IV. Whatever, then, may have been the interval between

the composition of the Apocalypse and that of the fourth Gospel, we find in the two documents one and the same doctrine, in substance if not in terms, respecting our Lord’s Eternal Person; and further, this doctrine accurately corresponds with that of St. John’s first Epistle. But it may be asked whether St. John, thus consistent with himself upon a point of such capital importance, is really in harmony with the teaching of the earlier Evangelists? It is granted that between St. John and the three first Gospels there is a broad difference of characteristic phraseology, of the structure, scene, and matter of the several narratives. Does this difference strike deeper still? Is the Christology of the son of Zebedee fundamentally distinct from that of his predecessors? Can we recognise the Christ of the earlier Evangelists in the Christ of St. John ?
Now it is obvious to remark that the difference between the three first Evangelists and the fourth, in their respective repre- sentations of the Person of our Lord, is in one sense, at any rate, a real difference. There is a real difference in the point of view of the writers, although the truth before them is one and the same. Each from his own stand-point, the first three Evan- gelists seek and pourtray separate aspects of the Human side of the Life of Jesus. They set forth His perfect Manhood in all Its regal grace and majesty, in all Its Human sympathy and beauty, in all Its healing and redemptive virtue. In one Gospel Christ is the true Fulfiller of the Law, and withal, by a touching con- trast, the Man of Sorrows. In another He is the Lord of Nature and the Leader of men; all seek Him; all yield to Him; He moves forward in the independence of majestic strength. Ina third He is active and all-embracing Compassion; He is the Shepherd, Who goes forth as for His Life-work, to seek the sheep that was lost; He is the Good Samaritan’. Thus the obedience, the force, and the tenderness of His Humanity are successively depicted ; but room is left for another aspect of His Life, differing from these and yet in harmony with them. If we may dare so to speak, the synoptists approach their great Sub- ject from without, St. John unfolds it from within. St. John has been guided to pierce the veil of sense; he has penetrated
also the remarkable expression xx. 6, ἔσονται ἱερεῖς τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, which clearly associates Christ with the Father in the highest honour which man can render to God, namely, the offering of sacrifice; xxi. 22, 23,
υ Cf. Holtzmann, Die Synoptischen Evangelien,
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248 Lhe Christ of St. ohn and of the Synoptists.
far beyond the Human features, nay even beyond the Human thought and Human will of the Redeemer, into the central depths of His Eternal Personality. He sets forth the Life of our Lord and Saviour on the earth, not in any one of the aspects which belong to It as Human, but as being the consistent and adequate expression of the glory of a Divine Person, manifested to men under a visible form. The miracles described, the dis- courses selected, the plan of the narrative, are all in harmony with the point of view of the fourth Evangelist, and it at once explains and accounts for them.
Plainly, my brethren, two or more observers may approach the same object from different points of view, and may be even entirely absorbed with distinct aspects of it; and yet it does not follow that any one of these aspects is necessarily at variance with the others. Still less does it follow that one aspect alone represents the truth. Socrates does not lose his identity, because he is so much more to Plato than he is to Xenophon. Each of yourselves may be studied at the same time by the anatomist and by the psychologist. Certainly the aspect of your complex nature which the one study insists upon, is sufficiently remote from the aspect which presents itself to the other. In the eyes of one observer you are purely spirit; you are thought, affection, memory, will, imagination. As he analyses you he is almost in- different to the material body in which your higher nature is encased, upon which it has left its mark, and through which it expresses itself. But to the other observer this your material body is everything. Its veins and muscles, its pores and nerves, its colour, its proportions, its functions, absorb his whole atten- tion. He is nervously impatient of any speculations about you which cannot be tested by his instruments. Yet is there any real ground for a petty jealousy between the one study of your nature and the other? Is not each student a servant whom true science will own as doing her work? May not each illustrate, supplement, balance, and check the conclusions of the other? Must you necessarily view yourselves as being purely mind, if you will not be persuaded that you are merely matter? Must you needs be materialists, if you will not become the most tran- scendental of mystics? Or will not a little physiology usefully restrain you from a fanciful supersensualism, while a study of the immaterial side of your being forbids you to listen, even for a moment, to the brutalizing suggestions of consistent ma- terialism 4
These questions admit of easy reply; each half of se truth
LECT.
The title ‘Son of Gon’ in the Synoptists. 249
is practically no less than speculatively necessary to the other. Nor is it otherwise with the general relation of the first three Gospels to the fourth. Yet it should be added that the Synop- tists do teach the Divine Nature of Jesus, although in the main His Sacred Manhood is most prominent in their pages. More- over the fourth Gospel, as has been noticed, abundantly insists upon Christ’s true Humanity. Had we not possessed the fourth Gospel, we should have known much less of one side of His Hu- man Character than we actually know. For in it we see Christ engaged in earnest conflict with the worldly and unbelieving spirit of His time, while surrounded by the little company of His’ disciples, and devoting Himself to them even ‘unto the end.’ The aspects of our Lord’s Humanity which are thus brought into prominence would have remained, comparatively speaking, in the shade, had the last Gospel not been written. But that ‘symmetrical conception’ of our Lord’s Character, which modern critics have remarked upon, as especially distinguishing the fourth Gospel, is to be referred to the manner in which St. John lays bare the Eternal Personality of Jesus. For in It the scattered rays of glory which light up the earlier Evangelists find their point of unity. By laying such persistent stress upon Christ’s Godhead, as the true seat of His Personality, the fourth Gospel is doctrinally complemental (how marvellous is the complement !) to the other three; and yet these three are so full of suggestive implications that they practically anticipate the higher teaching of the fourth.
1. For in the synoptic Gospels Christ is called the Son of God in a higher sense than the ethical or than the theocratic. In the Old Testament an anointed king or a saintly prophet is a son of God. Christ is not merely one among many sons. He is the Only, the Well-beloved Son of the Father x. His relation- ship to the Father is unshared by any other, and is absolutely unique. It is indeed probable that of our Lord’s contemporaries many applied to Him the title ‘Son of God’ only as an official designation of the Messiah; while others used it to acknowledge that surpassing and perfect character which proclaimed Jesus of Nazareth to be the One Son, who had appeared on earth,
* Compare the voice from heaven at our Lord’s baptism, οὗτός ἐστιν ὃ ids μου ὁ ἀγαπητὸς, St. Matt. iii. 17, repeated at His transfiguration (Ibid. xvii. 5); the profound sense of His question to the Pharisees, τίνος υἱός ἐστιν; [sc. ὁ Χριστὸς] (Ibid. xxii, 41). And that as the Ὑἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, Christ is superhuman, seems to be implied in the questions of the tempter (Ibid. iv. 3, 6; St. Luke iv. 3, 9).
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250 Szeuzficance of the history of the Nativity.
worthily showing forth the moral perfections of our Heavenly Father. But the official and ethical senses of the term are rooted in a deeper sense, which St. Luke connects with it at the beginning of his Gospel. ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,’ so ran the angel-message to the Virgin-mother, ‘and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing Which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God y.’ This may be contrasted with the prediction respecting St. John the Baptist, that he should be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb%. St. John then is in existence before his sanctification by the Holy Spirit; but Christ’s Hu- manity Itself is formed by the agency of the Holy Ghost. In like manner St. Matthew’s record of the angel’s words asserts that our Lord was conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost 4, But St. Matthew’s reference to the prophetic name Emmanuel > points to the full truth, that Christ is the Son of God as being of the Divine Essence.
2. Indeed the whole history of the Nativity and its attendant circumstances guards the narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke® against the inroads of Humanitarian interpreters. Our Lord’s Birth of a Virgin-mother is as irreconcileable with ‘an Ebionitic as it is with a Docetic conception of the entrance of the God-man into connexion with humanityd’ The worship of the Infant
¥ St. Luke i. 35, where the abstract τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον points to a superhuman Being, so far described indefinitely. But His Birth results from the ἐπισκιάζειν of the δύναμις “Ὑψίστου, and He is presently announced to be Υἱὸς Θεοῦ.
* Ibid. ver. 15: Πνεύματος ᾿Αγίου πλησθήσεται ἔτι ἐκ κοιλίας μητρὸς αὐτοῦ,
5. St. Matt. i. 20: τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ Πνεύματός ἐστιν ᾿Αγίου.
» Ibid. ver. 232. This prophecy was fulfilled when our Lord was called Jesus. Cf. Pearson on the Creed (ed. Oxf. 1847), art. ii. p. 89, and note.
ὁ For a vindication of these narratives against the mythical theory of Strauss, see Dr. Mill’s Christian Advocate’s Publications for 1841, 1844, reprinted in his work on the ‘Mythical Interpretation.’
4 Martensen, Christl. Dogm. ὃ 39 (Clark’s transl.): ‘Christ is born, not of the will of a man, nor of the will of the flesh; but the holy Will of the Creator took the place of the will of man and of the will of the flesh. That is, the Creating Spirit, Who was in the beginning, fulfilled the function of the plastic principle. Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, the chosen woman of the chosen people. It was the task of Israel to provide, not, as has often been said, Christ Himself, but the mother of the Lord; to develope the susceptibility for Christ to a point where it might be able to manifest itself as the profoundest unity of nature and spirit—an unity which found expres- sion in the pure Virgin. In her the pious aspirations of Israel and of mankind, and their faith in the promises, are centred. She is the purest point in history and in nature, and she therefore becomes the wer
LECT.
Significance of the Evangelical Canticles. 251
Christ, in St. Matthew by the wise men, in St. Luke by the shepherds of Bethlehem, represents Jesus as the true Lord of humanity, whether Jewish or Gentile, whether educated or un- lettered. Especially noteworthy are the greetings addressed to the Mother of our Lord by heavenly as well as earthly visitants. The Lord is with her; she is graced and blessed among women®. Her Son will be great; He will be called the Son of the Highest; His kingdom will have no endf. Elizabeth echoes the angel’s words; Mary is blessed among women, and the Fruit of her womb is Blessed. Elizabeth marvels that such an one as herself should be visited by the Mother of her Lord 8.
The Evangelical canticles, which we owe to the third Gospel, remarkably illustrate the point before us. They surround the cradle of the Infant Saviour with the devotional language of ancient Israel, now consecrated to the direct service of the In- carnate Lord. Mary, the Virgin-mother, already knows that all generations shall call her blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things unto her», And as the moral and social fruits of the Incarnation unfold themselves before her prophetic eye, she proclaims that the promises to the forefathers are at length ful- filled, and that God, ‘remembering His mercy, hath holpen His servant Israeli” Zacharias rejoices that the Lord God of Israel has in the new-born Saviour redeemed His people*. This Saviour is the Lord, whose forerunner has been announced by prophecy!; He is the Day-star from on high, bringing a new morning to those who sat in the darkness and death-shadows of
medium for the New Creation. And while we must confess that this Virgin Birth is enveloped in a veil impenetrable to physical reasonings, yet we affirm it to be the only one which fully satisfies the demands of religion and theology. This article of our Creed, ‘conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ is the only sure defence against both the Ebionitic and the Docetic view of the entrance of the God-man into con- nexion with humanity.’
° St. Luke i, 28: χαῖρε, κεχαριτωμένη" ὃ Κύριος μετὰ σοῦ, εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν,
{ Ibid. ver, 32: οὗτος ἔσται μέγας, καὶ υἱὸς ὑψίστου κληθήσεται. Ver. 33: τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔσται τέλος.
& Ibid. ver. 42: εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξὶ, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὃ καρπὺς τῆς ἘΌΝ σοῦ. Ver. 43: καὶ πόθεν μοι τοῦτο, ἵνα ἔλθῃ ἣ μήτηρ τοῦ Κυρίου μου πρός με;
bid. ver. 48: ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν μακαριοῦσί με πᾶσαι αἱ yeveat ὅτι ἐποίησέ μοι μεγαλεῖα 6 δυνατός.
i Tbid. vers. 51-55. k Thid. ver. 68.
1 Thid. i. 69, Christ is the κέρας σωτηρίας. bid. ver. 76; to St. John it is said, προπορεύσῃ yap mpd προσώπου Κυρίου, ἑτοιμάσαι ὁδοὺς αὐτοῦ. Ch, Mal, iii. 1, iv. 5.
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252 OurLord’s teaching as reported by the Synoptists
the world™, Simeon desires to depart in peace, since his eyes have seen his Lord’s Salvation. The humble Babe Whom the old man takes in his arms belongs not to the lowly scenes of Bethlehem and Nazareth; He is the destined inheritance of the world. He is the Divine Saviour; all nations are interested in His Birth; He is to shed light upon the heathen; He is to be the pride and glory of the New Israel 5,
The accounts then of our Lord’s Birth in two of the synoptic Evangelists, as illustrated by the sacred songs of praise and thanksgiving which St. Luke has preserved, point clearly to the entrance of a superhuman Being into this our human world. Who indeed He was, is stated more explicitly by St. John; but St. John does not deem it necessary to repeat the history of His Advent. The accounts of the Annunciation and of the Mi- raculous Conception would not by themselves imply the Divinity of Christ. But they do imply that Christ is superhuman; they harmonize with the kind of anticipations respecting Christ’s appearance in the world, which might be created by St. John’s doctrine of His pre-existent glory. These accounts cannot be forced within the limits, and made to illustrate the laws, of nature. But at least St. John’s narrative justifies the mysteries of the synoptic Gospels which would be unintelligible without it; and it is a vivid commentary upon hymns the lofty strains of which might of themselves be thought to savour of exag- geration.
3. If the synoptists are in correspondence with St. John’s characteristic doctrine when they describe our Lord’s Nativity and its attendant circumstances, that correspondence is even more obvious in their accounts of His teaching and in the pictures which they set before us of His Life and work. They present Him to us mainly, although not exclusively, as the Son of Man. As has already been hinted, that title, besides its direct signification of His true and representative Humanity, is itself the ‘product of a self-consciousness, for which the being human is not a matter of course, but something secondary and superinduced °.’ In other words, this title implies an original
m §t. Luke i. 78: ἐπεσκέψατο ἡμᾶς ἀνατολὴ ἐξ ὕψους, ἐπιφᾶναι τοῖς ἐν σκότει καὶ σκιᾷ θανάτου καθημένοις" τοῦ κατευθῦναι τοὺς πόδας ἡμῶν εἰς ὁδὸν εἰρήνης. Isa. ix. 1, ΧΙ]. 7, xlix. 9, lx. 2, are thus applied in a strictly spiritual sense.
π St. Luke ii. 30-32: τὸ σωτήριόν σου, ὃ ἡτοίμασας κατὰ πρόσωπον πάντων τῶν λαῶν" φῶς εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν ἐθνῶν, καὶ δόξαν λαοῦ σου ᾿Ισραήλ. Of. Isa. xxv. 7, Xliv: 43
© Cf, Dorner, Person Christi, Einl, p. 82 : ‘Von einem σου (oa
LECT.
emplies FIs Divinity. 253
Nature to Which Christ’s Humanity was a subsequent accretion, and in Which His true and deepest Consciousness, if we may dare so to speak, was at home. Thus, often in the synoptic Gospels He is called simply the Son?. He is the true Son of Man, but He is also the true Son of God. In Him Sonship attains its archetypal form; in Him it is seen in its unsullied perfection. Accordingly He never calls the Father, owr Father, as if He shared His Sonship with His followers. He always speaks of My Father4. To this Divine Sonship He received witness from Heaven both at His Baptism and at His Trans- figuration. In the parable of the vineyard, the prophets of the old theocracy are contrasted with the Son, not as predeces- sors or rivals, but as slavest. Thus He lives among men as the One True Son of His Father’s home. He is Alone free by birthright among a race of born slaves. Yet instead of guard- ing His solitary dignity with jealous exclusiveness, He vouch- safes to raise the slaves around Him to an adopted sonship; He will buy them out of bondage by pouring forth His blood; He will lay down His Life, that He may prove the generosity of His measureless love towards them 8.
The synoptic Gospels record parables in which Christ is Himself the central Figure. They record miracles which seem to have no ascertainable object beyond that of exhibiting the superhuman might of the Worker. They tell us of His claim to forgive sins, and that He supported this claim by the exercise of His miraculous powerst, Equally with St. John they represent Him as claiming to be not merely the Teacher but the Object of
aus muss diese Bezeichnung ausgepriigt seyn, fiir welches das Mensch-oder- Menschensohnseyn nicht das Nachstliegende, sich von selbst unmittelbar Verstehende, sondern das Secundiire, Hinzugekommene, war. Ist aber Christi Selbstbewusstseyn so geartet gewesen, dass das Menschseyn ihm als das Secundiie sich darstellte: so muss das Primiire in Seinem Bewusstseyn ein Anderes seyn, dasjenige, was sich, z. B. bei Johannes xvii. 5. ausspricht ; und das Urspriingliche, worin Sein Selbstbewusstseyn sich unmittelbar heimisch weiss (vgl. Luc. ii. 49) muss wenigstens von der Zeit an, wo Er sich selbst ganz hat, wo sein Innerstes Wirklichkeit geworden ist, das Gittliche gewesen seyn.’
P St. Matt. xi. 27, xxviii. 20.
@ Ibid. xviii. 10, 19, 35, xx. 23, xxvi. 53; cf. St. Luke xxiii. 46.
τ St. Matt. xxi. 34: ἀπέστειλε τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ πρὸς τοὺς γεωργούς. Ibid. ver, 36: πάλιν ἀπέστειλεν ἄλλους δούλους. Ibid. ver. 37: ὕστερον δὲ ἀπέ- στειλε πρὸς αὐτοὺς τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ, λέγων, “᾿Εντραπήσονται τὸν υἱόν pov.’
5. Ibid. xx. 28: ἦλθε... δοῦναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ λύτρον ἀντὶ πολλῶν. Thid, xxvi, 28: τὸ αἷμά μου, τὸ τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης, τὸ περὶ πολλῶν ἐκχυνόμενον εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν.
Ἱ St. Matt. ix. 2-6; St. Luke v. 20, 24. ν᾿
254 Our Lord’s Person in the Synoptists.
His religion. He insists on faith in His own Person¥. He institutes the initial Sacrament, and He deliberately inserts His own Name into the sacramental formula; He inserts it between that of the Father and that of the Spirit *. Such self-intrusion into the sphere of Divinity would be unintelligible if the synop- tists had really represented Jesus as only the teacher and founder of a religious doctrine or character. But if Christ is the Logos in St. John, in these Gospels He is the Sophiay. Thus He ascribes to Himself the exclusive knowledge of the Highest. No statement in St. John really goes beyond the terms in which, according to two synoptists, He claims to know and to be known of the Father. ‘No man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him 2.’ Here then is a recipro- cal relationship of equality: the Son alone has a true knowledge of the Father ; the Son is Himself such, that the Father Alone understands Him. In these Gospels, moreover, Christ ascribes to Himself, sanctity; He even places Himself above the holiest thing in ancient 18.868] 8, He and His people are greater than the greatest in the old covenant». He scruples not to proclaim His consciousness of having fulfilled His mission. He asserts that all power is committed to Him both on earth and ἴῃ heaven 9, All nations are to be made disciples of His religion ἃ,
When we weigh the language of the first three Evangelists, it will be found that Christ is represented by it as the Absolute Good and the Absolute Truth not less distinctly than in St. John. It is on this account that He is exhibited as in conflict not with subordinate or accidental forms of evil, but with the evil principle itself, with the prince of evil®. And, as the
a St. Matt. xvi. 16, 17.
* Ibid. xxviii. 19. Cf. Waterland’s Eighth Sermon at Lady Moyer’s Lecture, Works, vol. ii. p. 171.
Υ St. Luke vii. 35: ἐδικαιώθη ἢ σοφία ἀπὸ τῶν τέκνων αὐτῆς πάντων. St. Matt. xi. 19, and apparently St. Luke xi. 49, where 7 σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ corre- sponds to ἐγώ in St. Matt. xxiii. 34.
* St. Matt. xi. 27: οὐδεὶς ἐπιγινώσκει τὸν Ὑἱὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ Πατήρ' οὐδὲ τὸν Πατέρα τὶς ἐπιγινώσκει, εἰ μὴ ὁ Ὑἱὸς, καὶ ᾧ ἐὰν βούληται 6 Ὑἱὸς ἀποκαλύψαι. St. Luke x. 22: οὐδεὶς γινώσκει τίς ἐστιν 6 Ὑἱὸς εἰ μὴ ὁ Πατὴρ, καὶ τίς ἐστιν ὁ Πατὴρ, εἰ μὴ 6 Ὑἱὸς, καὶ ᾧ ἐὰν βούληται ὁ Tis ἀποκαλύψαι. See Mill on Myth. Interp. p. 59.
@ St. Matt. xii. 6: λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι τοῦ ἱεροῦ μεῖζόν [Tisch.] ἐστιν ὧδε,
> Ibid. xi. 11, xii. 41, 42, xxi. 33, sqq.; St. Luke vii. 28.
ο St. Matt. xi. 27; St. Luke x. 22; St. Matt. xxviii. 18: ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς. ἃ St. Matt. xxviii. 19.
® St. Luke x. 18: ἐθεώρουν τὸν Σατανᾶν ὡς ἀστραπὴν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ πεσόντα, St, Matt, iv, 1-11, xii, 27-29, xiii. 38, 30. [
i ᾿ LECT.
Our Lord's claims in the Synoptists, 255
Absolute Good, Christ tests the moral worth or worthlessness of men by their acceptance or rejection, not of His doctrine but of His Person. It is St. Matthew who records such sentences as the following: ‘ Neither be ye called Masters; for One is your Master, even Christ f;’ ‘He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Mes’;’ ‘Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father;’ ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and I will give you resti;’ ‘Take My yoke upon’ you and learn of Me.’ In St. Matthew then Christ speaks as One Who knows Himself to be a universal and infallible Teacher in spiritual things; Who demands submission of all men, and at whatever cost or sacrifice; Who offers to man- kind those deepest consolations which are sought from all others, in vain. Nor is it otherwise with St. Luke and St. Mark. It is indeed remarkable that our Lord’s most absolute and peremp- tory claims! to rule over the affections and wills of men are recorded by the first and third, and not by the fourth Evan- gelist. These royal rights over the human soul can be justified upon no plea of human relationships between teacher and learner, between child and elder, between master and servant, between friend and friend. If the title of Divinity is more explicitly put forward in St. John, the rights which imply it are insisted on in words recorded by the earlier Evangelists. The synoptists represent our Lord, Who is the object of Christian faith no less than the Founder of Christianity, as designing the whole world for the field of His conquests™, and as claiming the submission of every individual human soul. All are to be brought to discipleship. Only then will the judgment come, when the Gospel has been announced to the whole circle of the nations". Christ, the Good and the Truth Incarnate, must reign throughout all time®. He knows, according to the synop- tists no less than St. John, that He is a perfect and final Reve- lation of God. He is the centre-point of the history and of the hopes of man. None shall advance beyond Him: the
1 St. Matt. xxiii. το, 8 Thbid. x. 37. h Thid. ver. 32; St. Luke xii. 8, 1 St. Matt. xi. 28. Κ᾿ Thid. ver. 29. 1 Thid. x. 39; St. Luke xiv. 26.
τὰ St. Matt. xxvili. 19: πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. St. Mark xvi. 15; St. Luke xxiv. 47. Cf. St. Matt. xiii. 32, 38, 41, xxiv. 14.
> St. Matt. xxiv. 14: καὶ κηρυχθήσεται τοῦτο Td εὐαγγέλιον τῆς βασιλείας ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ οἰκουμένῃ, εἰς μαρτύριον πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσι" καὶ τότε ἥξει τὸ τέλος.
° St. Luke xxii. 69: ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἔσται ὁ Tids τοῦ ἀνθρώπου καθήμενος ἐκ αἷμ τῆς δυνάμεως τοῦ Θεοῦ. Vv
256 The tremendous claim to judge the world
pretension to surpass Him is but the symptom of disastrous error and reaction Ρ,
The Transfiguration is described by all the synoptists; and it represents our Lord in His true relation to the legal and pro- phetic dispensations, and as visibly invested for the time being with a glory which was rightfully His. The Ascension secures His permanent investiture with that glory; and the Ascension is described by St. Mark and St. Luke. The Resurrection is recorded by the first three Evangelists as accurately as by the fourth; and it was to the Resurrection that He Himself appealed as being the sign by which men were to know His real claim upon their homage. In the first three Gospels, all of Christ’s humiliations are consistently linked to the assertion of His power, and to the consummation of His victory. He is buffeted, spat upon, scourged, crucified, only to rise from the dead the third day; His Resurrection is the prelude to His ascent to heaven. He leaves the world, yet He bequeaths the promise of His Presence. He promises to be wherever two or three are gathered in His Name'; He institutes the Sacrament of His Body and His Blood’; He declares that He will be among His people even to the end of the world ὑ,
4. But it is more particularly through our Lord’s discourses respecting the end of the world and the final judgment, as re- corded by the synoptists, that we may discern the matchless dignity of His Person. It is reflected in the position which He claims to fill with respect to the moral and material universe, and in the absolute finality which He attributes to His religion. The Lawgiver Who is above all other legislators, and Who revises all other legislation, will also be the final Judge% At
P St. Matt. xxiv. 23-26, &e.
4 Ibid. xx. 19; St. Mark x. 34; St. Luke xviii. 33.
τ St. Matt. xviii. 20: οὗ γάρ εἰσι δύο ἢ τρεῖς συνηγμένοι εἰς τὸ ἐμὸν ὄνομα, ἐκεῖ εἰμὶ ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν.
5 ΤΡΙά. xxvi. 26; St. Mark xiv. 22; St. Luke xxii. 10.
ἐ St. Matt. xxviii. 20: ἐγὼ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας Tas ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντες λείας τοῦ αἰῶνος.
π Ibid. vii. 22: πολλοὶ ἐροῦσί μοι ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ, " Κύριε, Κύριε, οὐ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι προεφητεύσαμεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δαιμόνια ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιήσαμεν ;᾽, καὶ τότε ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς, ὅτι “οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς. ἀποχωρεῖτε ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν. St. Luke xiii. 25. St. Matt. xiii. 41: ἀποστελεῖ ὃ Ὑἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ, καὶ συλλέξουσιν ἐκ τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ πάντα τὰ σκάνδαλα καὶ τοὺς ποιοῦντας τὴν ἀνομίαν, καὶ βαλοῦσιν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν κάμινον τοῦ πυρός. Thid. x. 32: St. Mark viii. 38. St. Matt. xxiv. 31: ἀποστελεῖ τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ μετὰ σάλπιγγος φωνῆς μεγάλης, καὶ ἐπισυνάξουσι τοὺς — αὐτοῦ
LECT.
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prominently reported in the Synoptists. 257
that last awful revelation of His personal glory, none shall be able to refuse Him submission. Then will He put an end to the humiliations and the sorrows of His Church; then, out of the fulness of His majesty, He will clothe His despised followers with glory; He will allot the kingdom to those who have be- lieved on Him; and at His heavenly board they shall share for ever the royal feast of life. Certainly the Redeemer and Judge of men, to Whom all spiritual and natural forces, all earthly and heavenly powers must at last submit, is not merely a divinely gifted prophet. His Person ‘has a metaphysical and cosmical significance x.’ None could preside so authoritatively over the history and destiny of the world who was not entitled to share the throne of its Creator.
The eschatological discourses in the synoptists do but tally with the prologue of St. John’s Gospel. In contemplating the dignity of our Lord’s Person, the preceding Evangelists for the most part look forward; St. John looks backward no less than forward. St.John dwells on Christ’s Pre-existence; the synop- tists, if we may so phrase it, on his Post-existence. In the earlier Evangelists His personal glory is viewed in its relation to the future of the human race and of the universe; in St. John it is viewed in its relation to the origin of created things, and to the solitary and everlasting years of God. In St. John, Christ our Saviour is the First; in the synoptists He is more especially the Last.
In the synoptic Gospels, then, the Person of Christ Divine and Human is the centre-point of the Christian religion. Christ is her8€ the Supreme Lawgiver ; He is the Perfect Saint ; He is the Judge of all men. He controls both worlds, the physical and the spiritual ; He bestows the forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit; He promises everlasting life. His Presence is to be perpetuated on earth, while yet He will reign as Lord of heaven. ‘The entire representation,’ says Professor Dorner, ‘of Christ which is given us by the synoptists, may be placed side by side with that given by St. John, as being altogether identical with it. For a faith moulded in obedience to the synoptic tradition concerning Christ, must have essentially the same features in its resulting conception of Christ as those which belong to the Christ of St. Johny” In other words, think over the miracles
ἐκ τῶν τεσσάρων ἀνέμων, ἀπ᾽ ἄκρων οὐρανῶν ἕως ἄκοων αὐτῶν. Ibid, xxv, 34-46; St. Luke xii. 35, xvii. 30, 21. See Lect. IV. p. 176.
* Martensen, Christ]. Dogm. § 128.
¥ Dorner, Person Christi, Einl. p. 89: ‘Das synoptische Totalbild von
Ὁ}. Β
258 Christology of the first three Gospels.
wrought by Christ and narrated by the synoptists, one by one. Think over the discourses spoken by Christ and recorded by the synoptists, one by one. Look at the whole bearing and scope of His Life, as the three first Evangelists describe It, from His supernatural Birth to His disappearance beyond the clouds of heaven. Mark well how pressing and tender, yet withal how full of stern and majestic Self-assertion, are His words! Con- sider how merciful and timely, yet also how expressive of imma- nent and unlimited power, are His miracles! Put the three representations of the Royal, the Human, and the Healing Redeemer together, and deny, if it is possible, that Jesus is Divine. Ifthe Christ of the synoptists is not indeed an unreal phantom, such as Docetism might have constructed, He is far removed above the Ebionitic conception of a purely human Saviour. If Christ’s Pre-existence is only obscurely hinted at in the first three Gospels, His relation to the world of spirits is brought out in them even more clearly than in St. John by the discourses which they contain on the subject of the Last Judg- ment. If St.John could be blotted out from the pages of the New Testament, St. John’s central doctrine would still live on in the earlier Evangelists as implicitly contained within a his- tory otherwise inexplicable, if not as the illuminating truth of a heavenly gnosis. There would still remain the picture of a Life Which belongs indeed to human history, but Which the laws that govern human history neither control nor can explain: It would still be certain that One had lived on earth, wielding miraculous powers, and claiming a moral and intellectual place which belongs only to the Most Holy; and if the problefn pre- sented to faith might seem for a moment to be more intricate, its final solution could not differ in substance from that which meets us in the pages of the beloved disciple.