldly temporal character.

VII.
Conditions of Entering the Kingdom.
The form of Jesus' opening announce
ment of the kingdom is at once striking
and significant. As a herald he lifts up his
voice and proclaims, The time has been
fulfilled ! 1 The meaning is that the time
of waiting is ended. This reference was
a backward glance at the history of the
people of Israel with its significant events,
its manifold prophecies, its long season of
deepening suspense with alternations of ex
pectation and disappointment. The proc
lamation was exactly adapted to meet the
attitude and mood of an actual and current
expectancy. It sounded in the ears of the
Jews of the period as the proclamation of
the fulfillment of the time of the captivity
sounded in the ears of the homesick exiles
by the rivers of Babylon. 'Mark i. 15.
(124)

Entering the Kingdom. 125
It thus involves the continuity of the old
and the new. The second part of the an
nouncement contained the stirring news
that at last, after so long a time of wait
ing, of hoping, of fearing, of despairing,
the suspense was at an end, the long-ex
pected kingdom was at hand !
How did Jesus know that the kingdom
was at hand — the kingdom for which
prophets and priests and kings and saints
and seers had waited for weary centuries?
It had not been set up. It had not ap
peared. There was nothing outward to be
" observed." And yet he knew it, and he
declares it with tremorless assurance; and
that before any obtrusive sign had appeared
or any outward demonstration had been giv
en. He knew it because he knew that he
was the King, and that he should not fail
v nor be discouraged till he had set judgment
in the earth.
He had the confidence, the consciousness
that he was the one anointed for the king-

126 The Son of Man.
dom before any outward experiment or
success had given him ground for the con
viction or proof of the fact. And we may
pause long enough to say that the character
which he exhibited, the transcendent truth
which he afterwards delivered, and the
moral renovation of the world which he
afterwards accomplished, combine to fur
nish to us conclusive evidence of the cor
rectness of his convictions.
In one breath he announces the kingdom
at hand and opens the way for entrance
into it. The conditions of entrance make
it clear that he did not derive his view of
the kingdom of God from current tradi
tions and teachings, and equally clear
that he did not meet the popular view. In
the opening of his public ministry, and in
the opening sentence of his public teaching,
according to Mark, he lays down conditions
of entrance that are spiritual-ethical, pure
and simple. " The kingdom of God is at
hand ; repent ye, and believe in the gospel."

Entering the Kingdom. 127
This does not mean that men were to be
lieve the proclamation of the advent of the
kingdom to be true. If that were the
meaning, the exhortation to believe would
come before the exhortation to repent. Or
at least the exhortation to repent would not
come before the exhortation to believe.
Moreover, the sense of the Greek is not
believe the good tidings (to be true), but
believe in the good tidings. The condi
tions of entrance, then, into the kingdom
which he heralds are repentance and faith.
What is repentance ? Taking the etymo
logical significance of the word and inter
preting this in view of what Jesus said and
taught concerning repentance, it is a change
of mind which turns away from ordinary
worldly and selfish ways of viewing and es
timating things, and adopts the views and
standards given by Jesus himself in his rev
elation of truth concerning the spiritual na
ture and relation of man, the highest duty
.-of man and the highest good of man.

128 The Son of Man.
" If God be a Father, repentance will be
a change of mind ceasing to regard him in
any lower sense. If man be a being of in
finite importance and value, as a moral sub
ject and son of God, then repentance will
mean realizing human dignity and responsi
bility." If it be possible for men to become
like God, and if it be his will that men as his
children should be like him, their Father,
then repentance will be a change of mind
forsaking all that is contrary to his will and
striving to realize a likeness to his char
acter. " If the kingdom of God be the
highest conceivable object of human hopes
and aims, it ought to be regarded and
treated as such; and if men have not hith
erto been doing that, to ask them to do so
is to call them to repentance." If men are
putting riches, or position, or power, or
pleasure, or glory before the kingdom of
God, they need to renounce riches, pleas
ure, power, glory for the sake of the king
dom of God; and this is repentance. "For

Entering the Kingdom. 129
the many, for the million, food and raiment
are the first and chief objects of desire and
pursuit. How great the need of repent
ance, if man's chief end is to seek the
righteousness and the kingdom which
Christ preached — a righteousness of the
heart and a kingdom of filial relations with
God." Repentance consists in the recog
nition of the kingdom of God as the highest
good, the inward spiritual righteousness of
that kingdom as the highest law, and the en
deavor to conform our whole life and conduct
to these standards as the chief end of man.
But repentance is not all and is not suf
ficient, nor is it the only condition of en
trance to the kingdom. It is coupled by
Jesus with faith, and must always be taken
in its vital connection with faith. Thus
viewed, " repentance is not legal, but evan
gelic; not a habit of sadness, as if doing
eternal penance for the past, but a turning
of the moral energies in a new direction
with cheerfulness and hope."

130 The Son of Man.
If the kingdom of God is a free and gra
cious gift to be bestowed on those who will
receive it, then what is demanded of men is
that they receive it as a free gift; and this
is faith. "To receive the kingdom as of
fered, is to believe. Faith is spiritual re
ceptivity. Repentance means a change of
mind consisting in recognition of the king
dom as the chief end of man. Faith means
the reception of that kingdom as the highest
good, the sum of all blessedness, bestowed
on man as a free gift from God. The re
ception of the boon by faith is the most di
rect way to the goal aimed at in repentance,
namely, the exaltation of the kingdom and
its interests to a place of supremacy in
men's inward affections and outward ac
tions."1 But does not Jesus lay down other con
ditions of entrance? Does he not say
" Except your righteousness exceed the
'The foregoing quotations are from Bruce's King
dom of God.

Entering the Kingdom. 131
righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom
of heaven?" (Matt. v. 20.) Does not
this presuppose and require a certain kind
and degree of righteousness as a condition
of entrance? It is merely the form of ex
pression that seems to imply this. Jesus
does not speak with the technical precision
of theologians and theological schools, and
though the language here used may seem
to imply that he is speaking of a condition
of entrance, in reality he is not. Having
the righteousness which he had in mind, and
which he describes at length in the great
discourse that follows these words, already
constitutes one a member of the kingdom ;
and one who has such righteousness is ipso
facto a member of the kingdom. It is this
character of righteousness that is identical
with membership in the kingdom. Hence
on the supposition that he is here laying
down a condition of entrance this absurd
consequence would follow: Except a man

132 The Son of Man.
have that righteousness which constitutes
membership in the kingdom and marks him
as a member of the kingdom, he can by no
means enter the kingdom; /. e., except a
man be in the kingdom, he can by no
means enter the kingdom. If Jesus, then,
did not here refer to admission into the
kingdom in its heavenly state at the last
day, he uses the words as here equivalent
to having no part in the kingdom. Having
a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes
and Pharisees is an indispensable charac
teristic of members of the kingdom; those
not having this higher righteousness are out
side the kingdom, have no part in it. The
same reasoning is applicable to what he
says in Matt. vii. 21: " Not every one that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth
the will of my Father." Doing the will of
his Father is what constitutes membership,
is the very essence of membership, so that
the man who does not do his will, whatever

Entering the Kingdom. 133
he may say or claim, or profess or do, is not
in the kingdom, and has no part or lot in it.
Again, the declaration that it is impos
sible for a rich man to enter the kingdom
(Mark x. 24, 25) seems to be equivalent
to saying that renunciation of riches is a
condition of entrance. This is undoubtedly
true. It is so frequent a subject of the teach
ing of Jesus, and is so strongly insisted on
by him, that one of the greatest and most
recent of the interpreters of Jesus' teach
ing devotes a separate section to the sub
ject, as if it were a condition in itself, coor
dinate with repentance and faith.1 But in
reality this is included in, and is a part
of, what Jesus means by repentance. If re
pentance is a necessary condition of enter
ing the kingdom of God, any and every
essential element of repentance is a neces
sary condition of entrance. A supposed
repentance that leaves out any essential
1 Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, vol. ii. 58-74.

134 The Son of Man.
element is vitiated, is no longer repentance.
And a repentance that does not include
the renunciation of riches is not repentance.
This is in effect the view of the author just
referred to. He says: "The complete ap
plication of the mind to the righteousness of
the kingdom of God, and the withdrawal
from all that conflicts with that righteous
ness, is impossible without a renunciation
in principle of the eager pursuit and reten
tion of earthly goods for their own sake.
Because this renunciation is painful and dif
ficult and costs an inner conflict, on this very
account Jesus has laid the most decided and
clearest stress upon the necessity of this re
nunciation for all those who belong to the
kingdom of God."1 This is strong lan
guage, but it is no whit stronger than the
teaching of Jesus warrants. Jesus has said
both figuratively and without figure that it is
impossible for a rich man to enter into the
1 Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, vol. ii. 58, 59.

Entering the Kingdom. 135
kingdom of God. This means that renun
ciation of his riches by a rich man is for him
an impossible task . And the extreme rarity
of this renunciation, as tested and evidenced
by acts and facts, is a proof that Jesus did
not speak rhetorically, and that he did not
overstate the difficulty. For the bestow-
ment of a small and comparatively insignifi
cant proportion of a man's property, and
that often in a way that purchases for him
more than an equivalent in name and fame,
is no proof of his renunciation of riches in
the sense of Jesus.
The Church has not yet accepted the
teaching of Jesus on the subject of money.
There are multitudes of rich men in the
Church to-day who, like Dives, live as
princes, while Lazaruses are perishing not
far from their gates by the slow processes of
crumb-starvation. And there are yet others
who, like the rich young ruler, are keeping
the commandments and holding on to their
riches with a passion that is stronger than

136 The Son of Man.
their love for suffering men or their re
gard for the words of Christ. But when
the teachings of Jesus become more thor
oughly understood and more widely ex
pounded, and his spirit more deeply per
meates the Church, we may hope for better
things. A great metropolitan preacher of En
gland thinks that even now there are tokens
of improvement. I quote his earnest words :
"To-day a millionaire is respected; there
are signs that in future years a man leaving
a huge fortune will be thought a semi-crim
inal. So does the spirit of Jesus spread and
ferment." 1
But again Jesus says, " Whosoever will
not receive the kingdom of God as a little
child shall by no means enter therein."
Here childlike receptivity seems to be made
a condition of entrance. And so it is, but
this is not adding a third condition to re
pentance and faith. The meaning of this
'John Watson (Ian Maclaren), The Mind of the
Master, p. 331.

Entering the Kingdom. 137
striking logion of Jesus is so clearly and
beautifully stated by an author already
quoted that we venture to make use of his
words :
" The disciples forbade children to come
to Jesus as being too insignificant to have any
claim to be regarded by him. But in this
very respect of having no claim, so that they
could offer nothing, but only wish to have
something, Jesus finds the ground for the
children being permitted to come to him.,
For in this unpretentious receptivity he rec
ognizes the necessary condition which must
exist in all who wrould enter the kingdom of
God. Under this childlike character he
does not mean the virtue of childlike inno
cence or blamelessness, but only the recep
tivity itself on the part of those who do not
regard themselves as too good or too bad for
the offered gift, but receive it with hearty
desire. And not only does he mean to
bring the receptivity of children as to earth
ly goods into comparison with the receptiv-

138 The Son of Man.
ity which adults must manifest with refer
ence to the kingdom of God— he means that
the children have the same unpretentious re
ceptivity in reference to the kingdom of God
which is characteristic of them generally,
since they have not any other possessions on
which their hearts are set or any other qual
ities in which they at all pride themselves.
Only one who does not think that he can
and must first earn it by his own doings,
only one who receives it as a little child re
ceives it, can participate in its blessings." l
No more beautiful or instructive illustration
than this could be given of that faith which
we have already found to be one of the con
ditions of entrance as laid down by Jesus in
his opening announcement of the kingdom
of God.
There is a saying of Jesus in the fourth
Gospel which lays down a condition of en
trance that cannot be identified with either
1 Wendt, ii. 49, 50.

Entering the Kingdom. 139
repentance or faith. It is in his interview
with Nicodemus: "Except a man be born
from above, he cannot see [have experience
of ] the kingdom of God." "Except a man
be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot en
ter into the kingdom of God. ' ' By these ex
pressions he means the renewal of a man's
nature by the Spirit of God, so that he be
comes himself spiritual rather than carnal,
and a partaker of the divine life, the t,w\
aicivios, of which so much is said in the dis
courses of John's Gospel. This renewal,
however, is not to be accomplished by man
himself. It is the act of God. In being
born or begotten of God the man is pas
sive, the active agency is God's. Consist
ently with this he speaks of being born
from above {avwOev), born of the Spirit (Ik
Trvev/wtTos). The same conception occurs three
or four times in John's first Epistle, where
the same verb {yewdto) is used in the passive
voice with the phrase {i* 6tov) of God.
Hence if this be viewed as a condition of

140 The Son of Man.
entrance into the kingdom, it is one to be ful
filled by God. But it is far from being an
arbitrary or unconditional act on his part,
relieving man of all cooperation or responsi
bility. On the contrary, the exercise of this
regenerative, creative energy on the part of
God is dependent on a condition to be ful
filled by man; and this condition is not
overlooked, but is clearly indicated in this
very interview. And it is identical with a
condition laid down by Jesus in his teaching
according to the synoptics: "And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so
also must the Son of man be lifted up, in or
der that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have eternal life." The
same thing is brought out again in verses 16
and 17. This discourse from the fourth
Gospel does not introduce another and a
different condition, but the same condition,
though in a different way and with a differ
ent view of its contents. For though repent
ance is not here mentioned, it is included

Entering the Kingdom. 141
in the notion of faith. Faith is the trust-
jful commitment of oneself to God, but it is
psychologically impossible to commit oneself
to God without turning away from and for
saking all that is contrary to God. Indeed,
the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gos
pel not only lay down faith as the condition
of salvation, they as clearly set forth also
the moral conditionality of faith itself. It is
one of the commonplaces of these discourses
that a man cannot have faith whose heart is
not right, whose moral condition and whose
attitude of will are opposed to the right.
What is this moral conditionality of faith
but repentance? Faith is the condition of
entrance into the kingdom of God, into the
experience of salvation; but repentance is
the condition of faith. As salvation is im
possible without faith, faith is impossible
without repentance. No man will or can
exercise faith in the sense which it has in
the discourses of John's Gospel who does
not will and desire and determine to be right-

142 The Son of Man.
eous, who does not will and desire and de
termine to abandon all that is unrighteous,
who does not realize the evil, the misery, and
the helplessness of sin, and who is not there
fore lowly-minded and receptive and teach
able. And what is this but the spirit of re
pentance?

VIII.
The King, the Law, and the Kingdom.
It may not be amiss to inquire why it was
that Jesus adopted the conception of a king
dom as the determining idea in his thought
and plan, especially in view of the fact that
he repudiated the current popular view of
his time, and did not altogether agree with
that presented in the Old Testament proph
ets. Why did he not create or adopt some
other conception than that of a kingdom,
some conception which by reason of its
originality and novelty would not be liable
to be mixed up with wrong or perverted
views and to consequent OT?5conception?
Was it because he wished to put himself, as
far as possible, on common ground with his
contemporaries in order the more readily to
reach them? Or did he mean, by adopt
ing the conception and phrase in which they
(143)

144 The Son of Man.
embodied their wrong view, to show more
strikingly, by the contrast of his interpreta
tion of it, the right view? Or, yet again,
was it that, out of reverence for the older
revelation and loyalty to the older dispensa
tion, he wished to connect his teaching with
these, and by so doing to bring into clear
light the unity and continuity of the two?
This was not in itself an unworthy motive ;
and as a matter of fact he does more than
once, both explicitly and implicitly, teach
that his own revelation was a continuation
and completion of the revelation made to
the Fathers and contained in the Old Tes
tament Scriptures. But even this would
hardly explain the way in which he holds
to the conception and employs the ex
pression, "kingdom of God." An occa
sional use of it would have identified his
plan with the theocratic ideal of the proph
ets. But with him the conception of a
kingdom is constant, organic, essential,
determinative. For him that, and nothing

King; Law, and Kingdom. 145
else, represents the reality which it is his
mission to establish among men. Nay, it
is that reality. If he adopts the concep
tion from the Old Testament, it is because
it fits the reality he is on earth to embody.
In any case he does not use it in their nar
row, national-political sense. We should
rather say that the Old Testament writers
used it because, under divine guidance and
instruction, they caught some faint, distorted
glimpses of that divine Utopian vision, which
it has been God's gracious purpose to bring
to realization among men. Jesus saw this
divine Utopia without admixture of elements
not belonging to it, saw it in its simplicity
and ideal completeness, saw it clearly, saw
that it was the One far-off divine event,
Toward which the whole creation moved.
He saw that it had come, that he had
come as King to bring in the kingdom, to
teach men what the kingdom is and what
its members must be, to draw men into it,
10

146 The Son of Man
and to inspire them with an all-controlling,
all-absorbing desire that God's kingdom,
though it had come, might yet so come that
God's will should be done on earth as it is
done in heaven. And Jesus called it a
kingdom because it is a kingdom. It is a
kingdom because in a kingdom the will of
the king is the law of the subject, and the
law of the subject is absolute submission to
the will and absolute devotion to the person
of the king.
This idea of absolute sovereign and of
absolute sovereignty does not commend it
self as the highest ideal to minds that have
been trained and formed under republican
institutions and modes of life, minds ac
customed to the liberty and equality of
a democracy. To us the idea of human
kingship, at any rate, is repugnant. This
is because our impressions have been drawn
from what we know of the abuses of king
ship and the possibilities of abuse that
inhere in the system, and from those in-

King, Law, and Kingdom. 147
stances of it which have illustrated the
weakness, the selfishness, the despotism,
and the meanness of human nature when
invested with power more or less irresponsi
ble. But if the king were ideal in person,
in endowments, and in character, if he were
immeasurably superior to us in all respects,
if he were infallible in wisdom while equally
good in heart and noble in character, and
if with all these qualities he were attached
with single-hearted devotion to the highest
well-being of his subjects, so that he would
give up his life to their happiness and when
necessary lay down his life for their good
— these ' conditions would make absolute
submission and perfect obedience the freest
choice and the highest pleasure.
Such a king is the King of the kingdom
of God. JUid this King is none other than
Jesus, called the Christ, who is absolutely
at one with God the Father, who is the im
age of his person, the transcript of his char
acter, the visible representative of his maj-

148 The Son of Man.
esty and authority. The will of the King
is expressed in words that sum up at once
the whole law of the kingdom: "Thou
shalt love God with all thy heart; thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The
subjects of this kingdom have thus another
relation besides that which they bear to
their soyereign — a relation to their fellow-
subjects. This relation is one of brother
hood. The one all-comprehending law of
this heaven-born Utopia is love: "Love
God, who is thy Father; love thy neigh
bor, who is thy brother. Love thy Father-
God with all thy heart and strength; love
thy neighbor-brother as thyself— as thou
wouldst ask that he would love thee." All
that Jesus said and taught concerning the
righteousness of members of his new king
dom, in sermon, discourse, an?f parable, is
summed up in "this royal law." 1
This involves a relinquishment of one's
'James ii. 8.

King; Law, and Kingdom. 149
right of proprietorship in himself and all
that is his. Indeed, Jesus with special em
phasis declared that in order to be his dis
ciple one must become dead to himself and
all his desires and plans. With solemn pre
dictions of his own death he immediately
connects the declaration that his disciples
are to follow him in taking up their cross,
in laying down their lives. "If any man
willeth to come after me [determines to be
my disciple] , let him renounce himself and
take up his cross daily and follow me [in the
act and spirit and habit of sacrifice], even
unto death." " Taking up the cross " here
means that for his sake and service, and the
sake and service of humanity, we as really
relinquish our claim and hold on life and all
that life contains for us as we should do if
we had already started under literal sentence
of death to the place of execution. And
this act of dying in the spirit of self-sacri
fice is to be ratified and repeated each day
{Kaff rifitpav, Luke ix. 23) in order to make

150 The Son of Man.
sure of its reality and continuity. For, con
stituted as we are, we can never remain in
any one state unless we renew it and go
deeper. We never are, we are always be
coming. Only God is.
In still another passage Jesus teaches the
same great fundamental truth of his king
dom, and in a vivid, pictorial way. Refer
ring here also to his death, he uttered those
beautiful and memorable words: "Except
a grain of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die,
it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his
life, loseth it; and he that loseth his life in
this world, shall keep it unto life eternal. If
any man be my servant, let him follow me. ' ' 1
This, according to Jesus, is the meaning of
discipleship, this the state and attitude of
members of his new kingdom. The secret
of Jesus, it has been said, is death into life
and life out of death. Paul most vividly
1John xii. 23-26.

King, Laze, and Kingdom. 151
describes his own realization of this ideal,1
and everywhere teaches that this is the
normal significance of discipleship.2
According to Jesus, the Master, and ac
cording to Paul, the disciple, the two ele
ments of the act which makes a man a dis
ciple of Christ and constitutes him a mem
ber of the kingdom of God are,
1. That he commit himself in trustful,
filial confidence to God, as Father, to for
give, accept, save, and keep him.
2. That he commit himself to this norm
of consecration and sacrifice — death to self,
crucifixion to the world, a new spiritual life,
to be lived in a new sphere, that is, of faith
and love, and of service to God and man,
the creature of God's love.
This is "the royal law,"3 the law of the
kingdom, comprehending all righteousness;
and for us, enslaved as we are by nature,
1 Gal. ii. 20; vi. 14.
2Rom. vi. 3-11, especially.
3 James ii. 8.

152 The Sou of Man.
under the ' ' law of sin and death , " 1 it is , no
less, "the law of liberty." 2
What is this kingdom of God then?
How may it be defined? It is difficult and
not always helpful to reduce a great truth
to the terms of a logical definition. But we
may consider some of the attempts that have
been made to define the kingdom of God as
conceived and expounded by Jesus.
The following is the definition of Pro
fessor Bruce : " It is the reign of divine love
exercised by God in his grace over human
hearts believing in his love and constrained
thereby to yield him grateful affection and
devoted service."3
Wendt gives the following: "The idea
is of a divine dispensation under which God
would bestow his full salvation upon a soci
ety of men, who, on their part, should ful
fill his will in true righteousness." i
'Rom. viii. 2. 2 James i. 25.
3 Kingdom of God, page 46.
^Teaching of Jesus, i. 175.

King; Law, and Kingdom. 153
Principal Fairbairn has this form of
statement: "The idea includes the notion
of a reign, the reign of God in men and
through men over mankind by means of
ideals, of truths believed in and loved.
These ideals and great creative truths of
the kingdom are two: the paternity of God,
the sonship of man. God is manlike; man
is godlike." 1
Another one has tersely said: "The
kingdom of God is a spiritual congregation
of souls born anew to God."2
If we may venture to offer a somewhat
fuller statement, we submit the following:
The kingdom of God is that divine soci
ety which God, through Jesus, his Son, is
organizing on earth, and in which God, as
both Father and Sovereign, exercises do-
1 Studies in the Life of Christ, page 107.
2A useful and instructive statement of the princi
ples of the kingdom of God may be found in Dr. Alex
ander Sutherland's work on The Kingdom of God,
pages 52-64.

154 The Son of Man.
minion and rule in the souls and over the
lives of its members; who, on their part,
having entered it through- repentance and
faith and a renewal by God of their moral
nature, render to him, as filial subjects, the
obedience of a* free and willing righteous
ness, both of heart and conduct: a reign of
love which, while beginning in the inward
life of the individual, realizes itself in all
his social and civil relations and through
him extends its sway over others, so that it
is destined to take possession of and to
transform the entire domain of human life,
in this world, and to be consummated in
a perfect and eternal state in the world to
come.

IX.
Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father.
To Jesus God was Father. So dominant
was this conception of God in the thought
of Jesus, so fully had it taken possession of
his mind, that it was his favorite and usual
name for God. He does not speak of God
so much as he speaks of "the Father,"
"my Father," "your Father," "our Fa
ther." The Gospels must be read through
with this view before one can fully appre
ciate this extraordinary and significant fact.
Jesus nowhere discusses or undertakes to
establish the personality of God, nor does
he once assert it in any formal way. He
constructs no discourse, invents no parable,
to teach or illustrate the omnipotence or the
omniscience of God. He makes no argu
ment for or exposition of the spirituality
of God, and only once distinctly asserts it.
(155)

156 The Son of Man.
This was in his conversation with the Sa
maritan woman; and he did it then not in
the interest of theology, but only because,
in her ignorance cf the spiritual nature of
God, she had fallen into false and hurtful
notions as to the localization or focalization
of God, and thought he could be found and
worshiped in one chosen place alone. He
uttered no discourse, he spoke no word in
the interest of a theory of God, or a system
of theology. In fact, he was not a theo
logian. He was the Son of the heavenly
Father, and his teachings were devoted to,
and his life expended in, one consistent and
continuous endeavor to persuade men that
they also may become sons of his heavenly
Father. But in order that we may under
stand just what he did teach as to the Fa
therhood of God, it will be necessary to
examine somewhat in detail his recorded
sayings on this subject.
Two things are clear:
First: Jesus knew God as his Father.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 157
To him God was not God so much as he
was Father. This seemed to fill up his
thought of God in his relation to him
self. He did not conceive of God apart
from that relation. He seemed to know
God in no other relation, so far as he him
self was concerned. When he addresses
God in prayer or thanksgiving, he always
addresses him, with one single exception,
as Father. Only once did he ever address
him as God, and that was in the strange cry
that escaped his lips when he hung dying on
the cross. Not only so, he never speaks of
him as his God, except in the single instance
where he says to Mary Magdalene, "Go
and tell my disciples that I ascend to my
Father and your Father, and my God and
your God." * He never speaks to God or of
God as his Lord. For him God is Father.
Second : It is also clear that Jesus taught
that God is, in some sense, the Father of
'John xx. 17.

158 The Son of Man.
all or of some men. But here two impor
tant and difficult questions confront us: 1.
Does Jesus represent God as the Father of
all men, or only of some men? 2. In what
sense does he teach that God is the Father
of men ?
It seems to be perfectly clear that Jesus
did not teach that God is the Father of all
men, or of some men, in the same sense in
which he was his own Father. The con
trary is asserted or implied in many things
which he said. But we need to take only
one or two instances, and these we take
from the synoptic Gospels. In a striking
expression of his self-consciousness, which
is recorded by both Matthew1 and Luke,2
he says: "All things have been delivered
unto me by my Father, and no one know
eth the Son save the Father, neither know
eth any one the Father save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal
1 Matt. xi. 27. 2 Luke x. 22.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 159
him." As much respecting the uniqueness
of his Sonship is implied in a saying of his
recorded in the other synoptic:1 "But of
that day or hour no one knoweth, not even
the angeis in heaven, neither the Son, but
the Father."
And if the account of the supernatural
conception of Jesus be true, as historically
well attested and in accord with the de
mands of reason,2 it is true from this point
of view, as well as others, as we shall see
later, that God was the Father of Jesus in
a sense peculiar to himself.
Does Jesus then teach that God is the
Father of all men in some other sense, in
some lower sense, in any sense ? Or does he
teach that God is the Father of only some
men? And in what sense ?
It is commonly supposed, and it is now
almost universally preached, that Jesus does
teach that God is the Father of all men.
'Mark xiii. 32. 2 See Study II.

160 The Son of Man.
The majority, perhaps, of the recent writers
on the life and teachings of Jesus hold this
view.1 They seem to take it for granted.
And yet it is not by any means clear or
certain that Jesus did so teach. In any
case, there is but one way of ascertaining
what Jesus taught, and that is by a candid
examination of what he actually said on the
subject. It is a question that cannot be de
termined by philosophical preconceptions
or a sentimental preference for that which
commends itself to us as a beautiful theory
of God. In this case these and all sim
ilar things go for little. That Jesus con
ceives of God as his own Father, and prac
tically never speaks or thinks of him in any
other way, is true. That Jesus represents
God as kind in his providential care of all
men, even the unrighteous and unthankful,
'For example, Fairbairn in 'Place of Christ in
Modern Theology," Wendt's ''Teaching of Jesus,"
Bruce's "Kingdom of God," Watson's "Mind of the
Master.''

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 161
as pitiful toward the lost, as long-suffering
toward the obstinate, as desiring and pro
viding for the salvation of all, and as re
joicing over a sinner that repenteth, is not
denied and cannot be denied. That Jesus
also teaches that God is the Father of some
men, is equally certain. But that Jesus
teaches that God bears the actual relation
of Father to all men alike, is not by any
means established or certain. If.it is to be
established, it can be only by an exegesis,
critical and contextual, of his words. This,
we fear, cannot be done.
It is commonly supposed that the Gospels
are full of Jesus' references to God as the
Father of men, and that the instances are
numberless. On the contrary, an examina
tion will reveal that the instances where he
speaks of God as the Father of men at all,
whether of some or all men, in any sense,
are surprisingly few. The majority of all
these instances are in the Sermon on the
Mount, contained in chapters v.-vii. of
11

:r.62 The Son of Man.
Matthew's Gospel. Besides the sixteen in
stances in the Sermon on the Mount, there
are in St. Matthew only four others, mak
ing twenty in all. The one instance in
Mark is identical with one of those in
the Sermon on the Mount; and of the five
instances in St. Luke, three, and probably
four, are identical with as many in the Ser
mon on the Mount, and are therefore not to
be added to the sixteen there found. There
are therefore in the three synoptics only
twenty-one or twenty-two instances alto
gether,1 sixteen of which are to be found
in the Sermon on the Mount.
These are all the instances in the synop
tics 2 where Jesus speaks of God as in any
sense the Father of any men, including
those where he speaks to the disciples of
God as '¦'¦your Father." It will be found
' These results we obtained from an examination of
Moulton and Geden's Greek Concordance, if we made
no mistake.
2 The Gospel of John is considered later.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 163
by an examination of these passages that in
no one of them does Jesus say unequiv
ocally that God is the Father of all men.
It will be found, however, in the first place,
that in almost if not quite all of them it is
distinctly stated that he was addressing his
disciples, and he spoke to them of God as
'•your Father." In the second place, in
some if not most of them the immediate
context and the connection will afford dis
tinct and confirmatory evidence that he
spoke of God not as the Father of all men,
but only of a certain kind of men.
As to the Sermon on the Mount, we are
told by both the evangelists who report it
that it was addressed "to his disciples."1
To be sure Matthew does say at the close
of the discourse that " the multitudes were
astonished at his teaching" (vii. 28). But
1 Matt. v. 1 : " His disciples came unto him, and he
opened his mouth and taught them, saying.'' Luke
vi. 20: "And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and
said."

164 The Son of Man.
though this does imply that the crowds
heard him, the writer does not say that he
directed his teaching to them, as he does say
at the beginning of the discourse that his
disciples came unto him and he taught them,
saying, etc. "A lawyer in a court room
addresses the jury or the judge, though he
may be heard by a multitude who are pres
ent as spectators."
St. Luke, recording some things omit
ted by Matthew, curiously reports certain
"woes" parenthetically addressed to those
who were not disciples, and, by the lan
guage applied to them, could not be disci
ples in any sense.1
But let us examine the first place in the
Sermon on the Mount where Jesus speaks
to men of God as their Father, "your Fa
ther." "Even so let your light so shine
before men, that they may see your good
'This parenthesis should be read (Luke vi. 24-26)
and remembered. It is paralleled in the address in
Matt, xxiii. 8-12, to be considered later, p. 170.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 165
works, and glorify your Father which is
in heaven." (Matt. v. 16.) In this place
men in general are spoken of as distin
guished from those who are addressed as
having a Father in heaven. If he had
meant to teach that God is the Father of
all men, it seems that he should have said,
" that they may see your good works, and
glorify their Father which is in heaven."
Conversely, if he had said, "that they may
see your good works, and glorify their
Father in heaven," it would have seemed
plain that he meant to teach that God is the
Father of men in general.
In Matt. v. 44, 45, he says: " Love your
enemies, and pray for them that perse
cute you, that ye may be the sons of your
Father which is in heaven." Here again
two classes appear — the persons addressed,
of whom God is the Father, and the ene
mies and persecutors of these. An un
biased, disinterested reader would hardly
conclude from this passage that God is to

166 The Son of Man.
be understood as the Father of the enemies
and persecutors also.
The words that immediately follow, "be
cause he maketh his sun to shine on the
evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on
the just and the unjust," have often been
cited to prove that God is the Father of the
evil as well as the good, the unjust as well
as the just. But they prove no such thing.
The thought is simply this : You are to be
good to the wicked persons who persecute
you, just as God is good to the evil and the
unjust; for you as his children are to be like
your Father. Herein you are to be per
fect as your heavenly Father is perfect. In
another part of the Sermon on the Mount
(vi. 26—30) Jesus has drawn a beautiful
and impressive picture of God's care of
the birds of the air and the lilies of the
field. Now if God's sending his sunshine
and rain on the unrighteous and the evil
proves that he is their Father, then God's
care of the birds and the lilies proves that

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. \6*J
he is the Father of birds and lilies, as his
noting of every sparrow that falls would
prove that he is the Father of sparrows.1
In vi. 1-1S he warns his disciples against
giving alms, praying and fasting for the
purpose of securing the praise of men, as
certain persons do, whom he calls "hypo
crites." Are we to suppose that he means
to say, or to leave it to be implied from
what he says, that God is the Father of
these hypocrites as he is of those whom, as
his disciples, he is instructing to give alms,
to fast and pray, only that they may please
their heavenly Father? On the contrary,
it seems he intends a contrast between
these hypocrites and those whose Father
God is.
With reference to prayer in particular
he says (Matt. vi. 7 ff.): "And in praying
use not vain repetitions as the heathen do,
for they think they shall be heard for their

1 Matt. x. 29.

i68 The Son of Man.
much speaking." In contrast with them1
you have a Father who knoweth " what
things ye have need of before ye ask him."
"You,2 therefore, are to pray thus." He
then proceeds to give them the so-called
Lord's Prayer, in which God is invoked as
Father. This has been called " the univer
sal prayer," i. e., the prayer that all men
may use. A thorough study and compre
hension of it will make it clear that it is
the prayer of those who are genuine dis
ciples of Jesus, and that no others can
really pray it, no matter who they are, or
how many, that "say" it.3
In the only remaining instance in the
Sermon on the Mount where Jesus speaks
to men of God as their Father — though it
was addressed to the disciples — there is
'Exactly the same contrast is involved in verse 32
of this chapter.
2 The pronoun is expressed in Greek, giving em
phasis — the emphasis, clearly, of contrast.
3 See Study X. on the Model Prayer.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 169
nothing in the connection implying a con
trast with men in general. (Matt. vii. 11.)
The sayings in Matt. x. 20, 29 are part of
the instructions given to "his twelve disci
ples" (Matt. x. 1) when he sent them out
on their first mission. In verse 16 ff. he
says: "Behold I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves. Beware of men;
for they shall deliver you up to councils,
and in their synagogues they shall scourge
you, and shall bring you before governors
and kings. But when they deliver you up,
be not anxious what ye shall speak: for it
is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your
Father that speaketh in you." Here they
are contrasted with "men" as sheep with
wolves. It is difficult to conceive of a more
violent contrast ; and are we to believe that
Jesus, at the time he spoke these words,
had it in his mind that God was the Father
of both classes alike ? Though there is no
contrast drawn between his disciples and
other men in verse 29, yet this also is a part

170 The Son of Man.
of his instructions specifically given to "his
twelve disciples."
In Matt. xiii. 43, where he says the
righteous shall shine forth in the kingdom
of their Father, it is specified that it is the
righteous whose Father God is. In Matt.
xxiii. 9 Jesus says: "And call no man
your father on the earth; for one is your
Father which is in heaven." The context
in this instance seems to imply that these
words were spoken to a promiscuous au
dience; for in verse 1 it is said, "Then
spake Jesus to the multitudes and to his dis
ciples, saying," etc. At any rate, this is
the only instance in which Jesus is reported
to have used such words in addressing a
mixed multitude. But upon closer exami
nation we find that the language which he
uses in verses 8-12 is such as he is accus
tomed to use in speaking to his disciples,
and it was not his custom to so speak to
promiscuous multitudes. All the pronouns
in verses 8 and 9 are emphatic, indicating

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 171
contrast between those addressed and oth
ers in general. More specifically, though
he had good reason to warn the people in
general against the hypocrisy of the rabbis
and Pharisees, as he does in the opening of
the discourse, he had no reason to warn
the people composing the crowds against
being called rabbi; but, as his disciples,
and especially his apostles, were to become
teachers, and were in training for that very
purpose, he had good reason to put them
on their guard against the conceit of being
reverenced and saluted as "my great and
honorable master." But if it be said that
some note of the transition would have
been made if he turned from the multitude
to address his disciples in particular, we
may find, by reference to verse 13, that he
does there specifically direct his words to
the rabbis and Pharisees, and yet no note
is made of the transition. We have seen
that similarly in Luke vi. 24 the address
which is explicitly said (in verse 20) to have

172 The Son of Man.
been directed to the disciples is abruptly
changed to others, not disciples, without
any note of the transition.
In the only instance in St. Mark (xi. 25)
where Jesus speaks to men of God as their
(your) Father, the language is part of a
private talk which he is giving * ' the twelve ' '
( compare verse 1 1 ) as they go from Bethany
to Jerusalem.
There are only four or five instances in
St. Luke. The saying in vi. 36 is a part of
Luke's report of the Sermon on the Mount,
and is by Luke (vi. 20) explicitly said to
have been addressed to "his disciples."
So also the sayings in Luke xi. 2, 13, the
first of which is the address of the so-called
Lord's Prayer, which has been noticed al
ready. The two remaining instances in St. Luke
are in chapter xii. 30, 32. While the first
verse of this chapter indicates that there
was a great crowd about him on this occa
sion, in verse 22 we are explicitly told that

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 173
"he said unto his disciples" that which fol
lows through verses 30 and 32. Besides, the
language of these two verses is itself such
as could be addressed to none but his dis
ciples: "And you [emphatic], do not you
seek what to eat and drink, neither be ye of
doubtful mind; for all these things do the
nations of the world seek after, but your
[emphatic again] Father knoweth that ye
need these things. But seek his kingdom,"
etc. "Fear not, little flock; for it is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom." In verse 30 the apostles are
strongly contrasted with the heathen, and
the contrast consists in the fact that God is
the Father of the disciples: Your Father
(/. e., you have a Father who) knows that
you need these things. But any remaining
doubt as to the exclusive reference to the
disciples is removed by the unambiguous
words, "little flock," which is his affection
ate way of here addressing his disciples.
We have now examined all the passages

174 The Son of Man.
in the synoptic Gospels where, according to
the text of Westcott and Hort, Jesus has
anything to say of God as the Father of
men. In every case it is fairly certain that
he was speaking to those who had become
his disciples. And we know that in Jesus'
mind and according to Jesus' teaching the
difference between those who were his true
disciples and those who were not was the
difference between wisdom and folly, be
tween light and darkness, between life and
death. Taking up the Gospel of John, there are
only two instances that need to be examined
in detail. These are in John iv. 21-23 and
John xx. 17. For though the phrase " the
Father," which occurs frequently in the four
teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters of
John, is certainly in several of these places to
be understood not of God's relation to Jesus
only, but also of his relation to others with Je
sus, we have only to recall that these chap
ters contain the farewell address of Jesus,

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 175
spoken to the eleven alone in the privacy
of the upper room, and in the intimacy of a
sympathy and union between him and them,
deeper and tenderer now than at any pre
vious stage of their discipleship.
The words in John xx. 17 were spoken to
Mary Magdalene by the Lord about his
disciples, whom he calls his "brethren."
"Go," he says, "unto my brethren and
say to them, I ascend unto my Father and
your Father."
The only remaining passage in the four
Gospels is to be found in John iv. 21-23,
and it is a part of the interview of Jesus
with the woman of Samaria: " Woman, be
lieve me, the hour cometh when neither in
this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye
worship the Father. . . . But the hour
cometh, and now is, when the true wor
shipers shall worship the Father in spirit and
in truth. For such doth the Father seek to
be his worshipers." Here, as in many other
cases, the context seems to supply an an-

176 The Son of Man.
swer to the question whether Jesus in this
instance means to teach that God is the Fa
ther of all men without distinction. For he
says the genuine worshipers shall worship the
Father. Meyer, the greatest of commenta
tors, in the interest of pure exegesis, says
what is practically equivalent to this : " The
word Father is here used from the stand
point of the future converts, to whom God,
through their faith in the Reconciler, would
^Father."1 So far is Jesus from teaching or saying
that God is the Father of all men, there is
in the Gospel of John one passage where
Jesus virtually says that he is not the Father
of certain men ; and if there are some men
of whom God is not Father, he is not the
Father of all men. The Jews explicit
ly claim and assert (John viii. 41), "We
have one Father, even God." Jesus replies
(verse 42), "If God were your Father, ye
'Meyer on John iv. 21.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 177
would love me." They surely did not
love Jesus — the conclusion followed: God
was not their Father. But to make it still
stronger he says, continuing (verse 44),
" You are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father it is your will to do."
While no stress is laid on his calling them
children of the devil, which may here be a
figure of speech, yet surely great violence
must be done this language to maintain in
face of it that Jesus held that God was the
Father of those to whom he addressed it.
If now we examine those passages where
Jesus speaks of men as the " sons of God,"
we shall find that in every case the ex
pression is restricted, and does not in any
instance include all men. According to
Matt. v. 9, it is not all men, but the peace
makers who shall be called sons of God.
In v. 44, 45 it is those who love their ene
mies and pray for their persecutors that are
spoken of as the sons of God. It is the
same thought in Luke vi. 35, and it is ex-
12

178 The Son of Man.
pressed in almost the same language. In
Luke xx. 35, 2,6, where he says, "They that
are accounted worthy to attain to that world
and the resurrection of the dead . . . are
sons of God, being sons of the resurrec
tion," the phrase is clearly limited in extent
and does not apply to all men. In John i.
12 and xi. 52, though it is the evangelist's
thought and not that of Jesus, the word ap
plies only to a select class indicated in the
context. These are the only instances in the
four Gospels where men are spoken of as the
sons or the children of God.
There is not, then, a single passage in all
the four Gospels that makes it certain or
even probable that Jesus taught the univer
sal Fatherhood of God, unless it be the par
able of the prodigal son. This is indeed the
locus classicus for the doctrine and for those
who hold it. And it is such a beautiful par
able, apparently supporting such a beautiful
doctrine of God, that one is very loath to give
up this interpretation of it. But it must be

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 179
remembered that it is only a parable, and
that it is one of three parables spoken on
the same occasion and for the purpose of
teaching the same lesson. The one lesson
which they teach is that men, though lost,
are of unspeakable value in the sight of
God; that it was lost men that Jesus came
to save, and therefore Jesus in associating
with publicans and sinners for the purpose
of saving them was doing the thing which
above all others was pleasing to God, how
ever it might seem to the Pharisees and the
rabbis.1 But it is manifestly unscientific, unexe-
getical, and simply inconsistent to claim that
one of these parables is to be taken literal
ly and all its details to be literally interpret
ed and pressed, while in the other two this
must not be done. If we are to infer from
the third of this group of parables that God
is literally the universal Father and that all
1 Read Luke xv. 1-3.

180 The Son of Man.
men are his children, are we not bound to
infer from the first, namely, that of the lost
sheep, that God is literally a shepherd and
all men literally sheep ?
" God is indeed called a shepherd in the
Old Testament, and every one feels the
beauty and pertinency of the designation.
But if, on the strength of this parable, one
should undertake to establish the doctrine
of the essential shepherdhood of God and
the essential sheephood of men, we should
begin to inquire into his sanity. Still worse
would be the case, if, in interpreting the
second of the group of parables, one should
infer the essential womanhood of God and
the essential coinhood of man. In the third
parable, Jesus, instead of illustrating by
means of a shepherd and his sheep, or by a
woman and her coins, tells a story in which
a father and his son figure as the leading
characters. The same truth is taught as
before. But why should we insist on doing
here what, in the interpretation of the other

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 181
two parables, would be impossible and ab
surd ? Precisely the same lesson might have
been illustrated by a story of a wife deserting
her husband and afterwards returning in pen
itence and being graciously received back
by her husband. But we should not in that
case conclude that husbandhood is ' the final
idea of God,' or wifehood that of man. Yet
such a conclusion would be as legitimate as
to infer from the parable of the prodigal
son that God is essentially the Father of all
men, and that all men are essentially the
children of God. If there are elswhere ex
press declarations of the alleged real Father
hood of God, well and good; but this par
able can be made to furnish neither proof
nor disproof of it. . . . Instead of in
terpreting the parable in accordance with
the plainer and unmistakable purport of all
the rest of the New Testament, we are ac
tually told that everything in the New Tes
tament which conflicts or seems to conflict
with the doctrine of the universal Father-

182 The Son of Man.
hood of God and the universal sonship of
man, must be interpreted or corrected ac
cording to the alleged meaning of the one
parable." 1
As far as we have been able to discover,
Jesus does not teach the Fatherhood of God
in the sense in which this doctrine is attrib
uted to him by recent authors, already re
ferred to. On the other hand, if we are not
mistaken, there is in all the passages where
he speaks of God as Father of men some
thing either in the situation or the context
or the language itself which restricts this
relation to a certain kind and class of men.
This class consists of those who are bona
fide disciples of Jesus, whose conception of
him is such that they have in spirit, but in
sincerity, left all that they may follow him;
whose estimate of the kingdom of God is
such that, like the merchant finding "one
'Article in American Journal of Theology, July, 1S97,
PP- 597-599, by Charles M. Mead, Hartford Theological
Seminary.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 183
pearl of great price," they "go and sell all
they have " that they may possess them
selves of it. It consists of those who, like
Jesus, are filial in spirit and at heart obe
dient to the will of their Father, notwith
standing many superficial crudities and im
perfections. On one occasion when Jesus
was told that his mother and brothers wished
to confer with him and were calling for him,
he was so moved that, breaking his usual
habit of quietness and bodily repose, he
stretched out his hand toward his disciples
and uttered that significant and profound
saying: " Behold my mother and brothers;
for whosoever shall do the will of my Fa
ther in heaven, he is my brother and sister
and mother."1 That is, there were some
men who stood in a closer relation to himself
than his own brothers, and even his own
mother, according to the flesh. In other
words, even his own brothers and mother
1 Matt. xii. 49, 50; Mark iii. 33-35; Luke viii. 20, 21.

184 The Son of Man.
according to the flesh were not necessarily
included in, but might be excluded from,
this relationship of brotherhood with himself,
which is the correlate on the human side of
the Fatherhood of God. It would be difficult
to make or even conceive a more strongly
stated contrast than is here made by Jesus
between those who were in reality his disci
ples, on the one hand, and men in general, on
the other; and this contrast is expressed in
terms of brotherhood with Jesus on the part
of these disciples, which clearly implies the
relation of God to them as Father, and seems
to limit this relation to them.
This examination of what Jesus said on
the subject in hand leads to the conclusion
that Jesus did not teach that God is the Fa
ther of all men, but that he is the Father of
those who were like Jesus.
In his excellent article on "Jesus Christ"
in the new Dictionary of the Bible, Dr.
Sanday says: "Jesus selects two of the
most familiar of all relations to be the types

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 185
round which he groups his teaching in re
gard to God and man — the family and the
organized state : God stands to man in the
relation at once of Father and King."1
This is strikingly said; and it is true, but
not in the unrestricted application to man
as man, which the able author seems to in
tend. For it is nowhere and by nobody
seriously claimed that Jesus represents all
men alike as members of the kingdom of
God and God as the King of all men. It
will probably be admitted by all that Jesus
himself did not speak of all men as in
cluded in the kingdom of God. But is it
not true that the family of God is composed
of the same class of persons and the same
persons of whom his kingdom is composed?
In other words, God is Father to the same
class of persons to whom he is King. Why,
in thinking of God as King, King of those
'Dictionary of the Bible (Hastings), art. "Jesus
Christ."

186 The Son of Man.
who constitute his kingdom, should we re
strict that relation to a certain limited por
tion of mankind, and in thinking of him as
Father extend that relation to all mankind?
What consistency is there in this? What
warrant have we for it? We have none
in the teachings of Jesus, as it appears
from the detailed examination which we
have just now made of his sayings con
cerning God as Father.
Some of those who hold that Jesus taught
the universal Fatherhood of God seem to feel
this inconsistency, and they appear to have
misgivings as to the certainty of their view,
and of the moral fitness of the doctrine as
well. We quote from two of its ablest ad
vocates : " God is in a special sense the Fa
ther of believers, disciples of Christ. In
the uncertainty which attends the exact cir
cumstances of many of his discourses, it
may be often doubtful as to how far the
phrase 6 7rar^p vf*.S>v (your Father) extends
¦beyond these. Probably, as a rule, its ap-

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 187
plication starts from the inner circle. But
it is also probably not confined to this. . .
All those to whom Jesus speaks are poten
tial disciples." l As to the moral fitness of
the doctrine, another of its ablest advocates
seems to feel misgivings, and thinks it nec
essary to make important qualifications and
distinctions. Dr. Bruce, in his instructive
and stimulating work on "The Kingdom of
God," has this to say: "The Fatherhood
of God as announced by Jesus, while hav
ing reference to all, does not mean the same
thing for all. . . . Hence in studying
the doctrine of God's paternal love, we must
have regard to moral distinctions. We must
ask what it means for sinners, and what for
saints, for men in general, and for the chil
dren of the kingdom."2 The implication
here seems to be that if we do not have re
gard to moral distinctions, the doctrine that
1 Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, vol. ii. 209, art.
"God," by W. Sanday.
2 Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. no.

188 The Son of Man.
God is Father to all men tends to produce
a spirit of antinomianism. And this is true.
To the depraved and vicious, to the self-
centered and selfish, it gives a feeling of se
curity and of license. It relieves them of
that most salutary, if not absolutely neces
sary, constituent of the normal moral na
ture, the sense of the fear of God.1 Hear
ing this doctrine universalry proclaimed as
if it were the theological axiom underlying
all truth, bad men, impenitent men, say with
in themselves, "If this is true, if God is
Father to all men, then we are as well off
as others." In spite of qualifications and
distinctions and warnings, the doctrine that
God is Father to all means this to the av
erage man of the world; and if it is quali
fied and explained so as not to mean this,
it means nothing, at least nothing that he
cares for.

1 Only recently the writer has read two articles on
'The Lost Sense of the Fear of God."

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 189
On the other hand, to the righteous this
doctrine has a tendency to cheapen the
highest thing. If it be true, they are tempt
ed to feel: "If God is Father to all men,
then we are no better off than others. Af
ter all our struggles, self-denials, sacrifices,
sufferings, we are no more to God and God
no more to us than those who live in ease
and know nothing of struggle and sacrifice.
Why, then, endure what we may just as
well escape? Why should we crucify the
flesh, if God is the same to those who in
dulge the flesh?" It is not from a feeling
of envy or of disappointment at finding that
God is Father to all men, yet they do, un
der the effect of the insistent proclama
tion of this doctrine, imperceptibly, uncon
sciously, yield to the inevitable tendency,
lower their standard of self-denial, self-
mastery, and sacrifice, and relax their zeal
in the service of God and man. The eth
ical tendencies and effects of the doctrine
seem to confirm the result of our examina-

190 The Son of Man.
tion of the sayings and teachings of Jesus
on this subject. The doctrine of Jesus is
that God is the Father of those who com
pose the kingdom of God.1
But in what sense is this to be understood ?
Is it true in any real sense, or is it only a fig
urative form of speech signifying that the
disposition and attitude of God toward the
righteous are analogous to the disposition
and attitude of a human father toward his
children ? Are the righteous the children of
God, and he their Father only in the sense
'Whatever may be the correct view of the exact
teaching of Jesus concerning God's Fatherhood, one
thing is true and sure: According to his teachings
any man who feels a sense of spiritual orphanage and
wants God for his Father, may have and may realize
the blessedness of conscious sonship on condition of
surrendering himself trustfully to God and turning
resolutely and decisively away from whatever is con
trary to God, as many who have put it to the test can
bear witness. In other words, according to Jesus'
teaching, God is potentially the Father of all men^ -all
men may become sons of God.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 191
of ethical likeness? This is the view of
some. But the language and tone of Jesus
certainly seem to involve more than this.
It is impossible to read his words in the Ser
mon on the Mount, in the farewell dis
course (John xiv., xv., xvi.), and else
where, without feeling that he means some
thing deeper and more real than a mere
metaphor. He certainly means more than
a figure of speech in calling God his own
Father. If so, how are we to know that he
intends it only as a figure of speech when
he speaks habitually and constantly of God
¦
as the Father of his disciples, unless he
gives us some means of knowing this, which
he does not do?
The essential element of fatherhood is
the fact of procreation. In one instance Je
sus uses the word which exactly expresses
the essential element of real fatherhood.
In the conversation with Nicodemus he
says: "Except a man be born [or begot-

192 The Son of Man.
ten x] anew, he cannot enter the kingdom
of God." "That which is born [or be
gotten] of the Spirit is spirit." These pas
sages from the conversation of Jesus with
Nicodemus are the main, though by no
means the only, biblical ground for the
Christian doctrine of what we call regener
ation. Indeed, the conditions required for
entrance into God's kingdom and family,
as we have studied them, and the absolute
standards of righteousness held up for mem
bers by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount
and other discourses and parables in the
synoptic Gospels, imply a change which is
radical, thoroughgoing, revolutionary, which
amounts in fact to nothing less than the
transformation of the moral nature of man.
It is equally implied by the radical, essen
tial difference which Jesus habitually teach
es there is between those who were his true
disciples and those who were not, those
'The same word yevvda properly means to beget.
See treatment of the word in Thayer's Lexicon.

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 193
who were in the kingdom of God and those
who were excluded from the kingdom. In
deed, he explicitly says in Matt, xviii. 3,
"Except you turn and acquire a moral dis
position similar to the nature of little chil
dren, you will not even enter the kingdom."
This is Meyer's translation, and he adds:
''The divine agent in this moral change
is the Holy Spirit." See also Matt. vi. 17,
where Jesus says that righteousness is the
product of a sound inner state, and devel
ops from within outward, from heart to
conduct, as a tree that is good by nature
brings forth good fruit. The doctrine of
regeneration by the agency of God is com
mon in John's first Epistle, and is taught
by both Paul and Peter, and perhaps even
by James.
The fact that Jesus teaches that men are
" begotten " of God unto spiritual life in this
specific form, in only one place, is no pre
sumption against its being his conception of
the vital relation of God to his spiritual chil-
13

194 The Son of Man.
dren. As we have said, Jesus did not teach
for the purpose of furnishing the materials
for a system and science of theology and
soteriology. He taught the actual men and
women with whom he came in contact, in
accordance wifh their condition, capacity,
and needs. Only once, as we have seen,
did he explicitly declare that God is spirit.
But this fact does not make it a matter of
doubt whether Jesus held the essential spir
ituality of the nature of God:
The nature and mode of the process by
which God exercises the energetic creative
activity of his Spirit in the production of
spiritual life in the believer is beyond our
ken. But it may be instructive to quote the
words of a great theological teacher, who
uses language that expresses the essential
facts without distinct allusion to the thought
of procreation: "According to the teaching
of Jesus, sonship to God is a participation of
his [Jesus'] own unique relation to the Fa
ther, and it becomes ours through the im-

Jesus' Doctrine of God as Father. 195
partation of a new life from God, in the
strength of which we are enabled to re
nounce our self-centered life. God's sons
are those who trust him and are like him;
and that for us implies a great change of
mind and heart, a turning our back on
our worldly selves, such as can be effected
only under the influence of a power from
God!" x Sonship, then, does not consist in
ethical likeness only, but also in a change
wrought in the nature and character by the
direct agency of God, which is the antece
dent and cause of ethical likeness to God.
Note. — Thayer, in his treatment of the word naTr/p,
has this to say: "In John's use of the term it seems to
include the additional idea of one who by the power of
his Spirit has begotten them aneiv to a life of holiness."
Then, on the word yewau (to "beget "), he says: " It is
used peculiarly in the Gospel and first Epistle of John,
of God conferring upon men the nature and disposi
tion of sons, imparling to tliem spiritual life" All which
implies that sonship is more and deeper than ethical
likeness, though of course it includes it.
' Professor Candlish.

X.
The Daily Prayer of God's Child.
Having now some conception of the cen
tral truth of the revelation given by Jesus
that God is Father, and of the new order of
society that was to be established upon the
basis of this truth, we are better prepared to
understand that remarkable form of prayer
which Jesus gave his disciples. Indeed,
the full scope and meaning of that prayer
can be comprehended only in the light of
these two fundamental principles of Jesus'
revelation. Thus it is that, while every
body knows this form of prayer by heart,
and many recite it every day, it is little un
derstood, and the daily rehearsal of it has
come to be an example of the vain repeti
tions which Jesus condemned at the time
when he gave this form of prayer.
While we can conceive that Jesus him-
(196)

The Daily Prayer. 197
self could offer every petition of this prayer,
with one exception, that exception renders
it improper that it should be called the
Lord's Prayer. Certainly it is the Lord's
Prayer in the sense that he is the author and
giver of it; but it would be more appropri
ate to name it with reference, not to him
who gave it, but to those for whom it was
designed and to whom it was given. It
would be manifestly better to call it the dis
ciples' prayer than the Lord's Prayer. But
in view of the fundamental truth that Jesus
taught, and of the fact that this relation be
tween God and man is put in the forefront
of the prayer and implied throughout, it
would be better still to call it, what in fact it
is, "The prayer of God's child."
If Jesus taught anything, he taught that
God is not God only, but that he is Father.
It is with this conception and impression of
him, then, that the true suppliant is to ap
proach him in prayer. He is to think of
him, believe in him, and call on him as Fa-

198 The Son of Man.
ther. There is a profound significance in
the fact of Jesus' teaching, that in approach
ing God in prayer we are not to approach
him as God, but as Father. It is in the
mood and act of prayer that divine things
become most real to us. It is therefore all
the more significant that Jesus instructed us,
when approaching the Deity in the mood
anfl act of prayer, to say " Father."
And when this word is said, when it is
said with a full comprehension of its mean
ing and a full realization of the blessed mu
tual relationship which it implies, the whole
prayer is already said. For every thought
of the prayer and every petition of the
prayer is already naturally involved in, and
flows naturally out of, the conception which
is expressed in the address — our Father.
God is to be prayed to, then, not as God,
but as Father; and yet the freedom of ap
proach, and the spirit of confidence which
this conception of God should inspire, are to
be reverently and religiously guarded from

The Daily Prayer. 199
begetting presumption or degenerating into
irreverence. We are to remind ourselves in
the same breath that, while first of all he is
Father, he is also God, the Holy, the Eternal,
the Unsearchable, the Absolute: his very
name is by his children to be sanctified and
held in lowly and adoring reverence. First
Father, but then God. He is to be ap
proached and trusted as Father; he is to
be reverenced and worshiped as God. Al
ready before Jesus came, men feared and
worshiped him as God, though as the un
known God. What was not known was
that he is Father. By nature men are
disposed to dread him as God, and by na
ture equally indisposed to think of him and
trust in him as Father. That he is to be
looked upon and trusted in as Father, was
therefore to be put first and emphasized
most; that he is still God, and to be held in
sacred though loving reverence and awe, is
never to be forgotten. On the whole, it is
less likely that men will be led into presump-

200 The Son of Man.
tion by the idea of Father than that they will
be driven into servile dread or repelled alto
gether by the bare idea of God.
" The worshiper who invokes God under
the name of Father, and realizes the gracious,
beneficent love of God, must at the same
time remember and recognize God's glorious
*¦ — *
majesty, which is neither annulled nor im
paired, but should rather be supremely in
tensified through his fatherly love. An ap
peal to God as Father, if not associated with
reverent homage before the divine majesty,
wrould betray a want of understanding of
the character of God."1
But if he is Father, then are we children,
and the prayer proceeds upon this conse
quence, unquestioningly assumed. And if
children, then loyal, filial, loving, obedient,
as children in any true and real sense are. To
such a child the father's will is the highest
'law, to fulfill the father's will his chief de-
' Wendt, i. 304.

The Daily Prayer. 201
sire, to bring to pass his father's plans his
first pursuit. It is not first his own pleasure
and then his father's will; it is not first his
own comfort and then his father's wish; it
is not first his own necessities and then his
father's plan.
Now if the teachings of Jesus furnish to
us any revelation or interpretation of the
mind of God, God has a plan — a plan on
which he has set his heart, to which he has
devoted the energies and resources of his
nature. For the accomplishment of this
purpose all his revelations have been made ;
for the realization of this plan his highest
activities have been put in motion. History
is witness that all history looks toward it.
History has its solution in it and no meaning
apart from it. For if history has any mean
ing, it is this; if it hasn't this meaning, it
hasn't any, so far as has been discovered.
The future accomplishment of this plan of
the Father will be a justification of history
with its failures, its tragedies, its agonies, a

202 The Son of Man.
theodicy of creation with its groanings and
travailings, and its anguish of suspense en-..
dured while waiting and longing for the reve
lation and realization of a consummation that.
hath not yet appeared.
This consummation is the coming of the
kingdom of God, of God the Father, so
that his will shall be done by his filial and
faithful children over the whole round
world as it is done in heaven. For "the
kingdom is a chief end for God, and
he makes all things subservient to its in
terests." '
If this beneficent plan is first in the mind
of the Father, it may well be, and will be,
first in the hearts of his true children, as it was
first in the heart and life of the ideal Son ;
for his manifestation, humiliation, and obe
dience unto death had in view this one
purpose of the Father. First of all, then,
the Father's child will pray, not for earthly
1 Bruce, The Kingdom of God, p. 121.

The Daily Prayer. 203
comfort or temporal good, nor yet for nec
essary bread, but first for the Father's
reign of love in the hearts and over the lives
of men, which, being interpreted, is the
coming of the kingdom of God. The spirit
of the prayer is thus in accord with what
Jesus elsewhere and uniformly teaches con
cerning the primacy and supremacy of the
kingdom of God, as, e. g., when he says,
" Seek, first the kingdom and righteousness
of God," and God will make your daily
wants his care.
Whoever, then, understands this prayer
and prays this prayer in reality, has risen
above the consideration of selfish interests,
has escaped from the domination of self-
love, has become one in spirit and purpose
and pursuit with God's ideal Son, and has
identified himself and his all with God's
"increasing plan which through the ages
runs." Was ever such dignity ascribed to man ?
Was ever such value put upon him ? Was

204 The Son of Man.
ever such blessedness made possible to him
and brought within his reach ? To one who
has realized the meaning of all this, it is
small matter about temporal good, personal
comfort, or even daily bread. Such a one
can say with the ideal Son, " My meat is to
do my Father's will and to accomplish his
work." To one who has realized in expe
rience this union with God and this absorp
tion in his will and plan, and who knows
the blessedness which it brings, starvation
itself would seem a lesser evil than the dis
ruption of this union and the forfeiture of
this blessedness. It was so with the ideal
Son when in the wilderness of the temptation
he chose to endure the pangs of an extreme
hunger rather than disobey his Father's
will or break with his Father's plan. The
rule which he laid down for others he him
self observed without deviation or excep
tion: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength."
Likewise every true child of the Father will

The Daily Prayer. 205
desire first what the Father wills, and for
this will first pray.
But, though this is first of all, it is not all.
Not that the other petitions of the prayer are
not according to the Father's will, but they
pertain more directly to the wants of the
child-suppliant, and not so entirely to the
Father's will.
" Give us this day our daily bread." The
child of God is not authorized to ask for
long life or for riches, neither of which may
be for his highest good, but only for the
portion of bread which is for the day, which
in the wisdom of God is needed for present
sustenance. But for this the child of God
may pray with the utmost confidence; for
what father is there among men who, when
his son asks for bread, will give him a
stone? And if men, though being essen
tially evil, know how to give what is good
to their children, will not the Father in
heaven, who is essentially good, give what
is good to those who are his own? Such

206 The Son of Man.
is the reasoning which Jesus himself con
structs in his Sermon on the Mount, in
order to awaken the confidence of men in
the care of their heavenly Father. In fact,
a greater portion of that matchless discourse
is devoted to proving and illustrating the
certainty of God's providential care for the
temporal wants of his children than to any
other topic, except the righteousness of
members of his kingdom. Anxiety about
supplies for our temporal wants is perhaps
the commonest of the ills that flesh is heir
to, and it certainly is one of the commonest
hindrances to religion. Among those who
have passed the line of middle life it is per
haps commoner than sin itself. In recog
nition of this, Jesus took special pains to re
move the grounds of this anxiety, that men
might trust in the care of their heavenly
Father and serve him without distraction.
The poorest of God's children may offer
this petition with confidence — confidence in
God, who has all power and sufficiency, in

The Daily Prayer. 207
whose hands are the forces and processes
of nature, the events of time, and the hearts
of men ; confidence in the Father who will
do what is best for his child. In this prayer
we have the pledge that our bread and water
shall be sure, and in this pledge the means
of throwing off that burdensome anxiety
which is one of the greatest ills of life, and
one of the greatest hindrances to the king
dom of God. Martin Luther is reported to
have said that he loved poverty because it
kept him near to God. But if the poor
may offer this prayer with filial confidence
in God as their Father, the rich have need
to offer it in recognition and acknowl
edgment of their daily dependence on
the God whose power can make, as his
providence has made, rich men poor in a
single day.
Following this is the petition for the for
giveness of sins. Though it is the child
whose prayer this is, the loyal, filial child,
whose will is conformed to the Father's will,

208 The Son of Man.
the highest goal of whose aspirations is the
coming of the kingdom of his Father, and
who, like the ideal Son, is dedicated to this
end; yet, unlike the ideal Son, he is con
scious of falling short, in his daily life, of
the full and complete discharge of his obli
gations and duties. He may even be con
scious of positive offenses against God's
holy will and God's holy law of love. He
needs therefore to repent and to seek for
giveness. For the consciousness of son-
ship does not destroy the distinction between
right and wrong, nor hinder the prompt rec
ognition of wrong when it is present. On
the contrary, a true son is the readiest to see
his own shortcomings and wrongdoings, and
to seek forgiveness. Those who have real
ized sonship and its blessed consequence of
conscious fellowship with the Father, will be
most ready of all men to repent of any act
or temper that may have broken off or in
terrupted this fellowship, and to seek for
giveness, and with it the renewal of their

The Daily Prayer. 209
fellowship with the Father. And just as
surely as a son thus seeks forgiveness, just
so surely will the Father grant it and restore
his peace. This petition distinctly involves
two things : the possibility of man's sinning,
and the pledge of God's forgiving.
The addition, "as we have forgiven1 those
who trespass against us," is in harmony with
the spirit of the prayer as expressive through
out of the blessed relationship of child and
Father. The essence of sonship consists
in moral and spiritual likeness to the Fa
ther. And of the heavenly Father's readi
ness to forgive, and joy in forgiving, we have
a vivid representation in Jesus' parable of the
Unmerciful Servant, and still more so in his
matchless parable of the Forgiving Father,
commonly called the parable of the Prodi
gal Son. What, then, is the meaning of the
added clause ? Is it intended to make God's
forgiving grace depend on man's willingness

1 Note the tense.
14

210 The Son of Man.
to forgive ? This is contrary to all the rep
resentations that Jesus gives of the freeness
of the Father's forgiving love and saving
grace. Indeed, in the parable of the Unmerciful
Servant (already referred to), he teaches.
that in the boundless pardoning grace o?
God, in which all true disciples have a part.
lies the very motive to the duty of forgiving
their brethren. (Matt, xviii. 21— 35.) And
if they do not fulfill this duty, they there
by render themselves unworthy of the grace
they have already received, and God will cut
them off from further enjoyment of it. We
are to remember in prayer the duty of for
giving, not in order to merit divine grace by
the fulfillment of that duty, but in order not
to forfeit the grace of God by the neglect
of it. The child would forfeit the grace
of God by refusing to forgive, just as he
would by any other sin persisted in. All
who would enjoy and retain the blessing of
God must seek to fulfill the will of God.

The Daily Prayer. 211
But whoever cherishes feelings of hatred
and revenge against his brother acts in di
rect opposition to the will of God, and can
not retain God's love and enjoy God's for
giveness. Hence the heart must be free
from all hateful and revengeful impulses and
feelings. If he has hitherto borne hatred
and enmity toward his fellow-men who have
wronged him, this violation of his own duty
toward them forms a part of the debt for
which the suppliant must ask God's forgive
ness. And he cannot get remission of this
debt or of any other sin until he has eradi
cated the last remnant of hatred and enmi
ty from his heart.1
If God is our Father, other men are our
brothers. If God is fatherly enough to for
give us our offenses, we, if we are his sons,
will surely be enough like him to forgive his
other sons, who are our brothers. In need
ing forgiveness from God we are on a level
1 Wendt, i. 309.

212 The Son of Man.
with our offending brothers who need for
giveness from us. If we are to receive for
giveness from God, it is on the same prin
ciple on which an offending brother is to re
ceive forgiveness from us.
It is noteworthy that this added clause is
the only item of the prayer to which Je
sus returns and which he makes the sub
ject of comment at the close. " For if
ye forgive men their trespasses, your heav
enly Father will forgive you your tres
passes ; but if ye forgive not men their tres
passes, neither will your heavenly Father
forgive you your trespasses." This is per
haps because of the great difficulty of ful
filling this condition. For to forgive those
who have injured us is one of the most dif
ficult of duties.
As the first petitions of this comprehen
sive and profound prayer lift the petitioner
out of the domain of self-love, as it is op
posed to God, and identify him with God's
gracious plan of bringing all men into his

The Daily Prayer. 213
kingdom, this petition involves what is per
haps the highest reach of self-renouncing
love toward men — the forgiveness of in
juries and of enemies.
The next petition is properly translated,
" Bring us not into temptation." It has no
reference to the idea of enticement to sin.
God is not tempted by evil, neither tempts he
any man to evil. In order to. escape the im
plication involved in this misunderstanding
of the petition, some have taken it to mean,
"Suffer us not to be brought into tempta
tion." If thathadbeen the thought, it could
easily have been so expressed. The language
actually used, however, hardly admits of such
an interpretation. The meaning seems rath
er to be this: Bring us not, in the course
of thy providence, into situations or cir
cumstances which would be the source of
trial or temptation, which would lay upon
us too great a test of faith or endurance,
which would in any wray put our spiritual
welfare in jeopardy. To express it more

214 The Son of Man.
concretely: Bring us not into any posi
tion of prominence or popularity or pow
er, such as would be fraught with peril
to the higher interests of the soul; bring
us not into the possession of riches, if thou
seest the possession of riches would endan
ger the reality and the single-heartedness
and the strength of our devotion to thee;
bring us not into the society of those who
are great or powerful or cultivated or court
ly or brilliant or beautiful, if thereby we
should encounter influences tending to draw
us away from righteousness and thee ; bring
us not into any circumstances or into asso
ciation with any person or class of persons
that would put our souls in peril.
The feeling or conviction out of which
this petition, if offered with any sincerity,
rises, would lead the suppliant to take the
utmost pains to keep himself out of such
situations and relations as would endanger
his spiritual state and welfare. It would
prompt him to flee from them with a

The Daily Prayer. 215
wholesome dread, if by any chance or
mischance he found himself in the midst
of them. We are not likely to escape
from pleasant danger of our own seek
ing or consenting, or to resist temptation
of our own procuring.
This prayer therefore sometimes implies
action, vigorous, intense, decisive action.
There are times when such action is more
really prayer than all the forms of speech
that men devise. There are times when
nothing is prayer but such vigorous, deci
sive action. If we find ourselves, whether
by accident or otherwise, in situations or
under influences that excite evil passions,
it is prayer to get away from these. Any
thing else at such a time is not prayer, it
is a delusion or a mockery. So much does
it mean to pray this prayer. This simple
petition, then, has this profound significance
and this far-reaching application. The prin
ciple involved is more decisive than any
other for the cultivation of all the virtues

216 The Son of Man.
and the attainment of righteous character.
This petition properly understood is a prayer
for security from temptations that come from
without, that spring out of our circumstances
and external conditions.
The next and last petition is perhaps best
understood as a prayer for security from the
malice and power of the devil, the sense of
the passage probably being, "But deliver us
from the evil one " (R.V. ). This may then
be considered a prayer for security from
those suggestions of, and solicitations to,
sin that come through our mental processes
and emotional experiences, whether they be
temptations to doubt in some one or other of
its manifold forms, or to the gratification of
sinful desire — in short, the temptations that
arise within and are caused by the devil. If
this be so, then every time we offer this " dai
ly" prayer we recognize the personality and
power of the devil and seek divine succor
against him.
We may summarize the contents of this

The Daily Prayer. 217
profound and comprehensive prayer as fol
lows: The Fatherhood of God, standing
at the beginning and involved to the end;
the primacy and supremacy of the king
dom of God ; the providential supply of the
temporal needs of the children of God; the
forgiveness of sins, bound up with the love
that forgives our enemies ; the providential
overruling of the outward circumstances
of life for securing and conserving the spir
itual well-being and safety of God's child;
and deliverance and security from the
power of the evil spirit. No wonder it
was called by one of the Fathers, Brevia-
rium totius evangelii : A summary of the
whole gospel.
The question has frequently been asked
whether this prayer is intended to be a prayer
for all men or only for members of the king
dom. The question is answered by the con
sideration that no man can pray the prayerin
reality and sincerity who is not a member of
the kingdom. Conversely, any one who can

218 The Son of Man.
pray this prayer in the spirit which it im
plies, as we have seen, and who does so
pray it, is ipso facto a member of God's
kingdom, whatever else he may or may
not be.
The proper understanding and use of this
prayer furnish a very sure test by which men
may determine whether they are members
of God's kingdom, or, which is the same
thing, sons of God.

XI.
Jesus and the Old Testament.
I. His Attitude Toward the Moral
Law.
It is to be borne in mind that we are en
gaged in studying phases in the life and char
acter of him who was the Son of man. We
are never to lose sight of the fact that Jesus
was the Son of man and — man. Whether
he was also divine is a question which can
not be put aside, and which will come up
for inquiry later. Meanwhile, we are not
to lose sight of the facts recorded in our
sources, such as that we find in Luke ii. 52.
Jesus was born in human conditions. He
was subject to human limitations. He ad
vanced in all respects according to the law
of a natural human development. If he
had knowledge, it was because he acquired
knowledge. If his wisdom increased, it was
(219)

220 The Sou of Man.
because he increased in wisdom. There can
be no doubt that he was instructed by his
mother, who was a holy and devout woman,
and who, as her song of thanksgiving indi
cates, was familiar with the Old Testament
Scriptures. There can be no doubt that he
learned from the observation of nature, and
from contact with men. And it is certain
he derived instruction from the religious
services of the synagogue ; for that there
was a synagogue at Nazareth we are not left
to conjecture, and that it was his custom to
attend its services, we are explicitly told.
(Luke iv. 16.) But these were not the
only or the chief sources whence he de
rived his wisdom. It is clear from the four
Gospel histories that he was thoroughly fa
miliar with the Old Testament Scriptures;
and we know from a few examples of his
use of them that they were to him a source
of wisdom in the conduct of his life, and
that they furnished to him the principles in
accordance with which he was to govern

Jesus and the Old Testament. 221
himself in certain grave emergencies, such
as his experience of temptation in the wil
derness. From this example of his use of
/the Scriptures we see how they were a means
of supporting and developing his inner life
of trust and obedience, and how they con
tributed to the formation of his life and
character. These Scriptures, then, among
other sources of wisdom, and more than any
other sources of wisdom, were to Jesus as to
other devout Israelites, only in a much more
effective way and a much higher degree, a
means of instruction and development. This
was through the principles and truths taught
in their law and prophets, and illustrated in
so concrete and vivid a way in their histories.
If then he, the Messiah, was not to be sudden
ly and mysteriously produced, and. directly
and immediately manifested as a god out of
heaven, but was, as a man, to be developed
in a natural human way, we can readily un
derstand how it was that he grew up in such
close indentification with the earlier revela-

222 The Son of Man.
tion and in a sense dependent on it. If God
had manifested the Messiah suddenly and
apocalyptically from the skies, which might
have been more proper, but which he did
not do, then he might have brought the
Messiah to his place and mission in the
world entirely apart from and independent
of any previous revelation; or, indeed, he
might have dispensed with any previous
revelation altogether. But inasmuch as the
Messiah and Mediator was to be a man, a
true normal man, that man must have a real
human development, as well as the experi-
ence involved in a real human development.
Now if this was so, then that development
would naturally be, as we see it was, not
apart from, but in close connection with and
by means of, that revelation of himself which
God had<been slowly making for some hun
dreds of years. If, then, the Old Testa
ment Scriptures were to Jesus, in his growth
and development, a source of the knowledge
of God and of spiritual wisdom, it follows,

Jesus and the Old Testament. 223
as a matter of course, that he grew up recog
nizing in the Old Testament Scriptures a
revelation of God, a fact which he contin
ually asserts or implies.
Here, then, we are brought face to face
with the relation between Jesus and the Old
Testament record of the earlier revelation,
and with the problem which that relation
involves. And here perhaps may be found
a partial answer to the question, Why was it
necessary that the Revealer and Represent
ative of God, the Messiah and Mediator
between the absolute God and the race of
men, should come as the descendant of a
long line of Jewish ancestors, and in such
close identification with a history and a sys
tem that are involved in so many and so va
rious difficulties? Why could not the Re
vealer and Redeemer have been manifested
absolutely, without involving and embarrass
ing himself and his system with all the diffi
culties that pertained to the Jewish system ?
If anything illustrates and accentuates the

224 The Son of Man.
reality of Jesus' humanity, it is the fact that
he did so come. If anything will explain
the fact of his relation of organic connection
with the long process of historico-religious
development which took place through the
Jews, it is the fact that he was, as he calls
himself, a son of man, born in human con
ditions, under human limitations, and sub
ject to the normal and necessary law of hu
man development.
But there is another side to this subject.
While Jesus did find the Old Testament
Scriptures a source of wisdom and knowl
edge, and their contents a means of nour
ishing and developing his own inner life of
faith and piety, and did, ipso facto, as well
as expressly and repeatedly, recognize in
them a revelation of God and of truth, yet
he rose above them and went beyond them,
and that in such a way as to demonstrate
not only that he was not limited by them or
bound down to them, but that he w:as con
scious of being in himself an independent

Jesus and the Old Testament. 225
and original source and fountain of spiritual
and divine truth, and invested with a higher
authority than those Scriptures themselves.
While Jesus recognized the divine reve
lation contained in the Old Testament, he
recognized also the limitations and imper
fections of that revelation. While he ac
knowledged the divine authority of the rev
elation contained in the Old Testament, he
was conscious of having himself a deeper
and truer revelation, and consequently as
sumed authority to amplify that earlier reve
lation, and even to correct and abrogate parts
thereof which did not accord with the deep
er, knowledge of truth and of God which he
possessed. This consciousness of possess
ing a knowledge of God which was true,
full, and final, was one of the elements of
his consciousness of uniqueness among men
and of his Messiahship.
In order to make plain what has been
said, it will be necessary to cite particular
cases. In the Sermon on the Mount, he,
15

226 The Son of Man.
in several instances, sets himself in contrast
with the law of the Mosaic system, with the
emphasis on his own superior authority.
"Ye have heard that it was said to them
of old time, ... but I say unto you." '
He then proceeds in some instances to ex
tend the application of Mosaic prohibitions
from the outward act, of which alone they
took cognizance, to the inward feeling, of
which the outward act is the expression.
Whereas the Mosaic law forbade the out
ward acts of murder and adultery, Jesus,
with full consciousness of legislative author
ity, forbade the passions of hate and lust,
making the one equivalent to murder and
the other to adultery. In this instance he
assumed the imperfection of the Mosaic leg
islation and supplemented it.
In another instance, he extended the Mo
saic prohibition of false swearing and for-
1 The use of the personal pronoun hy&, according to
the well-known usage of the Greek, carries with it dis
tinct and special emphasis.

Jesus and the Old Testament. 227
bids swearing altogether. (Matt. v. 33, 34.)
But he goes further than this and sets aside
portions of the Mosaic institute. For ex
ample, he sets aside the law of retaliation
and imposes instead his own law of nonre-
sisting endurance of injuries, even the most
exasperating. (Matt. v. 38.) He repeals
the Mosaic ordinance providing for divorce
and promulgates his own law entirely pro
hibiting divorce except for one cause.
Quoting the Mosaic law of love to one's
neighbor and the negation of love in the
case of foreigners which the spirit of the
Israelitish law and the hostile relation of Is
rael to other nations involved,1 and which the
rabbis had formulated into a distinct statu
tory prescription, he flatly contradicts the
latter and then supplements the former by
his authoritative command to love one's ene<
mies. (Matt. v. 43.)
'Compare Toy, Quotations in the New Testament,
p. 29.

228 The Son of Man.
In these examples, it is the imperfect
and erroneous idea of righteousness as pre
sented in the Old Testament law that Jesus
directly and chiefly criticises and corrects.
Incidentally, however, in the very same dis
course, as well as elsewhere, he implicitly
criticises and corrects the idea of the king
dom of God as presented in the historical
and prophetical books of the Old Testament.
He shows by his delineation of the ethical
and spiritual characteristics of the kingdom
that it is purely and wholly ethical and spir
itual. Again in speaking, throughout this dis
course, of God in the way he conceived
him, namely, as Father, he made a great
advance on the conception of God as pre
sented, for the most part, in the Old Testa
ment. And we do not know how many and
what other particular parts of the Old Tes
tament he would have corrected as being in
adequate, imperfect, or erroneous, if occa
sion had arisen. It is tolerably certain that

Jesus and the Old Testament. 229
he would have corrected or rejected or ab
rogated any part that is contrary to the spir
it of universal, sympathetic, helpful, forgiv
ing love as he expounds and enjoins it in
the Sermon" on the Mount and elsewhere.
We are not to conclude that the particular
instances wherein he did correct or reject
or abrogate are all that he would have cor
rected, if occasion had arisen. The cases
we have on record are only examples of the
general principle. Whenever we find any
thing in the Old Testament which contra
dicts the law of love as taught by Jesus and
illustrated in his life, it need make no diffi
culty, no matter how we may undertake to
account for its being there, or whether we
undertake to account for it at all. On
this point Jesus has given us an instruct
ive example in saying that the Old Testa
ment statute providing for divorce,1 which
'The Mosaic statute on the subject of divorce should
be read in full. It is as follows: " When a man taketh
a wife and marrieth her, then it shall be if she find no

230 The Son of Man.
he abrogated, was put in as a temporary
provision on account of the hardness of their
hearts, the meaning of which seems to be
that the people were not able at that time to
receive anything higher. Perhaps the same
favor in his eyes because he findeth some unseemly
thing in her, he shall write her a bill of divorcement
and send her out of his house. And she may go and
be another man's wife. And if the latter husband hate
her, he may give her a bill of divorcement and send
her out of his house." (Deut. xxiv. 1-3.) The " un
seemly thing " was not conjugal infidelity or unchas-
tity, since for this the penalty was death (Deut. xxii.
22). Moreover, the same expression in Hebrew is used
in Deut. xxiii. 14 for what is "unbecoming," as the
context shows. The school of Hillel understood the
" unseemly thing " to include anything that displeased
the husband, e. g., if she burned his food, or if he saw
a woman who pleased him better. This view is con
firmed by what Josephus says (Ant., IV. viii. 23): "He
that desires to be divorced from his wife/o/" any cause
¦whatsoever, let him in writing give assurance that he
will never use her as his wife any more." See also
Driver, Commentary on Deuteronomy, in loc. The
superiority of the teaching of Jesus to this legislation
is immeasurable.

Jesus and the Old Testament. 231
may be said as to the so-called imprecatory
Psalms and all other contents of a similar
character.
II. His Attitude Toward the Ceremo
nial Law.
Such was Jesus' attitude toward the mor
al law. His attitude toward the ceremonial
parts of the Mosaic law will require separate
treatment. Jesus said in the Sermon on the
Mount, " Think not that I came to destroy
the law or the prophets. I came not to de
stroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto
you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one
jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away
from the law till all things be accomplished.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach
men so, shall be called least in the kingdom
of heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach
them, shall be called great in the kingdom of
heaven." (Matt. v. 17-19.)
The law is here taken by many scholars

232 The Son of Man.
in its widest extent, including its moral, civ
il, and ceremonial precepts. If this be so,
the meaning seems to be that " the laws
of Moses, without exception or distinction,
are to be observed while the world stands."
We cannot believe he taught any such thing.
If the law be here understood of the moral
law, no such consequence follows. But can
' ' the law ' ' be here taken in this sense ? Let
us see.
In the first place, it is undeniably true that
Jesus did not come to destroy any part, great
or small, of the moral law. As a matter of
fact he did not in any instance, either ex
plicitly or by implication, in any degree, re
lax the requirement or limit the perpetuity
of any moral precept. The same cannot be
said of the ceremonial precepts.
In the second place, in his habitual use
of the phrase "the law," it is evident he
means the moral statutes. In this same dis
course, for example, he says with great force,
" Whatsoever, therefore, ye would that men

Jesus and the Old Testament. 233
should do unto you, even so do ye unto
them; for this is the law and the prophets."
(Matt. vii. 12.) When the rich young
ruler asked him what commandments he
meant when he bade him keep them as a
condition of eternal life, he specifies moral
precepts alone. When the lawyer asked him
what was the great commandment, he an
swers, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart," etc., "And the second is
like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." Then he adds (note it), "On
these two commandments hangeth the whole
law, and the prophets." (Matt. xxii. 34-40.)
As Wendt says, in another connection,
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself is
certainly no summary of the vast number of
those ritual and ceremonial ordinances of
the Old Testament law which the Pharisees
set in the first rank."1 Mark, in his report
of this case, or of a similar one, says that
1 Teaching of Jesus, i. 363.

234 The Son of Man.
this scribe or lawyer replied to Jesus' sum
mary of the law by saying, Master, thou
hast well said ; and to love God with all the
heart . . . and one's neighbor as oneself is
much more than all whole burnt-offerings
and sacrifices. Jesus commended his in
sight and the contrast which he drew be
tween the moral and the ceremonial parts
of the law, by saying, " Thou art not far
from the kingdom of God." :
In the third place, all the instances which
he proceeds to cite as illustrations of his
having come not to destroy but to fulfill, are
taken from the moral law, and not one from
the ceremonial. It is probable that it was
with the criticisms of the law, the moral law,
which immediately follow, in mind, that he
uttered the precaution, " Think not that I
came to destroy, but to fulfill." " Certain
ly his procedure did appear to the Pharisees
as an arbitrary, partial destruction of the
law."2 ' Mark xii. 28 ff. ** Wendt, ii. 26.

Jesus and the Old Testament. 235
In the fourth place, Jesus seldom speaks
of the ceremonial prescriptions as the law,
nor does he use the word law when he does
speak of them. When he speaks of these
at all, it is in other language and apparently
always in a disparaging tone, examples of
which will fall to be considered further on.
There is one exception to what has just been
said. There is one passage in which Jesus
speaks of circumcision in connection with
"the law" and as prescribed in the law.
The passage is as follows: " For this cause
Moses gave you circumcision, . . . and
on the Sabbath ye circumcise a man. If
a man receiveth circumcision on the Sab
bath that the law of Moses may not be
broken, are ye angry with me because I
made a man every whit whole on the Sab
bath?" (John vii. 22, 23.) Here he does
speak of a ceremonial prescription as a part
of the law. But one thing is to be noted :
He speaks of the law as " the law of Moses,"
intimating that the zeal of the Jews was not

236 The Son of Man.
for the absolute right but for that system
composed, in large part, of external ceremo
nial prescriptions which they superstitiously
reverenced as " the law of Moses." Again,
he seems implicitly to contrast this law of
Moses, consisting in large part of external
and ceremonial ordinances, with a higher
law (the higher spirit of Old Testament law)
of mercy. Why are ye angry with me be
cause, in obedience to a higher law, I made
a man every whit whole on the Sabbath?
In otheT words, there is a tone of dispar
agement in his language, if not for "the
law of Moses," composed in large part of
such small external matters, yet certainly
for the miserable narrowness and shallow
ness and hardness of the Jews who would
attribute greater importance to an external
rite than to a work of love and mercy.
It is notable that, so far as the records
go, this is the only place where Christ men
tions circumcision, and here he does not
evince a very high esteem for it. He could

Jesus and the Old Testament. 237
hardly have intended that it and similar rites
should be perpetuated.
In the fifth place, it is not probable that
he here used the word law as inclusive of
its civil and ceremonial enactments, be
cause, while he says he that breaks one
of the least of these commandments shall
be called least in the kingdom of God, he
himself did abrogate the cermonial parts
of the law. In fact, he virtually abrogates
in one saying the whole mass of Levitical
prescriptions as to the distinction between
clean and unclean meats, prefacing his
words with solemn emphasis, indicative of
the gravity of his meaning, "Hear me, all
of you, and understand: There is nothing
from without the man which going into him
can defile him, but the things that proceed
out of the man are those that defile the man.
For from within, out of the heart, proceed
evil thoughts, fornications, murders, adulte
ries, covetings, deceit, lasciviousness, pride,
foolishness." (Mark vii. 14-22.) The wri-

238 The Son of Man.
ter (Mark) adds by way of interpretation, in
verse 19, " This he said making all meats
clean." Again, when he says to the woman of
Samaria, "The hour cometh when neitherin
this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye wor
ship the Father; the hour cometh and now
is when the true worshipers shall worship
the Father in spirit and truth," he virtu
ally annuls the prescription of all temple
worship and all ritualistic service, and sub
stitutes instead the spiritual worship of God
wherever on the face of the round earth
spiritual seekers after God and spiritual
worshipers of God may be found.
And yet again, in condemning the cur
rent doctrine and practice of Sabbath ob
servance, while he does not abrogate the
Sabbath, he not only takes a much more
liberal view of it than the rabbis and Phar
isees held, but also a much more liberal
view than the Mosaic law on the subject
would warrant or allow. He opposes the

Jesus and the Old Testament. 239
strictness of the specific Mosaic ordinances
concerning the observance of the Sabbath.
However, it is certain he did not do away
the law of the Sabbath or the obligation
of Sabbath observance. When he said
" the Sabbath was made for man," he only
meant to put it in its proper place and to
say that the Sabbath was not imposed upon
man as a yoke and a burden, but that it was
bestozued on him as a boon and a blessing.1
Now if Jesus elsewhere and habitually
uses the word law in its moral sense, if, with
one single exception, he uses it of the mor
al precepts only, and if, as matter of fact, he
does in several instances, " destroy," i. e.,
abrogate, the ceremonial law, it seems rea
sonable to understand that also in the pas
sage in hand he has in mind the moral law
with no thought of the great mass of cere
monial prescriptions which make up so large
a part of the Mosaic legislation.
1 Compare Professor Bruce in The Training of the
Twelve.

240 The Son of Man.
The only difficulty in this view is that it
seems to make Jesus say that one who
breaks one of these moral command
ments may still have a place in the king
dom of heaven, since he says he shall be
called least in the kingdom of heaven.
Many interpreters have taken this to be a
euphemistic way of saying he shall be
excluded from the kingdom. Or it may
mean that the member thus offending may
retain a place (though the least place) in
the kingdom because "his antinomianism
is not a principle, is not directed against
the law as such, but only against in
dividual precepts of the law which are in
themselves small." Or it may have this
general meaning: That "greatness in the
kingdom of God" turns upon the degree
of perfection with which a man himself
[fulfills the least commandment of the law
(as Jesus was on the point of interpreting
and expounding it) and teaches others to
do so.

fcsus and the Old Testament. 241
But however it is to be explained, and
even if it cannot be satisfactorily explained
at all, it is a much less difficulty than
would be involved in understanding Jesus
to teach that " all parts and particulars of
the law of Moses without exception or dis
tinction are to be observed while the world
endures." In fact, it is almost impossible
to conceive of Jesus saying this, in view of
all that we know he did say and mean and
do. It is perfectly clear that he did not
give his sanction to the perpetuity of the
ceremonial precepts of the Mosaic law.
On the other hand, he assumed authority to
cancel them, and did cancel them, while
in dealing with the moral law he abrogated
what was contrary to the spirit of love, he
amended what was defective, he amplified
what was partial; but he did not destroy
any part of the moral law. For if he
seems to do so in the verses following our
passage, it is only seems. He did what he
said he came to do — he fulfilled, he filled
16

242 The Son of Man.
up, he filled out, what was quantitatively
incomplete and qualitatively imperfect.
To show his hearers that the law in the
form in which it was given in the Old Tes
tament was incomplete and imperfect was
the first step in the process of completing
and perfecting it, of fulfilling it.
After all his labored discussion of this
difficult saying of Jesus, Wendt's view is
substantially the same. He says: "In con
sciousness and in aim Jesus retained the
idea of the old and did not produce what
was absolutely new; but he sought to bring
the imperfect expression of that idea to per
fection by retaining part of the traditional
form of this expression as valid and by re
jecting another part as without worth, whilst
still another part was changed, or replaced
by what was quite new according as this
was required by the uniform idea of the
whole."1 'Teaching of Jesus, ii. 26.

Jesus, and the Old Testament. 243
"Jesus' assurance that the Old Testa
ment contained a true revelation of God
was not founded on the idea that all
the words of the Old Testament were of
equal value and must be regarded as having
the same absolute authority. He possessed
the spiritual freedom to discern the imper
fection of the Old Testament Scripture and
to set his own doctrine in a position of su
periority to that of the Old Testament. He
possessed also the devout historical sense,
in spite of the necessary divergence of his
doctrine from that of the Old Testament, to
understand the connection between the two
and to appreciate and uphold what was per
manently true in the Old Testament. He
combined the recognition of the revelation-
significance of the Old Testament with
inward freedom in regard to the letter of
the Old Testament and with the conscious
ness of possessing a more perfect revelation
himself."1 1 Teaching of Jesus, ii. 33, 34.

244 The Son of Man.
" From such parts of the Old Testament
as harmonized with the revelation which he
had personally experienced, and which af
forded a valuable confirmation of that reve
lation, he had the certainty that the law and
the prophets were a true revelation of God,
and that their authority was not to be simply
abrogated. On the other hand, so far as
he, nevertheless, found in the law and the
prophets contents which did not agree with
the revelation of which he had inward cer
tainty, he was led to conclude that the true
revelation of God did not exist in perfect
form in the law and the prophets, and that it
was his peculiar task to set forth in perfect
form the revelation of the divine will. In
this sense he could say that he came not to
destroy the law and the prophets, but to
fulfill."1 If any one, holding a mechanical view of
the absolute and equal inspiration of all

'Teaching of Jesus, ii. 15.

fesus and the Old Testament. 245
parts of the Old Testament, should feel of
fended at this view of the imperfection of
its contents, the question may be asked,
If the revelation contained in the Old Tes
tament was not imperfect and incomplete,
where was the necessity or utility of Christ's
coming at all, and what did he bring or add
that we did not have in the Old Testament
already ?
It should be said that there is still another
view of the difficult passage, Matt. v. 17-19.
Understanding that Jesus has in mind the
Mosaic law as a whole, including the cere
monial, some take the word "fulfill" as
meaning that he would supply the reality
that should answer to the symbolical intent
and significance of all the parts and partic
ulars of this ceremonial system. That is, he
would reveal the reality of which the temple
was the type, of which the holy of holies
was the type, of which the Levitical sacri
fices were a type, of which the Levitical
purifications were a type, etc.

246 The Son of Man.
But in the first place, it is unfortunate for
this view that Jesus does not adopt this
method of adjusting and harmonizing the
old and the new. The apostle Paul does,
in some particulars, as when he declares
what he conceived to be the spiritual sig
nificance of the rite of circumcision. The
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has an
elaborate scheme worked out on the idea of
showing what realities the types of the old
system corresponded to. But Christ, so far
as I can recall, never adopts this method of
Old Testament exegesis, and never tries in
this way to explain the ceremonial features
of the old system or to unify the old and tbe
new. He never allegorizes or spiritualizes
the external ceremonial rites of the Old
Testament. If this had been his view, one
would think he would in a few instances
have illustrated this method, and yet he has
not left on record a single example of it.
He seems always busied with things of
greater weight and import than taking care

Jesus and the Old Testament. 247
of the endless ceremonial matters of the Le
vitical system. He referred to these only
to abrogate them.
And in the second place, amid the multi
tude of ceremonial prescriptions found in
the Old Testament there are many for
which no corresponding spiritual counter
part can be found. If so, then there were
some that could not be "fulfilled" in this
sense. But did not Jesus himself observe all the
ceremonial rites and perform all the cere
monial acts prescribed in the Old Testa
ment ? We cannot answer this question pos
itively, for we do not know. But the indi
cations are that he did not. It is tolerably
certain that he did not observe the Levitical
distinction of clean and unclean meats. And
it is pretty clear that he did not observe the
letter of the Mosaic requirements concern
ing even so important and sacred an insti-
tion as the Sabbath. Compare Ex. xxxi.
14, 15; Ex. xxxv. 2, 3; Num. xv. 32-36.

248 The Son of Man.
On the other hand, all that we know for
certain is that he generally, though proba
bly not always, attended the Passover, and
sometimes some of the other yearly feasts
at Jerusalem. But he may have done this
partly because there was something really
suggestive and instructive in the ceremo
nies and exercises of those great occa
sions, and partly because at these great
gatherings he came in contact with and
had opportunity to teach a greater number
of people than he could otherwise have
reached. Moreover, even if it could be shown that
he personally observed many or all of the
details of the Mosaic law, which cannot be
done, still we can readily see how it might
be best for him as a Jew to do so. To
abandon all this suddenly and summarily
might be too abrupt and radical, so revolu
tionary as to defeat his mission to the Jew
ish nation.
What has now been said applies more es-

Jesus and the Old Testament. 249
pecially to the law. But Jesus included the
prophets also in his remarkable saying, " I
came not to destroy the law or the proph
ets, but to fulfill them." The word "fulfill"
means the same when applied to the pro
phetical writings that we have found it to
mean in its application to the law. Jesus
did not come to set aside what the prophets
had said, to deny the revelation imparted to
them by God, or to diminish their author
ity. But the revelation imparted to the
prophets and through the prophets was also
imperfect and incomplete. Why it was so,
why God did not give to them a complete
and perfect revelation such as Christ gave,
it would be idle to inquire. We have only
to compare the revelation given through the
prophets with that given by Christ, to see
the fact.
The prophets knew, but they knew in
part; they prophesied, but they prophesied
in part. They saw, but they saw through
a glass darkly. Christ saw face to face.

250 The Son of Man.
He knew even as also he was known.1 It
was his mission to supply what in them was
lacking, to correct what was erroneous, to
complete what was imperfect.
Take some examples: The doctrine of
immortality, while it is contained in the Old
Testament, is not brought out with frequen
cy or fullness. At any rate, it does not
seem to have been a clear conception with
the sages and seers of the older dispensa
tion. They did not seem to see it clearly
and grasp it firmly. With Jesus it is as
clear as the light and as sure as God. It
was he " who brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel."
We have already seen that in the view and
representation of the kingdom of God by
the prophets, while it is a kingdom of right
eousness, it is also a kingdom of this world
with a present theocratic king ruling in
power and reducing all the kingdoms of the
1 Compare Matt. xi. 27.

Jesus and the Old Testament. 251
world to his sway. With Jesus the king
dom of God is a purely spiritual-ethical
conception, excluding all elements of a tem
poral-worldly nature.
As to'the idea of God, the Old Testament
seers and saints had a conception of him in
comparably purer, higher, and nobler than
is to be found anywhere else in history or
literature.1 Individually many of them were
thoroughly interfused with the idea of God's
personality and with a sense of his presence
and holiness. And yet, in comparison with
the conception which Jesus has given us of
God, their conception was imperfect.
This very question as to the relation of the
new to the old was, in one form or another,
1 It is ignorance or prejudice or perverseness that
speaks of the Old Testament as being on a level with
the so-called sacred books of other peoples. It stands
alone. They are not to be mentioned on the same day
with it. They express aspirations after God; the Old
Testament is a revelation of God. They may be seek
ers of light; the Old Testament i6 a giver of light.

252 The Son of Man.
the problem of the apostolic age: How
could Christ and Christianity supersede the
Old Testament system as being imperfect
and transitory, if it contained a real reve
lation from God? Or, how could the Old
Testament contain a true revelation from
God and of God, if it could be and was to
be superseded as imperfect or transitory by
Christ and Christianity? Paul faced the
problem, and we see how vigorously he
wrestled with it, especially in parts of the
Epistle to the Romans, as chapters iv., vii.,
ix., x., xi. Indeed, it is so prominent in the
Epistle that some great scholars think this
problem to be the chief topic and its solu
tion the chief purpose of the Epistle. (So
Dr. Baur. ) It is treated by Paul in Gala
tians also, and is touched upon in others
of his epistles. If this problem is not
the theme of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
as some think it is,1 it is the theme of a
'Though others, as Harnack and McGiffert (Apos
tolic Age, p. 471), think it is not.

Jesus and the Old Testament. 253
very large section of the Epistle, in the
course of which the author significantly and
strikingly says, quite in accordance with
what we believe to be Christ's view, "If
that first covenant had been faultless, then
would no place have been sought for a sec
ond." x In the same chapter he says, "The
mention 'of a new covenant implies that the
first covenant is old. But that which is
growing old and becoming aged is nigh unto
vanishing away."2
John does not labor at the problem e*r
stop to discuss it. He summarily disposes
of it in one pregnant sentence: "The law
was given by Moses, grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ" (i. 17).
One fact is quite noteworthy. The New
Testament biographies of Jesus record those
sayings of his in which he recognizes the
divine inspiration of the writers of the Old
Testament, and the true revelation of God
'Heb. viii. 7. 2Heb. viii. 13.

254 The Son of Man.
contained in the Old Testament, and those
sayings also in which he criticises, corrects,
amends, or abrogates the contents of those
Scriptures, thus implying the imperfection
of that revelation ; but their authors make
no attempt to harmonize these views of Je
sus. They do not seem to feel that they
need to be harmonized. They simply re
cord the facts. And what a proof have we
here of their veracity !
Another reflection : One would think that
With the example which Jesus gave them of
freedom in dealing with the Old Testament,
the apostles would have gone on further in
the same direction. But no. Either they did
not comprehend this free handling of the Old
Testament by Jesus, or possibly they did not
even discover it. For they are incompara
bly more bound down to the Old Testament
' than Jesus is. Indeed, after eighteen hun
dred years Christians are only beginning to
discover the freedom of Jesus' attitude to
ward the Old Testament and his judgment

Jesus and the Old Testament. 255
of it as imperfect, incomplete, and, in parts,
contrary to the truth of which he had clear
revelation and absolute certainty. We have
to go to Jesus to learn the right estimate of
the Old Testament, and we are just finding
this out. These facts stand as a striking in
stance of Christ's superiority to his contem
poraries and to eighteen centuries of their
successors. Jesus is still ahead of the
world. It is a reversal of the true order
to say, " Back. to Christ." Our cry should
rather be, " Forward to Christ."
Note. — The treatment of Jesus' relation to the Old
Testament in this chapter is incomplete. The Study
on Jesus' Quotations from the Old Testament was ex
cluded by the prescribed limits of this little work.

XII.
The Transfiguration.
The synoptic Gospels agree in placing
the transfiguration a few days after the jour
ney to Caesarea Philippi and the occur
rences which there took place. The pur
pose of Jesus in withdrawing into those re
mote regions was doubtless that he might
prepare himself and the disciples for the
crisis which he saw was fast approaching
in his life. As he withdrew for retirement
and meditation into the desert at the open
ing of his ministry, and, as we have seen,
there became more fully acquainted with
what it was to mean and received prep
aration for it; so now, when he saw
that the turning point in his ministry was
reached, and he was to enter upon its last
stage and turn his face toward the sorrow
ful experiences of the close, he withdrew
(256)

The Transfiguration . 257
into a remote and unfrequented region for
meditation and prayer, and for the instruc
tion of the disciples in those approaching
events about which they did not know and
for which thej' needed preparation. He
seems to have been unwontedly abstracted,
not to say depressed, and, though he was pre
eminently a man of prayer, he gave himself
to prayer at this time more constantly and
earnestly than was common even for him.
We learn from the third Gospel that he
was praying alone with his disciples x there
in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi
just before he asked them the questions that
would elicit their impression and estimate of
the Son of man. And when he found they
were well grounded in a conviction that sat
isfied his consciousness as to his person,
then he sorrowfully revealed to them what
had doubtless taken possession of his own

'Luke ix. 18: "It came to pass as he was praying
alone, his disciples were with him.''
17

258 The Son of Man.
mind, the inevitable death that awaited him
after only a little while. After this inter
view, he seems to have withdrawn still fur
ther into the solemn solitudes of the neigh
borhood of Mount Hermon.
It is not improbable that he spent the eight
days intervening between the conversation
at Caesarea Philippi and the transfiguration
in prayer. For we are informed that at the
beginning he was engaged in prayer; and at
the close, seekingyet deeper retirement and
privacy, he took his three most intimate
friends among the Twelve and withdrew yet
further into some remote part of the wild
mountain heights, in order to pray.1 The
scene reminds one of the later time when,
withdrawing to a lonely garden with the
Twelve, he took the three trusted ones
apart again that in his loneliness he might
not be utterly alone, and prayed the prayer
of Gethsemane. The struggle of Gethsem
ane was already in his soul when with the
1 Luke ix. 28.

The Transfiguration. 259
three he ascended the heights of Hermon
to find a deep retreat for prolonged prayer.
It was doubtless a foretaste of Gethsem
ane and his prayer was for strength to meet
the coming bitterness. The transfiguration
was the answer. "As he was praying, the
fashion of his countenance was altered, and
he was transfigured before them, and his
face did shine as the sun/'1
It is held by some2 that the transfigura
tion was primarily for the benefit of the dis
ciples, and that it was a vision, a sort of half-
waking dream, and not an objective reality.
We believe it was neither.
We have seen in our study of the bap
tism of Jesus that when he dedicated him
self to the Messianic mission in submitting
himself to baptism, the Father, at that sol
emn crisis, gave him an objective revelation,
confirming his consciousness of Messiah-
' Luke ix. 29; Mark ix. 2; Matt. xvii. 2,
2 Weiss, iii. 101; Gilbert, 276, 277.

260 The Son of Man.
ship and accepting and approving his act
of voluntary self-dedication to the Messianic
vocation. If he needed this testimony from
the Father at the opening of his ministry,
we can see no reason why like testimony
may not have been needed by him at the
turning point in his ministry. And if the
testimony of the Father at the baptism was
given to confirm his consciousness of Mes
siahship, as we have seen, it would be in
accord with that to interpret the transfigu
ration as meant to confirm as well as approve
his deliberate choice of death in fulfillment
of his Messianic work. For it was imme
diately after his full, deliberate, and decisive
self-dedication to death that the transfigura
tion occurred; and his death was the sub
ject of converse between him and the heav
enly visitants.
Moreover, if the conversation about his
death was intended for the benefit of the
disciples, as, on the theory we are oppos
ing, it must have been, then it must have

The Transfiguration. 261
failed of its purpose. For according to
the account of Luke they were heavy with
sleep, while according to Mark they were
so dazed with the sights they saw that Pe
ter, not knowing what to say, talked as one
whose mind wandered. Again, if it was in
tended for the benefit of the disciples, this
must mean that it was to prepare them for
the ordeal to which they were to be subjected
when their Master and Lord was delivered
into the hands of his enemies and put to
death as a malefactor. But it had no such
effect. They were not prepared for that
event. They were unnerved and con
founded by it; and they fled away in ter
ror. Nor were they restored to a state
of confidence and courage till after the
resurrection; for it was the resurrection,
and not the recollection of the transfigura
tion, which changed them from cowards to
conquerors. The transfiguration, then, was
for Jesus himself, for Jesus the Son of man,
who under all the infirmities, limitations,

262 The Son of Man.
and disabilities of human nature was bear
ing a burden never hitherto borne, and
treading a path never hitherto trodden by
any human being. In it he was solitary.
He had no companionship and no sympa
thy; for there was not one on earth who
understood him. When he looked out
upon the dark and lonely way of duty
and deliberately chose to walk in it, it is
no great wonder that in his human weak
ness and dependence he prayed long and
intensely for the recognition and sympathy
of his Father in heaven and for some token
of encouragement. And it is hardly a
greater wonder that his Father should an
swer, and answer in the transcendent apoc
alypse of the transfiguration.
It was not then a subjective vision, a
half-waking dream of the sleepy disciples.
It was more probably an objective reality,
given to Jesus for his own sake and inci
dentally witnessed by the disciples who were
with him. If it had been a mere vision or

The Transfiguration. 263
sort of trance, the writer could have said
so. And he probably would have said so.
For the same writer does speak of such a
trance and such a vision in his other book,
the Acts of the Apostles, where he says,
" Peter fell into a trance, and he beheld the
heaven opened and a sort of vessel descend
ing, as it were, a great sheet," 1etc. He also
speaks of visions of Paul, and he makes it
plain that they were visions, i. e., he says
they were visions. He says,2 "A vision ap
peared to Paul in the night: There stood
a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, say
ing, Come over into Macedonia, and help
us." Another instance: " Then spake the
Lord to Paul in the night by a vision," 3 etc.
Perhaps something similar, in kind, to
the transfiguration is to be found in the
case of Stephen, who, in doing what he
probably knew would cause his death,
was following in the steps of his Master:
"And all that sat in the council, fastening
'Acts x. 10, 11. 2Acts xvi. 9. 3Acts xviii. 9.

264 The Son of Man.
their eyes on him, saw his face as it had
been the face of an angel."1 This could
hardly have been a subjective vision of the
members of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
'Acts vi. 15.

XIII.
The Self-Consciousness of Jesus.
Human beings are so constituted by na
ture that they have manifold impulses and
passions, the repression of which involves
struggle and pain, while their indulgence
gives enjoyment. There is consequently a
strong tendency to gratify the desires and
passions, a tendency which human nature,
as a rule, is too feeble to resist. With the
development of the sense of individuality
there arises also an element of perverseness,
an impatience of restraint, whether from
within or without, the assertion of the right
to have one's own way. Thus the dor
mant sin-principle is developed; it proves
too much for conscience and will, and sin
is the inevitable and universal result. Con
stant self-denial is necessary to refuse to
follow the natural impulses that promise
(265)

266 The Son of Man.
pleasure, and to choose only the ways that
are right. This self-denial is the practical
moral problem and task of life, and in it all
men have failed : unless Jesus was an excep
tion. Have we reason for believing that Jesus
was an exception ? So far as his life is cov
ered by the records, there is no fault to be
found in him. If we may quote once more
the words of Dr. Keim, "It was a whole, a
full, a blameless life, no piecework, no
mixture of the lofty and the base. It is the
completion of man as man, the ideal of God
in his creation, realized."1 But can it be
historically established that his life, from
beginning to end, was without sin? This
can hardly be done by an examination of
his actions and words as recorded by the
evangelists, for they do not cover every act
and detail of his whole life, much of which,
in the nature of the case, had to be omitted.
'Jesus of Nazareth, ii. 63.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 267
It is a fact, however, that the apostles as
cribe to him perfect freedom from sin:
" Who did no sin, neither was guile found in
his mouth." 1 " Him who knew no sin, he
made to be sin on our behalf." 2 " Tempt
ed in all points like as we are, yet without
sin."3 And it should be remembered that
this was on the part of men who held the uni
versal sinfulness of humanity and its need
of redemption, and is therefore certainly to
be taken in its strictest sense. While this
testimony of the apostles could not of it
self establish proof of the sinlessness of
Jesus, yet, considering the character of the
men and their knowledge of Jesus, as well
as their knowledge of human nature, it has
great weight in connection with other facts
to be adduced.
In answer to his question, " Which of you
convicteth me of sin ?" his adversaries were
silent.4 From this silence we can at least in-
1 1 Pet. ii. 22; iii. 18. 22Cor. v. 2:.
3 Heb. iv. 15. *John viii. 46.

268 The Son of Man.
ferthat his life, as far as it was known, was
free from reproach. But Jesus makes use
of this admitted external blamelessness of
his life to deduce from it a sinlessness that
would insure his truthfulness. (See the
context.) "If you cannot convict me of
any sin, why can you not believe what I
say?" If, when Jesus said this, he had at
the same time been conscious of any sin,
then he, who so often accused the model
men of his day of hypocrisy, would certain
ly have been guilty of hypocrisy himself;
and, as Weiss strongly says, he would have
been more wicked than the hypocrites whom
he exposed and denounced. Again, Jesus
said that he did always those things that
pleased God.1 He not only asserted this as
a fact, which is one thing; he also gave it as
the reason why God was always with him,2
which is another thing. He had very con-
'John viii. 29: "He that sent me is with me: the
Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those
things that please him." 2 See context.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 269
fused notions of moral rectitude, and was
sadly self-deceived, if he gave what he knew
to be a lie as the reason why God was al
ways with him. In another place he de
clares that he has finished the work which
his Father had given him to do.1
These passages are from the fourth Gospel,
but in the synoptics there are evidences which
are all the stronger because they are indi
rect, for this shows that they could not have
been invented from dogmatic motives. He
there teaches that all men are sinful by na
ture ; that all men are to be changed and to
acquire a disposition which by nature they
have not; he demands repentance from all
men ; he declares of all believers that an in
finite debt has been forgiven them; and he
teaches them to pray daily for the forgive
ness of their offenses. And yet there never
appears in himself the slightest trace of any
feeling of penitence or of regret for what he
has said or done. No prayer for forgive-
1 John xvii. 4.

270 The Son of Man.
ness ever crosses his lips. He never gives
expression to the consciousness of enjoying
for the first time peace with God or of com
ing into harmony with God. He knows
nothing else but to be the Son of his heav
enly Father, and is always conscious of his
Father's love and approval, while all others
must first become sons, and even then they
must pray for the forgiveness of sins. He
sets himself over against the whole sinful
race of men as their Redeemer, and ulti
mately as their Judge. " These are facts,"
says Weiss, "which no criticism can shake.
They speak for themselves. The dilem
ma," he goes on to say, " is one from which
there is no escape: He who has removed
from the eyes of all the blindness of self-
deception and of self-righteousness, who
has taught us all to seek forgiveness where
it is to be found, he was either the chief of
sinners, for self -righteous* pride is the root
and climax of sin, or he was the only sinless
one, upon whose life the peace of God rest-

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 271
ed. Not because he knew not the tempta
tion and the conflict, without which no man
can reach the summit of moral perfection,
but because he approved himself in every
temptation and gained the victory in every
conflict. Thus he, who was all through his
life sinless, became the absolutely good, the
image of his Father in heaven."1
While Jesus was the Son of man, and
man, the single fact of his sinlessness sets
him apart from all other, men and puts him
in a class by himself.
But in other respects as well Jesus stands
apart from other men. He expressed the
consciousness of possessing a knowledge of
God that was unique. The knowledge was
peculiar to himself, and his possession of it
was exclusive. The most striking utterance
of this consciousness to be found in the
synoptics, and perhaps in the four Gospels,
1 Weiss, Life of Christ, i. 353, 354.

272 The Son of Man.
is that saying of singular depth and beauty
preserved for us in Matthew and Luke.1
The setting is different as given by the two,
and in either case it is difficult.2 That of
Luke seems to be the more natural and prob
able. According to him it is included in a
joyous utterance of thanksgiving to his Fa
ther for the success which had attended the
mission of the company of disciples whom
he had sent out to supplement the labors of
the Twelve, and for. his goodness in reveal
ing the knowledge of himself to such as are
infants in simplicity and lowliness of spirit.
The sense of the passage seems tobe some
thing like this: I thank thee, Father, Sov
ereign Disposer of all things in heaven and
earth, that thou didst not make choice of
the wise men of this world in order to reveal
to them and deposit with them the knowl
edge of thyself; but that thou hast chosen
'Matt. xi. 25-27; Luke x. 21, 22. It is called by
Keim " the pearl of the sayings of Jesus."
2 Keim rejects both settings.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 273
such as have the simplicity and receptivity
and lowliness of little children. And be
cause my simplicity and lowliness and re
ceptivity are complete and perfect, and I am
one with the Father, the Father has com
mitted unto me and deposited in me per
fect knowledge of all these things, so that
no one knows me, no one understands my
inner life of fellowship with the Father, my
perfect lowliness of spirit, my intuitive and
complete knowledge of all things, except the
Father himself. And no one has true and
perfect knowledge of the Father except the
Son, because no one has perfect lowliness
and guilelessness and receptivity of spirit
except the Son. Nor can any one get a
knowledge of the Father till the Son shows
him how. So, then, come unto me and learn
of me, and I will teach you how. I am meek
and lowly in heart. Do you become meek
and lowly in heart, as I am, and you shall
have revelation of the Father and find rest. '
Parallel in meaning to this is the saying of
18

274 The Son of Man.
Jesus in John vii. 16, 17: " My teaching, at
which you marvel, is not mine, but his that
sent me. And if any man is willing to learn
in the same way, willing to surrender his
will to the will of God and to be at one with
him, he shall come to know the teaching,
and see that it is of God."
In our passage he did not give expression
to his consciousness of a unique knowledge
of God for the sake of didactically impart
ing that fact, but, incidentally, in the midst
of his thanksgiving to the Father for making
known himself and his truth to those of in
fant-like spirit and disposition, such as his
disciples, then returning from their success
ful mission,1 at least in some degree were.
And in thinking of himself as the illustra
tion,2 par excellence, of this, he naturally
passes on to an expression of the conscious-
1 If this be the proper setting.
2 That this is the probable course of his thought is
indicated by his description of himself as meek and
lowly in heart, given in Matthew's report.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 275
ness which he had of a knowledge of God
which was perfect and which was peculiar
to himself. The thanksgiving thus passes
naturally over into this utterance of his con
sciousness, and this as naturally into a loving
invitation to all who, under the discipline of
life, were able and willing to become like-
minded, to come to him and learn how.
This may or may not be a correct view
of the course of his thought. In any case,
the fact remains that the man Jesus in this
saying, preserved for us by the synoptics,
in the calmest and most natural manner, ex
presses the consciousness, on the one hand,
of being such a person that none but the
omniscient God comprehended him, and on
the other, that no one but himself had a true
and adequate knowledge of God.1
1 But we may reverently ask, Is this interpretation
of his consciousness by Jesus sustained by the facts?
Did he actually reveal in his teachings and life a
knowledge of God that was absolutely unique? This
consciousness of his is of such a nature that we can

276 The Son of Man.
It is to be noted that this is much stronger
than if he had merely said that he himself
had a true and adequate knowledge of God.
His language means that he knew what
knowledge of God all others had (or did
not have), and he knew that none of them
knew God. This extraordinary claim must
have been based on a yet deeper conscious-
subject it to actual test and verification. The match
less things he said remain on record. He gave to the
world a new conception of God, and by means of it he
set in motion a moral revolution and a Godward move
ment among men which has been going on for these
two thousand years, and is now more potent and more
widespread than ever before. By common consent,-
both of those who believe him divine and those who do
not, he spake and taught concerning God as never man
spake or taught, before or since. One of the latter class
has said of him: " He poured out a doctrine beautiful
as the light, 6ublime as heaven, and true as God. . . .
Eighteen centuries have passed since the sun of hu
manity rose so high in Jesus. What man or sect has
mastered his thought or comprehended his method
and applied it to life?" (Theodore Parker, in Bush-
nell's Nature and the Supernatural, p. 326.)

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 277
ness of bearing a relation to God which was
exclusive, which in the nature of the case no
other could bear. Otherwise, how could he
know the universal negative which he de
clares? In other words, how could he know
enough about all other men that had lived,
were living, or should ever live, to be able to
say of them that no one of them knew God ?
The knowledge of God which Jesus was
conscious of having was not imparted to
him by the Holy Spirit ; for the Holy Spirit
did not come upon him until his baptism.
He had it from childhood. It was a con
scious element of his own nature, of his
own personality, and was due no doubt to
the fact of his relation of essential, organic
union with God.1
As a matter of fact, he has, in many in-
1 It could hardly be by virtue of omniscience; for
this he never claims; on the contrary, he apparently
disclaims it. Mark xiii. 32. See also Study IV. on
his Equipment.

278 The Son of Man.
stances and various ways, given expres
sion to the consciousness of a relation of
unique intimacy with God. No doubt it
was in this that his perfect knowledge of
God was grounded, and his knowledge of
the ignorance of all other men as well. For
though this knowledge was probably based
on the perfect simplicity and receptivity of
his nature, as we have seen, through which,
as through a transparent medium, the things
of God shone into his soul, it was probably
due to his deep and vital relation to God
that his simplicity and receptivity were ideal
and perfect. Again and again he speaks of
himself as enjoying an intimacy of relation
to God which no other member of the hu
man race has ever had or dreamed of hav
ing. This, as well as his unique knowledge
of God, is clearly implied in the remarkable
passage from the synoptics which has just
been the subject of our study.1
1 Matt. xi. 25-27; Luke x. 21, 22.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 279
There are other sayings of Jesus in which
his consciousness of a unique relation to
God is implied rather than expressly de
clared. This incidental implication of it
seems all the stronger because of its inci
dental character. It indicates that this re
lation of unique intimacy with God was
an organic, inseparable element of his
consciousness which he unconsciously ex
pressed even when speaking of other
topics. At the conclusion of his answer to the
charge of being in league with the chief of
devils, he says, " Whosoever shall speak a
word against the Son of man, it shall be for
given him ; but whosoever shall speak against
the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him,
neither in this world, nor in that which is to
come." -1 In associating himself in this man
ner with the Holy Spirit, he, as it were, un
consciously reveals his consciousness of a
'Matt. xii. 32; Luke xii. 10.

280 The Son of Man.
unique sanctity and majesty of person.
Again, there must have been some singular
element in his consciousness which led him
to feel that it was necessary to give the in
formation that sins committed against him
self were pardonable. If he was not pro
foundly, organically conscious of a nature,
rank, and sanctity above that of men in
general, why was it not true as a matter of
course that sins against him might be for
given, as sins against other men? Who is
this Son of man? What is this Son of man
that he should thus single himself out from
the race of men and inform us that sins com
mitted against himself were not unpardon
able ? Why should he thus singularly couple
himself with the Holy Spirit of God, and
that in a saying the subject of which was
the divine majesty and inviolable sanctity
ofthe Holy Spirit? In doing so he plainly,
though incidentally, reveals a consciousness
that differentiates him from all other men.
It should be borne in mind that this say-

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 281
ing' is recorded not in the Gospel of John,1
but in two of the synoptic Gospels.
That is a remarkable sa}'ing of Jesus re
corded in the Gospel of Mark2 concerning
the time of the final consummation. "But of
that day or that hour knoweth no one, not
even the angels in heaven, neither the Son,
but the Father." Here the upward grada
tion in the enumeration of man first, then the
angels, then the Son, and lastly the Father,
gives to the Son a rank superior to men,
superior to angels, and second only to the
'There is a saying in the fourth Gospel which is
suggested by this one, and may be cited here. In John
xiv. 28, he tells his disciples that if they had loved him
they would have rejoiced that he was going to the
Father; "because," he adds, "the Father is greater
than I." Surely he must have had the consciousness
of a peculiar personal relation to God who felt that
there was any reason for declaring that God was
greater than himself. Imagine any man, the best and
wisest of men, saying, " God is greater than I." What
would be thought of a man who should publicly de
clare, " God is greater than I am " ?
2 Mark xiii. 32; also Matt. xxiv. 36. Synoptics again.

282 The Son of Man.
Father. This may give us a small hint as
to the significance of the designation, Son
(of God), which Jesus frequently uses of
himself. And yet, notwithstanding the rank
of the Son and his unique relation to the
Father, the saying mentions something of
which the Son was ignorant. But it does
so as if it were a strange and surprising
thing that one who enjoyed his nearness to
God and his intimacy with God should not
be aware of it.
The same relation of unique intimacy
with God is involved in the parable of the
Wicked Husbandmen, who maltreated and
slew, first, the servants of the lord of the
vineyard, and then his son. And indeed it
is implied in all the passages where Jesus
by speaking of himself as the Son, the Son
of God, expresses the consciousness of
standing in a relation to God closer than
that of men or angels.
If now we examine the Gospel of John, we
shall find this relation of unique intimacy

The Self-Consciousness offesus. 283
with God declared by Jesus with frequency.
A few instances will serve to illustrate. In
John x. 38 he says, " The Father is in me,
and I in the Father." This is perhaps a
different way of expressing what he had al
ready said in verse 30, "I and the Father
are one." While this probably does not
mean unity of metaphysical essence, but, ac
cording to the context, unity of purpose and
action in the plan of redemption, yet, even
so, it represents the Father as being in the
Son and moving in him in such a way that
the Father acts in the things planned and
done by the Son in his world-relation as Re
deemer; while the Son does nothing that is
without the sphere of the Father's person
and action. The same thing is declared by
Jesus in a general sense in John v. 19-23:
"The Son can do nothing of himself but
what he seeth the Father doing. . . . For
the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him
all things that himself doeth. . . . For as
the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth

284 The Son of Man.
them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom
he will. For neither doth the Father judge
any man, but he hath given all judgment
unto the Son that all men may honor the Son
even as they honor the Father." Again, in
verse 26, "As' the Father hath life in him
self, even so gave he to the Son also to have
life in himself." For the Son could not
quicken whom he would (verse 21), nor
cause the dead to live (verse 25), if he had
not in himself a divine and independent
fountain of life like the Father, which the
Father gave him. He is conscious of bear
ing such a relation to the Father that others
must first come to him and through him
come to the Father: "No man cometh to
the Father but by me." '
As in the passage already quoted from the
synoptics, he singled himself out from among
men, and spoke of himself in a singular way
in relation to the Holy Spirit ; so in the Gos-
'John xiv. 6.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 285
pel of John he classes himself with God the
Father in a common plural : " 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."1 What
would be thought of any man, even the
greatest and best of prophets or apostles,
who should say of himself and the eternal,
absolute God, "we"? " If any man will
love me, Isaiah, we, the eternal, invisible,
unsearchable God, and I ( Isaiah ) , will come
unto him, and make our abode with him."
" If any man will love me, Paul, and keep
my word, the great and holy God and I
(Paul) will come to him, and we will make
our abode with him." 2
These instances from the Gospel of John
hardly go beyond what is implied in sayings
of Jesus to be found in the synoptics, such
as the one already considered from Matthew
xi. and Luke x. And even if they do, it is
'John xiv. 23.
2 Cf . John xiv. 1 : " Believe in God and believe in me."

2S6 The Son of Man.
well to bear in mind, on the other hand,
that in the Gospel of John Jesus expresses
his absolute dependence on God, as is no
where done in the synoptics; as in John v.
19, he says, "The Son can do nothing of
himself"; John v. 30, "I can of myself
do nothing." As to his teaching, he said
(John vii. 16), " My teaching is not mine,
but his that sent me." Again, John xiv.
24, he says, " The word which ye hear is
not mine, but the Father's who sent me."
See also John viii. 40.
If Jesus bore the relation to God which
is implied in all the utterances we have con
sidered, it is not strange thathe should have
called himself the Son, the Son of God, and
have called God his Father, in a sense entire
ly unique. For if he had the consciousness
expressed or implied in these utterances, it
must have been part of, or based on, the con
sciousness of a relation to God that was in
timate, vital, essential, organic. The rela
tion of sonship has all these qualities. On

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 287
the other hand, if he had the consciousness of
sonship, it is not strange thathe should have
had and expressed the consciousness of that
intimacy with God which is implied in all the
utterances we have been studying.
Whence and when did he get the con
sciousness of sonship? It falls infinitely
short of the truth to say that he derived it
from the fact that the title Son of God was
a current designation of the Messiah. It
seems unreasonable to suppose that he would
take up a superficial, official phrase to des
ignate himself with, when he knew, as the
records show ( not merely the official relation
of Messiah but), all the deep experiences
tbat were involved in a sonship that was real
and vital. He could hardly have adopted
the phrase from current usage. For he
knew God as his Father and himself as his
Son from God's own testimony at his bap
tism. Nay, he knew God as his Father in
the clear, calm depths of his pure soul when
he was but a child, as shown in the incom-

288 The Son of Man.
parable sketch in our third Gospel.1 In all
probability when he first came to conscious
ness, there came to him the consciousness
that God was his Father.2 Certainly it was
not learned from any outside source, not even
from his mother. For she "understood not
the saying which he spake unto them."3
It seems a little strange that, with the facts
of the record before them, students should
go looking about through current Jewish
literature, or even through the Old Testa
ment, for the origin of Jesus' self-designation
as the Son of God. That he was the Son
of God was a matter of consciousness with
him from the opening of his consciousness,
and was the ground of his consciousness of
being the Messiah, as we have seen.4 " He
did not, from the knowledge of his Messianic
mission, conclude that special qualities of his
person were unique, and that he stood in a pe
culiar personal relation to God. But, on the

1 Luke ii. 40-50. 2 Compare Study I. 25.
3 Luke ii. 50. * See Study III.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 289
contrary, his consciousness of a peculiar per
sonal relation to God furnished the ground
work for the knowledge of his Messianic mis
sion. Certainly it is true that Jesus in his con
sciousness of being, in the sense referred to,
' the Son of God,' had a firm basis for his
consciousness of being called to the Messiah-
ship."1 "The consciousness of his Mes
sianic calling was founded on the knowl
edge of his unique relation to God."2
" The consciousness of being the Mes
siah undoubtedly rested on the certainty of
being the Son of God, and therefore of
knowing the Father and being constrained
to proclaim that knowledge." 3
In perfect accord with his consciousness of
possessing a unique knowledge of God, and
of bearing a vital relation of intimacy with
God, is the attitude which he habitually as
sumes toward the earlier revelation and the
1 Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, ii. 124, 130.
'Weiss, Life of Christ, ii. 342.
s Harnack, History of Dogma, i. 64, note.
19

290 The Son oj Man.
authority which he exercises in reference to
the Old Testament. Though fully recog
nizing the divine origin and the divine au
thority of the revelation contained in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament, in the law
and the prophets, as well as the divine origin
and authority of the institutions therein pre
scribed, nevertheless he did in both word
and act, explicitly and implicitly, express the
consciousness of possessing authority supe
rior to that of lawgiver, prophet, priest, or
king, authority to modify, amend, extend,
correct, or abrogate what in those Scrip
tures was not in accordance with the knowl
edge of truth which he was conscious of
possessing. Everything said or prescribed
in that older revelation was to be judged
by the standard which he possessed, and
was to yield to his authority.
An instructive example of his conscious
ness of superiority to institutions of the ear
lier dispensation may be found in the pas
sage which describes the eating of wheat

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 291
by his disciples as they walked through the
wheat fields on the Sabbath.1
In answer to the Pharisees who charged
his disciples with breaking the Sabbath in
rubbing out the grains of wheat, he said:
" Have you not read in the law, how that
the priests in the temple, so to speak, pro
fane the Sabbath by doing on the Sabbath
the work required for the services of the tem
ple, and are guiltless? But I say unto you
that one greater than the temple is here."
He goes on immediately to say further:
" The Son of man is Lord of the Sab
bath." If the sanctity of the temple is such
that the priests are justified and guiltless in
doing work required for its services on the
Sabbath, how much more were his disciples
guiltless in serving him who was superior to
the temple and Lord of the Sabbath ! His
authority, under which his disciples acted,
was superior to the sanctity of the temple
and the law of the Sabbath.
'The incident is given in Matthew xii. 1-8.

292 The Son of Man.
In his conversation with the woman of
Samaria, he virtually declared that the whole
divinely prescribed system of temple wor
ship and ritualistic service was superseded
and done away, and from that hour was to
have nothing to do with the true worship
and service of God.
As to the law and the prophets, we have
seen in a previous chapter how Jesus
showed the consciousness of superiority to
these, and in fact exercised his authority
over the law, both moral and ceremonial,
by extending, supplementing, correcting,
and abrogating according to the ideal fur
nished in his own innate knowledge of God
and truth. In the same way he expanded
and "fulfilled ' ' the imperfect outline of truth
discerned and delivered by the inspired
prophets and sages of the old dispensation.
Solomon was reputed to be, and probably
was, the wisest of the Old Testament sages
whose profound reflections on life and its
duties are preserved in the so-called wisdom

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 293
literature of the Old Testament; and yet
Jesus expressed the consciousness of a
wisdom deeper than any that was discov
ered by Solomon: "A greater than Solo
mon is here."
When in answer to his question as to the
interpretation which current opinion had
formed of him, the disciples answered that
some held him to be Jeremiah, others Eli
jah, while all held him to be of the class of
prophets, none of these conceptions, high
as they were, especially for Jews, satisfied
his consciousness. It was only when the
confession of Peter placed him above and
beyond all the prophets, and singled him
out as Messiah and Son of God, thathe was
satisfied with their estimate of him. And
it was only for their own good that he was
concerned to have them know who and
what he was, and not for the sake of the
honor of it; for according to all three syn
optics,1 he charged them to tell no man that
1 Matt. xvi. 20; Mark ix. 30; Luke ix. 21.

2Q4 The Son of Man.
he was what they had discovered him to be.
On another occasion — it was when he had
just given expression to the consciousness
of a relation of unique intimacy with God —
he turned to his disciples and said private
ly to them: "Blessed are the eyes which
see what ye see; for I say unto you, Many
prophets and kings desired to see what ye
see and saw it not, and to hear what ye hear
and heard it not."1
These examples are sufficient to show what
the consciousness of this singular being was
in relation to the revelations and institutions
of the divinely given system of the Old Testa
ment and in comparison with the greatest of
the divinely commissioned lawgivers, proph
ets, and sages of the old dispensation.
There was another element in the con
sciousness of Jesus which was peculiar to
him, differentiating him from all religious
teachers and setting him apart from the
Luke x. 21-24.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 295
greatest and holiest men of Israel's history.
To the paralytic they brought to him on one
occasion1 he said, with a composure which
betrayed no consciousness that he was as
suming a doubtful prerogative or invading a
province not legitimately his own, "Son, thy
sins are forgiven thee." And if we may
trust the unanimous testimony of the first
three Gospels, the reality of his authority
and the genuineness of the pardon were
demonstrated to the eyes of the beholders
by nothing less than a miracle.
In the same spirit of ineffable gentleness,
and with the same tone of unquestioning
conscious right, he pronounced forgiven
the many sins of the woman who was a
sinner.2 Now it cannot be said that Jesus exer-
iMatt. ix. 2-6; Mark ii. 3-12; Luke v. 18-25.
2 Luke vii. 36-50. It would be difficult to think of
this matchless sketch as a forgery or as a legend that
grew, even if there had been time for legends to grow
between the death of Jesus and the date of Luke's Gos
pel.

296 The Son of Man.
cised this authority on the ground that it is
a prerogative belonging to good men in gen
eral, to be exercised by them in the name of
God. For the words that he used, by way
of prefacing the miracle which furnished a
visible demonstration of his authority, imply
that, according to his consciousness, it was
an authority peculiar to the Son of man:
" That ye may know that the Son of man
has authority on earth to forgive sins,"
then said he to the paralytic, " Take up thy
bed, and go unto thy house." Nor can it
be maintained that Jesus here uses the
phrase, Son of man, as a representative
designation of himself in the sense that as a
representative of man he here does what
belongs to him in common with other good
men. He elsewhere and frequently de
clares that it is also his peculiar preroga
tive to be the supreme and final judge of
men. In most of these sayings he desig
nates himself as the Son of man. It can
hardly be inferred from this fact that he

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 297
meant that other good men are to share in
this awful function of judgment.
But we have not by any means exhaust
ed the contents of the consciousness of Je
sus when we have considered that side of it
which related him to God. There was yet
another element in his consciousness which
was never an element in the consciousness
of any other human being. He has ex
pressed in many instances and in manifold
ways, direct and indirect, the consciousness
of a relation to the entire race of human
kind which was peculiar to himself, which
was not even shared in by any other, proph
et or apostle, saint or seer. This unique
relation to mankind was such an essential,
inseparable element of his consciousness that
he again and again gives incidental expres
sion to it, even when discoursing on topics
of a general nature.
At the opening of the great moral dis
course, known as the Sermon on the Mount,

298 The Son of Man.
speaking of the persecutions that will fall to
the lot of the disciples, he says, ' ' Blessed are
ye when men shall reproach you, and perse
cute you, and say all manner of evil against
you falsely ,for my sake.1 Luke in his report
of the same discourse has, "for the sake of
the Son of man." 2 Again, in the same dis
course, he says of himself, "Think not that
/ came to destroy the law or the prophets ;
I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." 3 In
warning his hearers against the delusion of
a spurious profession of piety, in the latter
part of the same discourse, he refers, in a
purely incidental way, to his own relation
to men as Lord and Judge: " Not every one
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall en
ter into the kingdom of heaven. . . . Many
will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,
etc. . . . Then will I profess unto them, /
never knew you: depart from me, ye that
work iniquity."4 Again, in his vivid de-
1 Matt. v. 11. 2 Luke vi. 22. 3 Matt. v. 17.
4 Matt. vii. 21-23.

The Self- Consciousness of Jesus. 299
scription of the last judgment, he not only
represents the Son of man as executing the
functions of final judge; in the course of
the description, with apparent unconscious
ness of the fact, he speaks of himself as
" the King." " Then shall the King say
unto them on his right hand." 1 In this way
incidental allusions to his peculiar relation
to men are inwoven into the very texture
of his discourse on all subjects; and he
can hardly speak on any subject without
some way bringing it in.
When he comes to speak directly and
explicitly on this subject, he is conscious of
a necessity that men should follow him,
and forsake all in order to follow him with
primary and supreme devotion: "There
fore, whosoever he be of you that renoun-
ceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my
disciple." 2 More than this, he is conscious
of a necessity that men should be attached
to him by a bond deeper and stronger than
' Matt. xxv. 31, 34. 2 Luke xiv. 33.

300 The Son of Man.
that which binds them to the very nearest
and dearest of human relations: "If any
man cometh unto me and hateth not his own
father, and mother and wife and children
and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple." 1 To be
ashamed of him in this world, even though
acknowledgment of him cost life itself, will
result in being turned away from his favor
when he comes as Judge and from the pos
session of eternal life, at the last day.2 Collis
ion with him will result in utter ruin.3 He de
clares there is peculiar value and virtue in acts
that are done in his name and for his sake.4
He is for men the sole revealer of God
and of truth. In the profound saying in
Matt. xi. 27 and Luke x. 22, he declares of
himself, "No one knows the Father but
the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal him." In a passage of
similar import in the Gospel of John he
1 Luke xiv. 26, and in other instances.
2 Mark viii. 38. 3 Luke xx. 18. 4 Mark ix. 41.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 301
says, "I am the way, and the truth, and
the life: no one cometh unto the Father
but by me."1 These and similar sayings,
while asserting a unique relation to God and
a unique knowledge of him, assert, as well, a
singular and exclusive ability on the part of
Jesus to reveal the truth concerning God to
men. Once more, the consciousness of his
unique relation to the world as the revealer
of truth is expressed in those vivid and
beautiful words, "I am the Light of the
world : he that followeth me shall not walk
in the darkness, but shall have the light of
life." 2 In three other instances he declares
the same thing: " When I am in the world,
I am the light of the world." 3 " Yet a lit
tle while is the light among you." 4 "I am
come a light into the world, that whosoever
believeth on me may not abide in the dark
ness."5 In these and passages of similar
'John xiv. 6. 'John viii. 12. 3John ix. 5.
4John xii. 35. 5John xii. 46.

302 The Son of Man.
import he has expressed over and over again
the consciousness of being the mediator of
truth to mankind.
But he is conscious of being to them
the mediator of life, as well. We have
already noticed this, in brief, in connec
tion with what was said concerning his
consciousness of a relation of unique inti
macy with God: "As the Father hath life
in himself, even so gave he to the Son also
to have life in himself."1 As in this say
ing, so, frequently, a statement by Jesus
of his relation to God is accompanied
by a corresponding statement of his rela
tion to man. To Thomas in the upper
room, bewildered over what he had said
about going away, he spoke these profound
but comforting words: " I am the way, and
the truth, and the life."2 To Martha,
troubled with the mystery of death, and
clinging to the hope of a resurrection of her
'John v. 26. 2John xiv. 6.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 303
Beloved in the far-away future, he said, "I
am the resurrection and the life." x In the
beautiful words of John xv. he teaches his
disciples that it is necessary for them to
abide in him, if they want true life, as it is
for the branch to remain in vital connection
with the vine. He, in external guise the
peasant artisan of Nazareth in Galilee, was,
nevertheless, in his consciousness, " the life-
tree of humanity. ' '
One of the titles that express the relation
he sustained to men was that of Messiah.
This title he was very chary of using him
self; and yet he undoubtedly had the con
sciousness of being what this word was in
tended to represent. In his prayer in John
xvii. 3, he says, " That they should know
thee, the only true God, and him whom
thou didst send, even Jesus Christ."
When the Samaritan woman said to him,
" I know that Messiah cometh," he replied,
'John xi. 25.

304 The Son of Man.
" I that speak unto thee am he." x Again,
in Luke xxiv. 26, in his conversation with
the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, he
said, "Behoved it not the Christ to suffer
these things, and to enter into his glory?"
To the assembled disciples in Jerusalem,
after his resurrection, he said, "Thus it
is written, that the Christ should suffer."
(Luke xxiv. 46.) In Mark xiv. 62, in an
swer to the question of the high priest, "Art
thou the Christ the Son of the Blessed?"
he said, " I am." In Matt. xvi. 17 he ac
cepts the title of Christ which Peter had
given him, in saying, " Flesh and blood
hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Fa
ther which is in heaven." These, with
Matt, xxiii. 10, are the few instances in the
Gospels where he uses the title of himself,
and in every case but the first he uses it in
directly. In two cases he accepts it from
others. He probably did not use the title
ljohn iv. 26.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 305
oftener, first, because of the gross miscon
ception and perversion of it by all classes
of the Jews,' and he knew that to have de
clared his Messiahship before he had correct
ed popular views and set forth the spiritual
nature of his mission and work, would prob
ably have excited a popular insurrection and
provoked the hostility of Rome; and sec
ondly, because it was an official title de
scriptive of the office he was to fill rather
than of what he in himself essentially was.
He shrank from calling himself Messiah as
a modest man would refrain from calling
himself by his official title, as "Judge" or
" General." However, he did not leave it
a matter of doubt that he was the Messiah
of the Old Testament and of God.2 In the
saying recorded in Luke iv. 21, while he
even here refrains from using the title, there
is an open assumption of the functions of
'Cf. Study VI. on the Kingdom of God.
2 in spite of Martineau's view, Seat of Authority
in Religion, pp. 329- 358-
20

306 The Son of Man.
Messiahship. He declared that he was the
subject of Old Testament prophecy and the
end of the Old Testament dispensation;
that is, he was Messiah.1 And once, at a
solemn moment of his life, he emphatically
declared he was Messiah. (Mark xiv. 62. )
What dignity the office of Messiah involved
may be seen in what Jesus says of it in rela
tion to David, in his interview with the Phari
sees. He said to them (Matt. xxii. 42),
" What think you of the Christ [Messiah] ?
Whose son is he?" They say, " The son
of David." Quoting the one hundred and
tenth Psalm, he replies in substance : " The
inspired psalmist attributes to the Christ,
1 Harnack is right in saying that in spite of the crit
ics the fact that Jesus called himself Messiah stands
the test of the most minute investigation. (History
of Dogma, i. 63, note.) But he seems to go too far
in saying, "Jesus gradually declared himself to the
people as Messiah by the names he assumed; for the
names King, Lord, Son of David, Son of man, Son of
God, all denote the Messianic office, and were familiar
to the greater part of the people."

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 307
for whom you are looking, a far higher
position than that of David's son, a mere
prince of Israel, who, as you suppose,
will set up a kingdom on earth like that
of David, only enlarged and glorified.
The sacred writer speaks of the Christ as
David's Lord, sitting at Jehovah's right
hand and ruling forever as an exalted Priest-
king."1 This exalted dignity he was con
scious of possessing, for he knew he wras
Messiah. But he did not therefore call him
self Son of God and Son*of man because he
was officially Messiah. On the contrary, he
was conscious of being called to the office
and dignity of Messiah, because he was Son
of God and Son of man. He arrived at the
conclusion that he was Messiah because he
was conscious of being a unique person
among men, with unique relations Godward
and manward. We know he had the in
ward consciousness of being the Son of God
from childhood, and he received at his bap-
1 Cf. Davison's Praises of Israel.

308 The Son of Man.
tism an outward testimony from his Father
in authentication of his inward conscious
ness. He was also conscious of being a
man; but, being such a man as he knew
he was, he was conscious that his man
hood, though normal, was yet unique,
representative. Hence he needed a new
name and he chose one, which, whether
we can analyze its full content or not, every
one feels to be most appropriate and im
pressive: "The Son of man." It makes
little difference whether he was influenced
in the choice of this self-designation by the
passage in Daniel vii. 13, or in Psalm viii.
4, or Ezekiel ii. 1 ; iii. 1, 4, 16; v. 1 ; vi. 1,
etc.; or by passages in the book of Enoch.1
For it is used by Jesus in senses which it
could not bear in those places. If it was
adopted by him from any of these sources,
'Chapters xlvi.-lxxi., pp. 127-186, edition of Charles.
See a full discussion of the phrase, " Son of man," in
Charles's edition of the book of Enoch, pp. 312-317.

The Self -Consciousness offcsus. 309
it underwent a transformation in his thought
and use, and had meanings higher, deeper,
broader, and more manifold than in any
previous use, biblical or other; just as Je
sus' conception of the kingdom of God was
immeasurably in advance of either the bib
lical or the current conception.1
Nor can it be maintained that the pnrase,
Son of man, is merely a synonym of Mes
siah. As Professor Orr says, "There is no
evidence apart from the doubtful book of
Enoch that it was a current title of Mes
siah at that time." On the other hand, the
Gospels contain indications that it was not.
According to John xii. 34, " the multitude "
of Jews said to Jesus: " We have heard out
of the law that the Christ abideth forever;
and how sayest thou the Son of man must be
lifted up? Who is this Son of man? " If
this passage is to be trusted, it seems to af
ford proof that the phrase, Son of man, was
1 See Studies VI. and VIII. on the Kingdom of God.

3 to The Son of Man.
not a synonym for Messiah among the Jews.
Moreover, if by assuming the title, Son of
man, as a current designation of Messiah,
he meant to identify himself as Messiah
before the people, why did he not oftener
assume the title of Messiah itself? As a
matter of fact he did not, in an explicit dec
laration and of his own accord, call himself
Messiah a single time, though he did call
himself the Son of man habitually, through
out his ministry. Messiah he was, officially;
the Son of man he was, essentially.
He was the Son of humanity, so to speak.
He was born of humanity, a member of the
human race, dependent on human parentage
for his human existence ; one with humani
ty, sharing the conditions and experiences
of humanity. He shared the lot of the
poorest of his fellow-men, for " the Son of
man had not where to lay his head." x He
shared their weakness and dependence.
'Matt. viii. 20; Luke ix. 58

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 311
He was defenseless in the hands of his
enemies. The Son of man was betrayed x
into the hands of bitter-hearted, merciless
men, suffered "- as the helpless victim of their
hate, unable, except by the abandonment of
duty, to extricate himself from their malice,
and from murder.
But as the Son of humanity, he was here
for the behoof of humanity, and all his life
and powers were to be expended in the serv
ice of humanity. ' ' For the Son of man came
not to be served, but to serve."3 "The Son
of man came to seek and to save that which
was lost," 4 and even " to give his life a ran
som for many." 5
As the Son of man, he puts the high pre-
'Matt. xvii. 22, 23; Luke ix. 44; Matt. xx. 18; xxvi.
2, 24,45; Luke xxii. 22,48, 69; Mark ix. 31; x. 33; xiv.
21,41. 2 Matt. xvii. 12; Luke ix. 22; Mark viii. 31.
'¦> Mark x. 45; Matt. xx. 28.
4 Luke xix. 10.
5 Mark x. 45; Matt. xx. 28.

312 The Son of Man.
rogatives and powers which belong to him
as the Son of God at the service of human
ity, and will exercise them, for their benefit,
even as " the Son of man hath power on
earth to forgive sins "A "the Son of man
is Lord of the Sabbath," 2 and for man's
good may legislate a new Sabbath. Last
and highest, the awful function of judgment,
which, as the Son of God, he has the pre
rogative of exercising, he will, as the Son of
man, have the preparation for exercising,
because as the Son of man, having passed
through all human experiences of conflict,
he knows the meaning of all our human
frailty. " The Son of man shall come in the
glory of his Father,"3 and " the Son of man
shall sit on the throne of his glory," 4 for
' ' the Father hath given him authority to ex-
1 Mark ii. 10; Matt. ix.6.
2 Matt. xii. 8; Mark. ii. 2S; Luke vi. 5.
3 Matt. xvi. 27.
4 Matt. xix. 28; xxv. 31; xiii. 41; xxiv. 27, 30, 37,
44; xxvi. 64.

The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 313
ecute judgment because he is the Son of
man ."1
The Son of humanity, he is of humanity
and for humanity, in birth, in life, in death,
and in judgment. The designation, Son of
man, then, habitually used by Jesus to ex
press his nature and his relations to human
ity, indicates that he was conscious of stand
ing in a unique relation to the race of man
kind in a general sense.
But he has expressed the consciousness that
his death, in particular, was in some vital way
connected with their well-being and their des
tiny, in what particular way there is not room
here to inquire. In a striking passage in the
Gospel of Mark,2 with parallel in Matthew,
he says of himself that the Son of man came
" to give his life a ransom for many."3 In
the institution of that singular and signifi
cant rite, the Lord's Supper, by which his
'John v. 27. 2Mark x. 45; Matt. xx. 28.
8 Anirvai T7JV ipv^i/v avrov Xvrpov avrl iroTCX&v.

314 The Son of Man.
followers were, in this objective way, con
tinually to remind themselves of his death
and, in a sense, to repeat it to the end of
the present dispensation, there is an expres
sion, stronger than words can make it, of
his consciousness that in some vital way
his death was connected with the well-being
of men. More specifically, in the account
of this institution as given by Matthew,1
the shedding of his blood is directly con
nected with the forgiveness of sins. The
same or even greater emphasis is given to
the meaning and value of his death in the
extraordinary sayings in the sixth chapter
of John's Gospel: "The bread which I
will give is my flesh, for the life of the
world. . . . Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood, ye have not life in
yourselves. He that eateth my flesh and
1 Matt. xxvi. 28: To aijid fwv to eK^vvvd^tevov sir afeoiv
dfiapTicjv.

The Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 315
drinketh my blood hath eternal life." (John
vi. 51-54.)
As we have seen, he represents himself
as conscious of being charged with another
function, which puts him in relation to the
race of men, and which is peculiar to him
self; a function which it is altogether
inconceivable any other man should be
charged with, which is nothing less than ap
palling by reason of the infinite difficulty
of discharging it rightly and the measure
less and awrful responsibility attaching to it.
And yet Jesus had no hesitation in saying
that this awful function belonged to himself.
On the contrary, he asserted it plainly, re
peatedly, directly and indirectly, with the
calmness of unquestioning certitude and the
consistency of a consciousness that knew
no wavering. It was the function of judg
ing the world. The instances where he
declares or alludes to his investiture with
this prerogative are so many and so well
known that it is not necessary to cite them

316 The Son of Man.
here. They occur throughout his ministry,
from the Sermon on the Mount, where he
says, "Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, but I will profess Unto them, I
never knew you, depart from me, ye work
ers of iniquity," to his declaration to the
high priest, when he was on trial (Mark
xiv. 62 ).1 However, this consciousness of
his is not so astonishing after all. If he
was in all other respects what he expresses
the consciousness of being, he is all the
more perfectly qualified to be the Judge of
men, in that he himself also was a man.
He knew all the meaning of being a man
'It is generally thought, and by many definitely
maintained, that the fourth Gospel is the Gospel of
Jesus' self-consciousness, while the other three do not
concern themselves with this phase of the history of
Jesus, but confine themselves to the narration of his
outward activity and the report of his practical dis
courses on moral subjects. This is only apparently
true. The survey of the contents of the self-con
sciousness of Jesus, as given in this Study, is drawn,
for the most part, from the sj-noptic Gospels.

* The Self -Consciousness of Jesus. 317
and subject to all the frailty of human nature.
Hence in the descriptions of himself as the
Judge of men he calls himself the Son of
man, and once he even gives this as the
reason why he is to be their Judge. (John
v. 27.)
The Paradox.
And yet, though he is forever conscious
of occupying such a position, of bearing such
a relation to God on the one hand, and to
the whole race of mankind on the other,
of being charged with such vital and awful
functions for all humanity, and of hold
ing a rank and place which immeasura
bly transcend all human dignities, and
though he is constantly giving expression to
this consciousness, either directly or inci
dentally, there is never an utterance of it
that betrays personal egotism or pride.
There is no suggestion of what we mean
by self-consciousness. Nor is there an act
in all his life that is an act of self-seek
ing. He demands with solemn insistence

318 The Son of Man.
that men shall believe on him and shall
abandon all in order to become his follow
ers; he has the consciousness of being able
to deliver them from sin and sorrow and to
give them rest; he demands that men shall
commit their souls and destinies to him ; he
promises that if they will come to him. they
shall have life and be rewarded with everlast-
ingblessedness in afuture eon ; such absolute
authority over men and such power to bless
men he has the consciousness of possessing;
and yet he does not allow himself to enjoy
this companionless distinction, to take any
pleasure in it, or to reap any advantage from
it. He considers it his lot to renounce even
the ordinary innocent joys of human life,
such as those of family and home, and to
suffer alone. He shrinks from or repels
every suggestion of friends and followers,
who mean well but do not understand him,
that he may have anything but a homeless
life of loneliness and suffering and sorrow
and a death of agony and shame. Indeed,

Tiic Self-Consciousness of Jesus. 319
we get the impression from reading those
marvelous portraitures of him in the Gospels
that, though he had an organic, ever-present
consciousness of a companionless and un
approachable majesty of person and rank
and function, yet he rather bore it as a bur
den than wore it as what we should call an
honor. "It will be found," says Dr. Bushnell,
" that in the common apprehension of men
Jesus maintains the merit of most peculiar
modesty, producing no impression more
distinctly than that of his intense humility
and lowliness. His worth is seen to be so
great and his spirit so gentle that instead
of being offended by the expressions of
his self-consciousness, we take the impres
sion of one in whom it is even a conde
scension to breathe our air. This impres
sion is received as naturally and irresistibly
by unbelievers as by his friends and follow
ers. I do not recollect any skeptic or infi
del who has even thought to accuse him as

320 The Son of Man.
a conceited person," : notwithstanding the
immeasurable superiority and unapproach
able dignity of which he expresses an ever-
present consciousness.
This paradox in the character of Jesus,
as presented in each of the Gospels, is so
well drawn out in the language of another
that we venture to quote his words at some
length: "To humanity struggling with its
passions and its destiny, Christ says, 'Cling
to me, cling ever closer to me.' If we be
lieve St. John, Jesus represents himself as
the Light of the world, as the Bread of life,
as the Shepherd of the souls of men, as the
Way to immortality, as the Life-tree of hu
manity. And if we refuse to believe John's
statement that he used these words, we can
not deny, without rejecting all the evidence
before us, that he used words which have
substantially the same meaning. We can-
' Modified from Chapter X. on " The Character of
Jesus" in Nature and the Supernatural, p. 291.

The S elf -Consciousness of Jesus. 321
not deny that he commanded men to leave
everything and attach themselves to him ;
that he declared himself King, Lord, and
Judge of men ; that he promised to give rest
to all the weary and heavy-laden; that he
taught them to hope for life from feeding
on his body and blood. But these enormous
pretensions were advanced by one whose spe
cial peculiarity was an almost womanly ten
derness and humility.1 And yet so clear to
'And yet Jesus was not effeminate or unmanly.
He had the courage to teach a purely spiritual-ethic
al righteousness as contrasted with the externalism
and ceremonialism of the leaders of the people. He
had the courage to actively oppose their views and to
declare before all the people that their righteousness
was hypocrisy and themselves hypocrites. See Matt.
vi. and xxiii. He had the courage to stand alone in
his view and exposition of the kingdom of God and of
the meaning of Messiahship. He turned not aside
when he saw that to persevere in this course was to
intensify the hatred of the ruling classes and to make
certain his death. Though he knew and declared that
it was to go straight to his death, he steadfastly set his
face to goto Jerusalem, and there delivered himself up
21

322 The Son of Man.
him was his own dignity and importance to
the human race, with which his own opinion
of himself had nothing to do, that in the same
breath in which he asserts it in the most un
measured language, he alludes apparently
with entire unconsciousness to his own hu
mility : ' Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.'
If his biographers have delineated his char
acter faithfully, Jesus was one naturally con
tented with obscurity, lacking the restless
desire for distinction and eminence which
is so common among great men, disliking
competition and disputes about who should
be greatest, finding something bombastic in
the titles of royalty, fond of what is simple
and homely, of children and of poor people,
occupying himself so much with the con-
to his murderers and of his own accord endured all
the ignominy and agony which his enemies could heap
upon him. While he was the tenderestof men, he was
by the severest tests the manliest and the bravest of
men.

The Self Consciousness of Jesus. 323
cerns of others, with the relief of sickness
and want, that the temptation to exaggerate
his own importance did not occur to him;
lastly, entertaining for the human race a
feeling so singularly fraternal that he was
likely to reject as a sort of treason the im
pulse to set himself in any selfish way above
them. Jesus, as it appears from his biog
raphies, was this humble man. When we
have pondered this fact, we may be in con
dition to estimate the force of the evidence,
which, submitted to his mind, could induce
him, in direct opposition to all his tastes and
instincts, to lay claim, persistently and with
the calmness of entire conviction, in oppo
sition to the whole religious world, to an au
thority and a dominion more transcendent,
more universal, and more complete than the
most delirious votary of glory ever aspired to
in his most extravagant dreams."1 And,
withal, these claims excite in us no feeling of
'Ecce Homo, pp. 191-194.

324 The Son of Man.
incongruity. They create no offense. They
do not seem to be a misfit. This extreme
paradox in the character of Jesus, so consist
ently and so consummately carried out from
beginning to end, seems to give to the rec
ords the stamp of reality and historicity.
The character of Jesus as here portrayed,
unconsciously exhibiting and sustaining this
paradox, is its own self-evidence.
To sum up : We have seen that Jesus was
a man in the full sense, " nothing human
alien to him ' ' ; and yet he was distinguished
from all other men in the singular combina
tion in a perfect degree of all the excel
lencies of human character, and still more
widely distinguished from all men in that he
was without sin, that he never asked for
forgiveness, he never gave expression to a
feeling of penitence or regret. In repeated
instances he expressed the consciousness of
an authority superior to the laws of the Old
Testament and the institutions of the old dis
pensation, and of a rank and authority supe«

The Self -Consciousness offesus. 325
rior to that of Old Testament prophets. He
assumed, exercised, and verified authority to
forgive sin. He expressed the consciousness
of possessing a unique knowledge of God,
and verified that consciousness before all
the ages of the world by the matchless, and
as yet unfathomed, truth which he revealed
to men concerning God. He expressed the
consciousness of sustaining a relation of
unique intimacy with God, a deep, essential,
organic relation, which is probably best ex
pressed and best described in his habitual
self -designation, The Son — the Son of God.
On the other hand, he was conscious of
a representative and singular relation, not
to the Jews alone nor to his age, but to the
race of mankind: He is their Lord and
King; he is the sole and exclusive reveal
er to them of God and truth, the sole and
exclusive mediator to them of life; he is the
Messiah, the one Anointed of God for re
vealing truth, for imparting life to men; by
his life and in his death he becomes for

326 The Son of Man.
men the Way to God ; he sets himself over
against the whole sinful race of men as their
Redeemer, and ultimately as their supreme
and final Judge.
And yet with the consciousness of this
transcendent, this solitary dignity and maj
esty, he showed himself destitute of any self
ish consciousness of his own importance.
As he was unique in his consciousness of
dignity and majesty, so he was unique
among men in meekness and humility.
Now what are we to say of a being of
whom all this is true? We cannot affirm
that he was mere man. We know that no
man is all this. All this is not true of any
man, nor is any single item of it true of any
man, not of the greatest and best the world
has ever known.
And if Jesus Christ was not mere man, in
what category shall we place him? If he
was not human, merely, what was he, if he
was not divine?

XIV.
The Resurrection of Jesus :
Its Historicity and Significance.
The historical evidence for the resurrec
tion of Jesus should be investigated apart
from theological prepossessions in favor of
it or philosophical prejudices against it.
The holding of certain philosophical views
as much predisposes some minds to under
estimate its value as theological training
predisposes others to overestimate it. A
priori considerations, such as the uniformity
of nature and the antecedent improbability
of miracles, especially such a miracle as the
resurrection, should not be allowed to inter
fere with a judicial and just estimate of the
evidence itself.
On a priori grounds, and before he
studied the historical evidence for it, the
writer (he may venture to say) was con
scious of misgivings as to the actual occur-
(327)

328 The Son of Man.
rence of the resurrection of Jesus, if not a
positive indisposition to believe in it, not so
much because of the antecedent improba
bility of miracles, as on the ground that he
could see no adequate reason for this par
ticular one. The life, the teaching, and the
work of Jesus seemed complete without it,
and it seemed altogether improbable that so
great a miracle should, as it were, be wast
ed. Not only did it seem to be unnecessa
ry, it seemed inconsistent with two of the
most striking facts in the life of Jesus. It
seemed to discount that unique dread of
death that Jesus showed again and again,
but especially in the Gethsemane struggle.
For if he was so soon to return to life, how
could death seem so terrible? It seemed
also to discount the value of his death, on
which such emphasis was laid by Jesus, es
pecially during the latter part of his minis-
ft
try. For how could his death mean so
much, if he was so soon to return to life?
But, upon closer examination of the subject,

The Resurrection of fcsus. 329
the historical evidence was found to be very
strong, if not convincing, despite these ad
verse a priori considerations.
There is much significance in the way
this evidence has been viewed and treated
by those who have not been willing to accept
the fact. The evidence for the fact is such
that it has evoked and taxed the ingenuity
of men to the utmost to meet it and to over
come it. In other words, the evidence is
such that men who have declined to accept
it have not only not found it easy to break it,
they have never seemed to rest satisfied that
it was broken. They are continually laying
on themselves the task of finding new ways
of breaking it. What has been done does
not suffice or satisfy. Adverse criticism is
continually resubjecting this evidence to the
rack, as if it were never sure that it was ef
fectually disposed of. This seems, at least,
to indicate that in their tacit estimation the
evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is very
strong and very stubborn.

330 The Son of Man.
The historical evidence for the resurrec
tion is direct and indirect.
I. The fact is attested in six of the books x
and by five of the writers of the New Tes
tament, in the form of historical narration.
Besides this, it is referred to as a fact, ac
cepted by writer and reader, in the Epistles,
where the object is not historical statement,
but instruction or exhortation. So that it
underlies, as a broad basis, the whole of the
New Testament.
There are four distinct records of the res
urrection of Jesus in the four Gospels, rec
ords which betray no dependence on each
other or knowledge of each other. So far
are they from being dependent oh each
other, they differ almost to the point of dis
crepancy. Indeed, some persons, not only
among scholarly and critical readers, but
among laymen, have found it hard to be
lieve the common fact of the resurrection
'The four Gospels, the Acts, and i Corinthians.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 331
recorded by them all, because of the appar
ent inconsistencies and even contradictions
which they think they find in the details.
Inasmuch as the four accounts are so en
tirely independent, it would be well to ex
amine each one in detail, if it were possible.
We must, in any case, give special attention
to the record of one or two of them.
It is to be remembered that in reading the
Gospel of Luke we are reading the work of
a man who has given us in a preface, which
has always been admired for its moderation,
dignity, and straightforwardness, a candid
statement of the character of the sources
whence he drew his information and of the
method of his research.1 It appears that
Luke had access to those who were eyewit
nesses.2 He does not say or claim that he
was himself an eyewitness, as he might well
have done, if he had been disposed to invent
1 Compare Study II. pp. 28-30.
2 Contrary to McGiffertin Apostolic Age, pp. 577, 578.

332 The Son of Man.
history instead of recording facts. If it be
thought that the fear of detection and expo
sure by those who knew he was not an eye
witness kept him from claiming to be such,
it may be said that the same fear would
have kept him equally from writing that he
learned these things from those who were
eyewitnesses, if he had not so learned them.
We may therefore accept with confidence his
statement that he derived his information
from eyewitnesses. But he declares further
that he exercised the utmost care in making
his investigations, the general motive for
which was probably strengthened by the
fact that there were " many" " narratives "
in circulation which may not have been
made up of properly authenticated facts, or
marked by accuracy of statement. He says
with fearless honesty that he had traced the
course of all things accurately from the be
ginning. He then gives a statement of his
purpose in putting together this narrative.
It is that his reader might know the certain-

The Resurrection of Jesus. 333
ty of those things in which he had been in
structed by word of mouth.
The history which Luke then proceeds to
give is in the true historical spirit. As far as
can be tested, he is correct in fixing the dates,
stating the facts, and collocating the events
of contemporary history. This, in the nature
of the case, finds ampler illustration in the
other book of the New Testament, of which
he is the author, the Acts of the Apostles. In
this, the points of contact with contemporary
history, political, social, and religious condi
tions, geography, etc., are very numerous,
so that it affords a greater number and va
riety of tests than perhaps most other docu
ments that have come down to us from an
tiquity, and every test only confirms the
veracity and accuracy of the narrative.1
' See Ramsay's St. Paul the Traveler and the Ro
man Citizen, and The Church in the Roman Em
pire; Hackett's Commentary on Acts; Lightfoot on
Galatians, Introduction, p. 184; Paley'sHorx Paulinas j
Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, by Smith.

334 The Son of Man.
Professor Ramsay in his very able work,
" St. Paul the Traveler and the Roman Cit
izen," places the "author of Acts among
the historians of the first rank," and the book
itself among " historical works of the high
est order, in which a writer commands ex
cellent means of knowledge, either through
personal acquaintance or through access to
original authorities, and brings to the treat
ment of his subject genius, literary skill,
and sympathetic historical insight into hu
man character and the movement of events"
(pp. 2-4). See also pp. 383-39°-
Bishop Lightfoot says : ' ' The Acts of the
Apostles, in the multiplicity and variety of
its details, probably affords greater means
of testing its general character for truth
than any other ancient narrative in exist
ence; and in my opinion it satisfies the
tests fully."1
This careful and conscientious writer,
1 Lightfoot on Galatians, p. 1S4.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 335
whose authorities were eyewitnesses, whose
investigations were thorough and accurate,
whose aim was " certainty," and whose
veracity was verifiable and verified by many
and minute tests, gives in the latter part of
his Gospel an account of the empty tomb,
the appearance of the risen Lord to the two
disciples on the way to Emmaus, to Peter,
and to the Eleven and their companions.
Why he did not give an account of other
appearances also, it is not possible to tell
with certainty. But it cannot be inferred
from this that he knew of no others. For
in the first chapter of his second book he
declares that Jesus "showed himself alive
after his passion by many poofs, appearing
unto them by the space of forty days."
Moreover, his account of the ascension, as
given in the Acts, is quite full and circum
stantial, while in the Gospel it is barely al
luded to. It thus appears that it was not
the purpose of the evangelists to give a full
and orderly statement of his appearances or

336 The Son of Man.
a cumulative and complete summary of the
evidence for his resurrection.
After Luke had written the first book of his
history of the origins of Christianity, he de
liberately writes in his second book that Jesus
showed himself alive after his passion by many
proofs. But this is not all. In this same sec
ond book he records the testimony of those
who were eyewitnesses of the risen Jesus, as
where, in Acts ii. 32, he records that Peter
says, "This Jesus did God raise up, where
of we all are witnesses." Again, Peter de
clares the same in Acts iii. 15, " Whom God
raised up from the dead, whereof we are
witnesses." Once again, Peter declares to
the Sanhedrin that they had crucified Jesus
but that God had raised him from the dead,
Acts iv. 10; and in Acts iv. 33, "With
power gave the apostles witness of the res
urrection of the Lord Jesus."
Yet again (Acts v. 30-32), to the Sanhe
drin (cf. verse 21), Peter says, "The God
of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye

The Resurrection of Jesus. 337
slew, hanging him on a tree. . . .And we are
witnesses of these things." At the house
of Cornelius, Peter says once more, "Whom
also they slew, him God raised up the
third day, and gave him to be made man
ifest, not to all the people, but unto wit
nesses, even to us who did eat and drink
with him after he rose from the dead."
And people by thousands, who were in a
position to know the general situation, and
to cross-examine the witnesses, accepted
the testimony of the apostles, and on the
strength of it separated themselves from
their past and from their people and commit
ted themselves, with a fervor and an enthu
siasm never before known, to a new life and
a new order of things, though it cost ostra
cism, persecution, and sometimes death.1
Luke records in this second book of his his
tory that upon the testimony of eyewitness
es to the resurrection of Jesus, a movement,

'Cf. Acts viii. 1 ; ix. 1.
22

338 The Son of Man.
incomparably the greatest and most revolu
tionary and at the same time the most be
neficent the world has ever known, was be
gun, and upon it was established that insti
tution which soon conquered and filled the
world. It is to be remembered that these several
instances of the testimony of eyewitnesses
of the resurrection, and the effect which fol
lowed this testimony in the establishment
of Christianity, are recorded by the same
writer whose conscientiousness and accu
racy are so graphically brought to view in
the preface to his first book, and whose
veracity has been verified by so many and
searching tests in his second book. For it
is accepted and held by criticism that who
ever may have written the third Gospel and
the book of Acts, it was the same person.1
Besides the testimony borne by the writer
of the third Gospel and the Acts, there is the
' See McGiffert's Apostolic Age, pp. 433, 578.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 339
account of the resurrection given in Mark's
Gospel, which is the earliest of the Gos
pels, and, in reality, rather the Gospel by
Peter than by Mark. His account of the
resurrection is very brief — indeed, seems to
be a fragment. The abrupt ending of the
second Gospel has led to the opinion that a
part of it has been lost. If so, then his tes
timony as originally given was fuller than
that which we have. If not, then. it remains
that Mark's account of so stupendous a fact
seems disproportionately brief and almost
unaccountably incomplete. It seems so from
our standpoint. Indeed, the account in each
of the four Gospels seems brief and incom
plete. But the standpoint of the writers
was so different from ours that just there
may be found the explanation of their
brevity. We have seen from the refer
ences to the book of Acts, that aftet
the death of Jesus the transcendent, over
shadowing fact of his resurrection had
taken complete possession of the minds of

340 The Son of Man.
his disciples and had become the all-absorb
ing subject of their preaching. Not only
so, through their preaching and their testi
mony it took possession of the minds of their
hearers — of everybody. In such a situation
there was little need and small motive for
giving any circumstantial or comprehensive
account of the resurrection, or any elaborate
statement of the evidence substantiating the
fact. It Would be carrying coals to New
castle. Everybody believed the fact of the
resurrection of Jesus, on the convincing oral
testimony of eyewitnesses. What need was
there of a studied, cumulative, and complete
statement of all the evidence that could have
been gathered for substantiating the fact?
And yet, ho memoir of Jesus would be com
plete which did not include some statement
of the resurrection.
It should be noted, in passing, that
the histories of the resurrection which
we have, without exception, confine the
appearances of the risen Lord to believ-

The Resurrection of Jesus. 341
ers,1 and Peter distinctly says that God
manifested him, not to all the people, but
to witnesses chosen beforehand of God.2
Now, if the stories of Jesus' resurrection
were inventions, the inventors would in all
probability have represented him as ap
pearing to multitudes of people, and would
have surrounded it with an eclat commen
surate with their estimate of the event.
What thought or motive could have in
duced inventors to confine the appear
ances to a very few witnesses, and those
believers? That they do so, is a strong
proof of their veracity and makes their
histories more probable. But they could
hardly have foreseen this, and for this pur-
' Not only so, they represent that even these were
very backward in accepting the fact of his resurrec
tion. They were slow to believe, hard to convince.
Even while looking on his risen form, " some " of them
"doubted." Matt, xxviii. 17. What motive could in
ventors have had for representing the resurrection as
so hard to believe?
2 Acts x. 41.

342 The Son of Man.
pose have all agreed in giving their narra
tives this turn.
If these observations be just, there is
the less need for a particular examination of
each of the four accounts as they are found
in the Gospels. We may content ourselves
with the suggestion that in concluding his
account of the life of Jesus, each one, out
of the abundance of material at hand, se
lected those details concerning the resur-
' rection which best suited his purpose in
writing or his personal taste and idiosyn
crasy, and wrote them down without any
thought of what others wrote, with the most
artless simplicity. At the same time, it is
admitted that in some minor and relatively
unimportant details there are discrepancies
which, with our present knowledge, we find
no way of reconciling.
But we have in the New Testament the
testimony of still another eyewitness. It is
that of one of the remarkable men of the
race. He was a man of immovable con-

The Resurrection of fcsus. 343
servatism, of intense moral earnestness, and
of unyielding firmness, not to say stubborn
ness of conviction; and he was, withal, the
most conscientious, deliberate, and zealous
opponent of the new faith in the ancient
world. This man came in contact with
such evidence for.the resurrection of Jesus
as to overcome his prejudices, break down
his unbelief, conquer his pride of self-
righteousness, and change him from the
most conscientious and relentless persecu
tor into the most passionate lover of Jesus
and the most zealous and untiring champion
of Christianity . The fact of h is conversion ,
ascribed, as it is, by himself to his persua
sion of the resurrection of Jesus, is in itself
a testimony to the resurrection which has
never been explained by those who deny it.
But beside this fact he has left on record
explicit and formal testimony to the resur
rection in one of his Epistles, one which is
accepted as genuine by the most extreme
and destructive critics. This is the remark-

344 The Son of Man.
able passage to be found in i Corinthians
xv. 1-8. His testimony here is not single
and simple ; it is twofold :
i. To the fact, which he could easily test
and which the tone of the passage seems
to indicate he had tested, that others
saw Jesus after his resurrection. It is
intimated that at the time when he wrote,
any one who wished, might even yet test
his statements . For when he says that some
of the eyewitnesses "had fallen asleep,
but most remain," what does he mean, if
not that those remaining could, even then,
be questioned, if any doubted and desired
confirmation of his statements?
2. To the factthat he himself, Paul, Saul,
had seen Jesus after his resurrection. This
he says in two places, i Cor. xv. 8, and I
Cor. ix. i. As already intimated, it was
the fact that he had seen Jesus after his
resurrection that changed this intensely ear
nest, this intensely moral man from an at
titude of conscientious and relentless hos-

The Resurrection of Jesus. 345
tility to the most passionate devotion and the
most tireless and joyful service. Noris the
appearance of Jesus to Paul to be regarded
as a subjective vision such as he had at
other times. For he explicitly declares that
it concludes the series of objective bodily
appearances and thereby separates these
from all subsequent visions, such as those
mentioned in Acts xviii. 9.1 (Compare
Acts xvi. 9 and xxvii. 23, 24.)
Moreover, we must not overlook the
passage in 1 Cor. ix. 1, where again Paul
claims to have seen the Lord Jesus. This
has a distinct significance. He was con
fronted by men who called in question his
apostolic authority. " What right had he
to interpret the Gospel in a peculiar way,
he who had no apostolic authority like the
Eleven, with whom he was declared to be at
variance?" Conscious that he had this
hostile attitude to reckon with, he says
1 See Meyer on 1 Cor. xv. 8.

346 The Son of Man.
among other things, "I have seen the
Lord." It was certainly his interest to
mean more than a subjective vision. For
his antagonists might very readily answer,
What is a mere mental vision compared to a
bona fide companionship such as the Eleven
enjoyed? It was to protect himself against
such a suggestion that he here declares he
had seen the risen Lord. He believed that
the Eleven, that Peter, in particular, had
seen the risen Saviour with the eye of the
body, and he meant to claim for himself a
vision of the same kind.1
II. There is also indirect testimony to
the fact of Jesus' resurrection, which is no
less strong than the direct. According to
the sources, the disciples immediately after
the death of Jesus were the most disap
pointed and hopeless of men. A little
later, they are found having a confidence,
a courage, and an enthusiasm which im-
1 Bruce, Apologetics, p. 396.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 347
pelled them to face the world with a dec
laration of his resurrection and to endure
all sorts of dangers and persecutions be
cause of their testimony. Moreover, it en
abled them to convince thousands of others
of the resurrection and to introduce and es
tablish on the ground of this fact a new or
der, a new society of men with new moral
principles, new moral energies, new mor
al character, and a new moral influence,
which from that beginning went on till it
revolutionized the thought, the theology,
and the moral condition of the Roman
empire and of the world. The change in
the disciples, and the revolution which was
wrought through them, can be accounted
for by nothing but that to which, in the
records, it is ascribed — their unquestioning
belief, their absolute assurance of Christ's
resurrection ; and nothing could have pro
duced this unquestioning and absolute as
surance, but the fact. Only their belief in
the fact of the resurrection could produce

348 The Son of Man.
and can account for so complete and
speedy a change in the disciples and
through them in the world; and only the
fact of the resurrection can account for
their belief.
Weiss, speaking of Baur, says: "The
greatest critic of our century has acknowl
edged that, for the disciples, Jesus' resur
rection had become a firm and incontesta
ble certainty, and that for them this fact
of their consciousness had all the reality of
an historical event. But the same critic has
had to renounce any hope of explaining the
phenomenon." L Here, then, is the crux of
criticism. The problem is to account for the
belief of the disciples in the resurrection of
Jesus and its effect upon them, in a way
that leaves out the fact itself; or in other
words, to explain away the fact, while ad
mitting what cannot be denied or evaded —
the belief of the disciples in the fact.
1 Life of Christ, p. 383.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 349
Can it be explained on the ground that
Jesus did not really die but only swooned
and was thought to be dead, but afterwards
revived? In the first place, the sources
bear unanimous testimony to the fact that
Jesus was dead ; and John adds that, even
after he was found to be dead, a Roman
soldier drove his spear into his side, prob
ably piercing the heart. In the second
place, if he had come to life in the tomb,
he could never have escaped from the sep-
ulcher, sealed with the great stone and
guarded by the Roman soldiery.
But in the third place, supposing that he
did revive from a temporary swoon, and
that he could have escaped alone and un
aided from the rock sealed and soldier-
guarded tomb in a natural way, it follows
that he thereafter continued to live, until at
some time and in some way he died a nat
ural death. Well, where did he live ? How
did he live? When and how did he die?
Who will suggest an answer to these ques-

350 The Son of Man.
tions ? If he did continue to live after hav
ing escaped from the tomb, he lived in
the consciousness of a deception and a lie.
Think, if you can, of Jesus hiding out and
skulking about until his natural death in or
der to keep up the stupendous fraud of a
pretended resurrection ! Moreover, if, after
reviving, he had concealed himself and did
not appear to his disciples, how would they
have come to a belief in his resurrection?
On the other hand, if after reviving in a
natural way he did appear to his disciples
for the purpose of producing a belief in his
resurrection, there is the conscious and de
liberate purpose of deception and fraud on
his part, which is irreconcilable with his
character, and inconceivable. More than
this, as Strauss himself has shown, it would
have been impossible for a being who had
stolen half dead out of the sepulcher, who
crept about weak and ill and in need of
medical service, and who at last yielded to
his sufferings, to have given to his disciples

The Resurrection of Jesus. 351
the impression that he was a conqueror over
death and the grave, and the Prince of Life
— an impression which lay at the bottom of
all their future ministry. Such a resus
citation could only have weakened the
impression which he had made upon them
in life and in death, and could by no pos
sibility have changed their sorrow into
enthusiasm and have elevated their rever
ence into worship.1 Besides, they must
have known of his subsequent dying, which
would have dispelled the illusion of a res
urrection !
For all these reasons, the swoon theory is
untenable. Jesus did not swoon. He was
not in a state of suspended animation. He
was dead. And yet, on the morning of the
third day, the body was gone. The rec
ords again bear clear and unanimous testi
mony that the tomb was empty; and this is
confirmed by the consideration that, if the
'Strauss, New Life of Jesus, i. 412.

352 The Son of Man.
tomb had not been empty, if the body of
Jesus had not disappeared, it would have
been the easiest and most obvious thing in
the world for the authorities to refute the
report of the resurrection by producing the
body. But they did not. The body was
gone. How is its absence to be accounted
for? (i) The friends and disciples could
not have removed it, for supposing Mat
thew's account of the guard to be true,
they could not have eluded the guard. (2)
"It is incredible that the disciples, who
did not believe that their Master would rise
from the dead, should at once, while smitten
and despondent, have conceived the colos
sal fraud of stealing the body and deceiv
ing the world." : They were the victims of
a colossal disappointment. They were par
alyzed. They were in no condition to vic
timize others, or even to think of victimiz
ing others. They were pitifully unmanned
' Gilbert, Student's Life of Jesus, p. 402.

The Resurrection offesus. 353
and utterly dazed. (3) If they had re
moved the body, it was of course for the
purpose of deception, and they would have
had a consciousness of fraud that would be
absolutely irreconcilable with their subse
quent behavior. It would have made their
confidence and their courage and their
whole conduct impossible and inconceiv
able. It is psychologically impossible that
the disciples, with the consciousness of a
lie, should have gone forth with the cour
age and enthusiasm which they exhibited, to
conquer the world, and that by means of a
conscious lie! (4) If the disciples had re
moved the body, the authorities doubtless
could, and certainly would, by some means
have compelled them to produce it in order
to refute the report of the resurrection and
throttle the new movement.
His enemies had no motive for removing
the body, for the absence of the body
would favor the claim of the resurrection.
It was to their interest that the body should
23

354 The Son of Man.
be present. But if, for any conceivable or
inconceivable reason, they had taken away
the body, they would certainly have pro
duced it, in order to refute the claim of the
resurrection* and stay the progress of the
pestiferous new sect.
The resurrection of Jesus cannot be ex
plained away on the hypothesis of a swoon,
or on the hypothesis that, though he was
really dead, his body was removed from
the tomb and the report of the resurrection
invented and spread abroad as an explana
tion of its absence.
There is still another theory. It is, that,
owing to the state of mind in which the
death of their Master left them, it was easy
for the disciples, after some time for reflec
tion, to fancy that they did see him, and
they either had visions of him or believed
they had. Of course, they were mistaken,
but they were honestly mistaken. This is
called the vision hypothesis.
f;- «... -«-¦«.  «_  _
In the first place, the disciples were not in

The Resurrection of Jesus. 355
a mental mood or state that was favorable to
subjective visions of their dead friend and
Lord restored to life and health. It is when
men are hopeful, sanguine, eagerly expect
ant, and the imagination is thereby stimulat
ed to an extraordinary facility and activity
in that direction, that they are likely to per
suade themselves that they see things which
they long to see. Loving and hopeful expect
ancy is a stimulus to the imagination in this
way. But we know they were in any mood
but one of hopefulness and expectancy.
They were utterly disheartened and cast
down. They "had hoped that it was he that
should redeem Israel " ;l but now all hope
was gone. His friends embalmed his body
for burial,2 laid it away in a tomb and closed
the tomb with a great stone;3 for they had
no thought of anything but that he was dead
forever. Only a few loving women had the
' Luke xxiv. 21. 2John xix. 39, 40.
8 Matt, xxvii. 60; Mark xv. 46; Luke xxiii. 53; John
xix. 42.

356 The Son of Man.
courage to think of visiting the tomb, and
that for putting more spices on his body,
forgetting in their hopeless grief that the
tomb was closed with a great stone. The
men were scattered, appalled, stupefied, and
did not think it worth while to look further
after the corpse. And when the report
reached tlieir ears that the Lord was risen
indeed, instead of responding to it with
alacrity, as the vision theory would require,
it sounded to them as "idle talk." x When
it was reported to Thomas that the Lord
was risen, so far was he from being in a re
ceptive or credulous attitude, that he de
clared that only the thrusting of his own
hand into the wound-cavities of the Lord's
body would convince him.2 Again, when
he appeared to the five hundred in Galilee
"some doubted," even while looking on
him.3 According to the vision theory, or at
least according to the only principle on
'Luke xxiv. n. 2John xx. 25. 3 Matt, xxviii. 17.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 357
which the vision theory could find a basis,
the disciples would have welcomed these ap
pearances (or visions, if such they were)
with the greatest alacrity and joy, and the
record would have so represented. Their
actions, however, show that they had swung
low in the opposite direction.
We have, contrary to the chronological
order, reserved the account of the appear
ances recorded in Luke xxiv. 36-38, to the
last: "And as they spake these things, he
himself stood in the midst of them, and saith
unto them, Peace be unto you. But they
were terrified and affrighted, and thought
they were beholding a spirit" (ghost). He
allayed their fear by asking why they were
" troubled." The disciples, by reason of
the awful things that had happened, were
already in a state of gloom, mixed with ter
ror. They were in no condition to fashion
for themselves visions of their Lord, risen
andrestored to them. They were in a con
dition most adverse to this. It was a con-

358 The Son of Man.
dition far more likely to stimulate the imag
ination to the creation of images of his dy
ing agonies on the cross, or of his mangled
and ghastly corpse. Indeed, it was a con
dition which, as a matter of fact, went far
beyond this in the same direction, and
which made them take or mistake the actual
body of their risen Lord for a ghost ! They
took that reality which they were not ex
pecting, and were in no condition to expect,
for a vision of a ghostly unreality which,
ipso facto, they were in a condition to
imagine. This is the record; and it is
exactly in accord with observed psycho
logical facts and a well-known psycholog
ical law.
But the vision theory involves another
consequence which is improbable and un
reasonable. We can imagine an individu
al here and there among men x so constituted
¦ As Mahomet, Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, Swe-
denborg.

The Resurrection of fcsus. 359
as to fancy in suitable moods that he sees
sights. But that a definite number of people,
no more and no less, and coinciding exactly
with the number of people who happened
to be disciples of Jesus, should be thus pe
culiarly constituted, and in particular should
each one have the same delusion of seeing
the same vision of what had no existence,
passes all belief. And yet this is what the
vision theory of Strauss would involve.
Just as Strauss himself criticised the swoon
theory and showed it to be untenable, so
Keim, a semi-naturalistic philosopher, saw
objections to the theory of Strauss which
led him to its rejection.1 After Keim dis
poses of the vision theory of Strauss he pro
poses a theory of his own : that Christ, re
suscitated in spirit and glorified, did produce
visions of his body in space for the encour
agement and assurance of his disciples.
This theory goes beyond the limits of nat-
'Keim, vi. 3S2-3S8-

360 The Son of Man.
uralism, and the author admits that it does.
" For the problem," he says, " is such that
it baffles science; and history can take cog
nizance only of the faith of the disciples that
the Master was risen, and of the marvelous
effect of this faith in the establishment of
Christianity. But in order to account for
this faith of the disciples and its effect in
conquering and renovating the world, we
must suppose, contrary to the natural order
to which science is confined, that God did
not let what he had ordained end in death,
or hand over the resurrection of Jesus to
the uncertain play of subjective visions."1
And those who will not accept the fact,
dissatisfied themselves with all theories that
have been proposed for explaining it away,
1 Keim, vi. 360-362. The theory of this masterly
mind is referred to here to show the difficulty of ac
counting for the records and the effects on any other
hypothesis than the fact of the resurrection, more than
for anything else ; to show how stubborn is the evidence
for the fact of the resurrection, how hard to dispose of.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 361
are still at work trying to invent new theo
ries. The venerable Dr. Martineau has
lately elaborated a new theory to this effect:
The apostles were unwilling to believe that
Jesus no longer lived. They could not be
lieve that death was the end of an excep
tional spirit like his. They had this convic
tion so strong that in their eagerness to con
vince others, they went so far as to say they
had seen Jesus.1 But this theory has the
weakness of the vision theory and the addi
tional embarrassment of imputing to the
apostles prevarication and deception.
The attempt has been made to show that
after the disciples had recovered from the
first shock of disappointment and grief, they
began to reflect on the meaning of the events
that had taken place, and on the words of
Christ, and that as a result of this process
of reflection, it gradually dawned on them
thathe had risen to "the eternal heavenly

' Seat of Authority in Religion, pp. 3*33-377-

362 The Son of Man.
life"; and in this confidence they went
forth preaching in his name.1 In the first
place, there was, according to the records,
no time for reflection. In three days they
had fully recovered and had rebounded to
the extreme of assurance and enthusiasm.
In the second place, the effect itself showed
that what happened to them was not what
the slow process of labored reflection would
produce . It had the suddenness , the power,
and the splendor of a sunburst. And sure
ly nothing less could have produced the un
bounded buoyancy which they exhibited in
spite of their forlorn condition, or have
prompted them to undertake the insane en
terprise which, with boundless enthusiasm,
they did undertake, and which they accom
plished! The evidence for the fact of the physical
resurrection of Jesus, apart from a priori
considerations, is convincing. It has not
' This is the view of Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, ii.
266, ff.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 363
been set aside, though many of the acutest
intellects of the ages, from Celsus to Strauss,
have taxed their ingenuity in the endeavor
to break its force. Still, as Dr. Bruce ob
serves, "All naturalistic attempts to explain
away the resurrection, up to this date, have
turned out failures. The physical resur
rection remains." '
And this is true, whether we can discover
an adequate reason for the resurrection or
not. The historical evidence, direct and
indirect, for the fact of .the resurrection
stands, independent of theological consid
erations, in spite of philosophical objec
tions. It stands alone. If, however, we
can discover the meaning of the resurrec
tion, and find some sufficient reason for it,
this will strengthen our confidence in the
result of the historical investigation.
What, then, would have been the situa
tion, if Jesus had not risen from the dead?
The followers of Jesus were few in num-
1 Apologetics, p. 397.

364 The Son of Man.
ber, they were without power, without pres
tige, without influence, without learning.
In short, they were peasants and women.
The world was not friendly to them. Jews
and Pagans had combined to destroy their
leader, and had succeeded. The forlorn
followers of that leader the world did not
even pity. It despised them. They, on
their part, with the loss of their leader had
lost hope and courage, and they cowered
before the world and slunk away from its
scorn and its hate.
If Jesus had remained among the dead ;
his followers would have bidden an eternal
farewell to their Leader and Lord and to
aU their hopes. They would have accepted
the verdict of fate and of their enemies, that
his death was the end-all. They would
have had no gospel to preach. The Acts
of the Apostles would never have been en
acted, and the Gospels would never have
been written. Paul would never have been
converted, his gospel would never have

The Resurrection of Jesus. 365
been preached, his Epistles would never
have been penned. Christian^ could
never have been established; the renova
tion of humanity would never have taken
place; and the kingdom of^ God would
never have been known. The world would
still be rotting with the corpse of Jesus.
After writing the above, the writer was
gratified to find substantially the same view
expressed by Keim in his "Jesus of Naza
reth." He says:
"All evidences go to prove that the be
lief in the Messiah would have died out
without the living Jesus; and by the re
turn of the apostles to the synagogue and
to Judaism, the gold of the words of Jesus
would have been buried in the dust of ob
livion. The greatest of men would have
passed away and left no trace. For a time
Galilee would have preserved some truth
and some fiction about him; but his cause
would have produced no religious exalta
tion and no Paul.

366 The Son of Man.
" The evidence that Jesus was alive was
necessary, after an earthly downfall which
was so unexampled. The evidence that he
was alive was given, by his own impulsion
and by the will of God. The Christianity
of to-day owes to this evidence, first its
Lord, and next its own existence. Thus,
though much has fallen away, the secure
faith-fortress of the resurrection of Jesus
remains." :
In general, then, if it was important that
Christianity be established in the world, it
was important that Christ should rise from
the dead.
But in particular: We have seen that
Christ's death was necessary, if not to his
teaching, yet to his redemptive work; and
yet his death seemed to be the defeat of his
whole mission. And it would have been,
but for the resurrection. If his death in
some way gave validity to his teaching, by
'Jesus of Nazareth, vi. 364, 365.

The Resurrection of Jesus. 367
adding to it an indispensable emphasis, and
if it completed his redemptive work, the
resurrection gave validity to his death, was
the proof not only that his death was not
the defeat of his work, but that it was what
he had represented it to be. If he had died
and not risen again, there would have been
no proof that his death was what he repre
sented it to be — was different from the death
of any other good man. This is substan
tially what Paul means when he says
(Romans iv. 25) that Christ was delivered
up to death on account of our offenses
and was raised again for our justification.
That is, the resurrection furnished the ob
jective basis for faith in the validity and
efficacy of his death.
But the resurrection of Jesus has a
broader meaning than this. It not only
gave validity to his death, it gave validity
to, by putting the crowning divine sanction
upon, his whole life, his character, his
teachings, his work, his unique claims.

368 The Son of Man.
This is substantially summed up by Paul in
what he says in his introduction to Romans
(i. 1-4). The words "according to the
spirit of holiness ' ' do not refer to the Holy
Spirit, but to Jesus' own spirit, and stand in
antithesis to the words "according to the
flesh"; and they mean that Jesus, though
a partaker of human flesh, was free from
the moral taint universally associated with
the flesh — he was sinless. So far, then,
Jesus was one with God, and Paul in this
passage ascribes to him a divine sonship in
volving at least ethical identity with God.
In accordance with this fact of his in
ner being, Jesus, by the resurrection, was
(not " appointed" nor " constituted," but)
marked out as being the Son of God. The
resurrection supplied the visible, objective
demonstration, manifested in power, of the
essential fact of Christ's inner nature and
being. He was by the resurrection marked
out as being the Son of God, as all through
his earthly ministry he expressed the con-

The Resurrection of Jesus. 369
sciousness of being. The resurrection dem
onstrated this with power, and is the proof
beyond peradventure that (whether or not
we believe God did in time past speak unto
the fathers by the prophets) he certainly
has, in these last days, spoken unto us by
his Son.
The resurrection of Jesus becomes also
the proof of immortality. If the fact has
been established, it and it alone answers
the question, "Does death end all?" As
Keim says, " The hope of immortality,
which ran through mankind as a contra
dicted sign, has become a bright light and
a clear truth through him alone ; spiritually,
through his word, and visibly through his
act. He has dissipated anxious dread by
showing the firm ground of a heavenly fu
ture for the children of God."1

'Jesus of Nazareth, vi. 365.
24

Summary and Conclusion.
We have now seen that Jesus was the re
vealer to men of the knowledge of God and
of man in his relation to God. This is one
thing, and it is unique. That he possessed
the character and lived the life he did is
another thing, and unique. That he had
the self-consciousness which he expressed
in the manifold forms we have studied is
yet another thing, and unparalleled among
men. He suffered a passion and died a
death the like of which was never known.
He was raised from the dead. He intro
duced a moral revolution on earth and ren
ovated the decaying world — a fact that has
been the problem and the study of the ages
since his death.
That all these separate facts should
combine in one and the same person, the
untaught peasant-artisan of Galilee, consti
tutes a miracle in the true and proper sense,
a miracle that so far transcends all the mir-
(370)

The Son of Man. 371
acles he is said to have wrought, as to make
them easy of belief. Though there is much
that we cannot explain, we are constrained to
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, to ac
cept him, in his own profound and compre
hensive though undefined sense, as the Son
of man and brother to humanity, and to ask
continually his grace that we may enthrone
him as King in our hearts and obey him as
Lord over our lives.

The End.

INDEX.

A.
Acts of the Apostles, trust
worthiness of, 333, 334.
Alexander Jannseus, 20.
American Journal of The
ology, 182.
Amos, prophecy of king
dom of God, 104.
Anxiety, 205, 206.
Ascension, the, 335.
B.
Baptism of Jesus, 45-54.
meaning of, 52-54.
Baur, F. C, on the resur
rection of Jesus, 348.
Birth of Jesus, 28-44.
Birth, the new, 139.
condition of entering
the kingdom of God
and the family of
God, 192-195.
Bruce, A. B., 130, 152, 187,
202, 239, 346, 363.
Bushnell, 276, 319.

Candlish, Dr., on Sonship,
'94. '95-
Celsus, 363.
Ceremonial law, 231 ff.
Ceremonial law, did Je
sus observe, 247, 248.
Charles's edition of the
Book of Enoch, 308.
Childlikeness condition of
entering kingdom of God,
136-138.
Cleanness and uncleanness,
the Talmud on, 7-12.
Conception, the supernat
ural, 28-44.
Consciousness of Jesus, 25.
Consciousness of Messiah-
ship, 45 ff. D.
Daily bread sure, 205-
207.
Daniel, Book of, on king
dom of God, 106, 107.
(373)

374

Index.

Davison, Professor, on
Psalm ex., 307.
Death of Jesus, value of,
3'3-3'4-
Development of Jesus,
219-223.
Devil, the personal, 216.
Dictionary of the Bible,
Hastings, 185, 187.
Disciples, condition of aft
er death of Jesus, 363-
3°5-
Divinity of Jesus, 326, 370.
Divorce, Jesus' teaching
on, 230.
Divorce, the Mosaic law
on, 229. E.
Ebionites, 35.
Ecce Homo, 94, 95, 320-
323-
Edersheim's Life of Jesus,
14.
Enoch, the Book of, 308,
309.
Equipment of Jesus, 55 ff.
Exile, the, 101.
Ezra, 3.

F.
Fairbairn, Principal, 31, 82,
'S3-
Faith, according to Gospel
of John, 140-142.
Faith, condition of enter
ing kingdom of God,
129, 130.
Fatherhood of God, 25-27.
Fatherhood of God:
not universal, 160 ff .
in the Sermon on the
Mount, 164-168.
in Matt. x. 20, 29, 169.
in Matt, xxiii. 9, 170,
171.
in Mark xi. 25, 172.
in Luke's Gospel, 172,
'73-
in parable of Prodigal
Son, 178-1S2.
in Gospel of John, 174,
177.
potential universality
of, 190.
real, not figurative,
191.
Sanday on, 184.
Bruce on, 1S7.

Index

375

Forgiveness of sins, 207-
"*'3- G.
Gesenius, Hebrew lexicon,
?. 35-
Gethsemane - struggle of
Jesus, 90, 32S.
Gilbert's Students' Life of
Jesus, 47, 352.
God as Father, Jesus'
teaching on, 155-195.
God's relation to all men,
160, 161, 179. H.
Harnack on Messiahship
of Jesus, 2S9, 306.
Heathen world, condition
of, 22-26.
Holy Spirit and Jesus, 56,
279, 2S0.
Hosea's prophecies on the
kingdom of God, 103.
Humanity of Jesus, 72 and
fassim.
Humility of Jesus, 317-326.
I.
Immortality, based on res
urrection of Jesus, 369.

Incredulity of disciples as
to resurrection, 355-358.
Isaiah's prophecy of vir
gin's conception, 34.
Israel, the theocratic peo
ple, 101. J-
Jews, number of, 85.
Jewish literature, m.
John's Gospel as compared
with Synoptics, 281, 2S5,
316.
John the Baptist, 51.
Josephus, 16, 17,20, 85,111.
Judge, Jesus to be, 312, 315-
3'7-
Justin Martyr, 36, 38.
K.
Keim on the Sadducees,
17, 18.
Keim on character of Je
sus, 38, 42.
Keim on resurrection of
Jesus, 359, 360, 365, 366.
Kingdom of God:
historical develop
ment of the idea,
99 ff.

376

Index.

Kingdom of God :
prophecies of, 103-110,
124.
expectation of, 115.
8 current view of, 116-
118.
current view opposed
by Jesus, 1 19-123.
conditions of entering,
124-142.
why a kingdom, 143-
146.
Jesus King of, 147.
the law of, 148-152.
object of prayer, 201-
203.
definition, 153, 154.
Knowledge of God, re
vealed by Jesus only,
300-302.
Knowledge ofjesus,
unique, 271-277.
Knowledge of Jesus, veri
fied, 276.
Knowledge of Jesus, lim
itations of, 281, 282.
L.
Law, ceremonial, 231 ff.

Law, moral, 226-230.
Law not destroyed by Je
sus, 231.
Levitical legislation an
nulled by Jesus, 237, 238,
292.
Life, Jesus sole mediator
of, 302.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 334.
Lord's Prayer, 196-218.
Lord's Prayer miscalled,
197.
Luke's veracity, 28-30,
331-334- M.
Manliness ofjesus, 321.
Mark's Gospel, that of Pe
ter, 339.
Martineau on the Messiah-
ship of Jesus, 305.
Martineau on the resurrec
tion of Jesus, 361.
Matthew's account of Je
sus' birth, 31.
McGiffert on Luke's Gos-
Pel, 33'. 338-
Mead, C. M., on parable of
Prodigal Son, 182.

Iudc.\

377

Messiah, dignity of, 306,
307.
Messiah, Jesus as, 303-310.
Mever, 176, 193, 345.
Miracles of Jesus credible,
37i-
Miracles wrought by pow
er of Holy Ghost, 58.
Moral law, 226-230.
Mosaic law, Jesus' atti
tude toward, 226 ff.
N.
" Nature and the Super
natural," 276, 319, 320.
O.
Old Testament, Jesus on,
2'9. 255-
a help to Jesus, 222-
224.
superior to all so-
called sacred books,
25 1-
Jesus superior to, 225—
230, 290. P.
Parable of the Unmerciful
Servant, 209, 210.

Paradox in character of
Jesus, 317-324.
Parker, Theodore, 276.
Pharisees, the, 14-16, 19,
21.
Plummer on Luke, 29.
Prayer, the Lord's, 196-
218.
of God's child, 196-
218.
Jesus a man of, 257-
2S9-
Prodigal Son, parable of,
178-182, 209.
Prophecies in the Psalms
on the kingdom of God,
105, 106.
Prophets, fulfilled by Je
sus, 249-251.
Publicans, 22. R.
Ramsay, Professor, on the
character of the Book of
Acts> 333. 334-
Relation of old and new,
251-253-
Repentance condition of
entering the kingdom
of God, 127.

378

Index.

Resurrection ofjesus:
historicity, 330-363.
significance of, 363-
369-
Peter's testimony to,
336, 337-
Paul's testimony to,
343-34*5-
indirect evidence of,
346-363.
Riches, renunciation of, a
condition of entering the
kingdom, 133-136. S.
Sabbath doctrine of the
Scribes, 6.
Sabbath, Jesus Lord of,
291.
Sabbath, Jesus' teaching
on, 238, 239.
Sadducees, the, 16-19.
Sanday on God s Father
hood, 184, 187.
Schiirer, 3, 5, 11, 15, 85,
111.
Scribes, so-called, 2-6.
Self-consciousness of Je
sus, 265-326.

Self-consciousness of Je
sus:
conscious of unique
knowledge of God,
271-277.
conscious of unique
intimacy with God,
278-294.
conscious of authority
to forgive sins, 295-
297.
conscious of a unique
relation to men,
297 ff.
Sibylline oracles, 85.
Sinlessness of Jesus, 98,
266-271.
taught by apostles,
267.
in John's Gospel, 267-
269.
Synoptics, 269-270.
Weiss on, 268-271.
Sinners, all men, 265.
Solomon, Psalms of, 112-
114.
Son of God. Jesus was,
156-159, 286-289.

Index

379

Son of man, 219, 224.
Son of man, meaning of
the phrase, 311-313.
Sons of God, only disci
ples of Jesus, 177, 17S.
Stalker's Life of Christ,
59-
Strauss's Life of Jesus, 350,
35'. 359-
Supernatural conception,
28-44.
idea foreign to Jews,
34-37-
Supernatural power at Je
sus' command, 70.
Sutherland, Dr. Alexan
der, 153.
Swoon theory of Jesus'
resurrection, 349-351.
Synagogue, the, 4.
Synoptics compared with
John, 281, 285, 316.
T.
Talmud, the, 4.
Temptation, 213-216.
Temptation, elements of,
75-
Temptation, first, 67 ff.

Temptation of Jesus, 61-
9S.
Temptation, reality of, 67-
69, 90-92.
Temptation, the second,
79 ff.
Temptation, the third,
83 ff.
Thayer's Lexicon, 2, 195.
Theft theory of Jesus' res
urrection, 352-354-
Theocratic hope, 102, 103.
Theology, Jesus not a
teacher of, 156.
Thomas, the doubt of,
356-
Toy, quotations in New
Testament, 227.
Transfiguration an object
ive reality, 262, 263.
Transfiguration, meaning
of, 259, 260-262.
Transfiguration, the place
of, 258. V.
Veracity of Gospels, 76, 77,
254. 34'-
Veracity of Luke, 28-30,
331-334-

38o

Index.

Vision theory of Jesus' res
urrection, 354-359-
W.
Watson, John (Ian Mac
laren), 136.
Weiss, Dr. B., 65, 96, 98,
259, 271, 2S9, 348.

.Wendt, 46, 93, 122, 134, 13S,
152, 200, 211, 242-244,
289, 362.
Wicked Husbandmen, par:
able of, 282. Z.
Zechariah's prophecy of
kingdom of God, 107.

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