DIVINITY^LORD FUNKHOUSER tihvaxy of Che Cheolocjical ^tminavy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Rufus K. LeFevre 15X9^7^ . - rQpK \^^ ^ THE DIVINI^l^y OUR LOR BY / G. A. FUNKHOUSER, D.D. Senior Professor in Union Biblical Seminary w ^'flPvwrai^ / ^ \ Dayton, Ohio United Brethren Publishing House iqo2 Copyright 1902, by W. R. Funk, Agent All rights reserved PREFACE. The divinity of Jesus Christ is a most stupen- dous fact. His person is without a parallel. That there should be two natures, one human and one divine, in the same person, passes our comprehen- sion. It is a fact of revelation, and must be received by faith. When so received, there have followed, in all ages, nations, churches, individuals, most gratifying results. Christ's deity "is to the Bible what the soul is to the body — its living and all-pervading prin- ciple, without which the Scriptures are a cold, lifeless system of history and moral precepts. It seems, therefore, like a work of supererogation to prove to Christians the divinity of their Redeemer. It is like proving the sun to be the source of light and heat to the system of which it is the center. Still, as there are men professing to be Christians iii ///.P Preface who still deny the doctrine, as there have been, and still are men who make the sun a mere satel- lite of the earth, it is necessary that at least a part of the evidence by which the great truth is proved should be presented, and should be at command to resist gainsayers." Of course, only a little of the vast amount of evidence for this fundamental doctrine of Chris- tian belief can be adduced in this volume, which, for reasons sufficient, is named "Studies in the Divinity of Our Lord." Those who wish to read more, to reach the same destination by a different route, are cited to the Gospels and then to the fascinating book by Doc- tor Schaff, "The Person of Christ," the cogent ar- gument of Doctor Young, "The Christ of His- tory," the scholarly volume of Canon Liddon, "Our Lord's Divinity," and the recent book, "The Fact of Christ," by P. Carnegie Simpson. Iv CONTENTS. PAei: Preface, iii FIRST STUDY. A Statement, _.__-_- 9 SECOND STUDY. Three Views— The Right Oni:, - - - 15 THIRD STUDY. Jesus' Claim to Divinity, - - - - 27 FOURTH STUDY. The Gospels Assert His Divinity, - - 41 FIFTH STUDY. More Testimony by John, - - - - 53 SIXTH STUDY. Paul Affirms, 61 V Table of Contents SEVENTH STUDY. Prophets Foretold, - 71 EIGHTH STUDY. The Undivided Testimony of Ages, - - 79 NINTH STUDY. The Christ Within, ------ 85 TENTH STUDY. The Witness op UNBEiiiEVERs, - - - 91 FIRST STUDY. A Statement. I would fain, O divine Son of Mary, feeble as I ow, have said something worthy of Thee. — Justin Martyr. THE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD, FIEST STUDY. A Statement. That there was such a person as Jesus Christ born into the world at Bethlehem of Judaea, reared in the town of Xazareth in Galilee, ministered three years in Palestine, suffered under Pontius Pilate at Jerusalem, is as much a fact of history as are the birth, life, work, and death of Julius Caesar, Xapoleon Bonaparte, Abraham Lincoln, or William E. Gladstone. History is just as reliable in His case as in that of any of the others. In fact, more reliable, in that for thousands of years He was foretold, the place of His birth. His appearance, the great- ness of His mission, and intimations of the man- ner of His death. "Jesus Christ is the most sacred, the most glori- The Divinity of Our Lord ous, the most certain of all facts; arrayed in a beauty and majesty which throws the 'starry heav- ens above ns and the moral law within us' into obscurity, and fills us truly with ever-growing rev- erence and awe. He shines forth with the self- evidencing light of the noonday sun. He is too great, too pure, too perfect, to have been invented by any sinful and erring man. His character and claims are confirmed by the sublimest doctrine, the purest ethics, the mightiest miracles, the grandest spiritual kingdom, and are daily and' hourly exhibited in the virtues and graces of all who yield to the Tegenerating and sanctifying power of His spirit and example. The historical Christ meets and satisfies all moral and religious aspirations."^ His coming and work divides the world's history into two parts — that before, and that since His ad- vent. The first was darkness for the most part, or at its best only dim twilight. The second has been light, increasing with each decade, more ex- tensive and more intensive, even as that of the natural sun rising in his majesty towards the noonday. Xot only has He divided history, but mankind »Schaff. 10 The Divinity of Our Lord into two great sections — those who have received Him and those w^ho have not. To the first class He has given power to become the sons of God, evidenced in their material, moral, and spiritual prosperity, their power and disposition to do for others as He has done. "He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." l^o person who reads history doubts for a moment that there came into this world a power in the person of Jesus Christ sufficient to divide history and mankind ; and it is much easier to accept the fact of Jesus Christ than to account for these great results in history and experience apart from Him. One or the other every honest man must do, or forfeit his own respect and that of his fellow-men. 11 SECOND STUDY. Three Views — The Eight One. IS Thou art a Sea without a shore; Awful, immense Thou art, — A sea that can contract itself Within my narrow heart. And yet Thou art a Haven, too, Out on the shoreless sea, A Harhor that can hold full well Shipwrecked humanity. O Light! O Love! O very God! I dare no longer gaze Upon thy wondrous attributes And their mysterious ways. — Faher. 14 SECOND STUDY. Three Views — The Eight One. Historically three views of Him have been held. First, that He was what He claimed to be, the God-man. Second, that He was only human, though greater in degree, not in nature, than any- other human being, which is the view held by Socinians and for the most part by the Unita- rians. Third, that He really preexisted somehow before He came into the world, though not of the same substance as God the Father. The first view is the one which has generally been accepted as taught in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and has had the undi- vided support of all orthodox Christians from the days of the apostles down to the present, and has always been attended with most blessed results to those accepting it, and to all coming through them under the power of this truth. It is not essential to the truth of this doctrine 15 The Divinity of Our Lord that we fully understand, or be able to explain how there can be in one person two natures, or three subsistences in the Trinity and yet but one substance or essence. For man is not able to com- prehend many processes in nature around him, and within him — how plants grow, how the same food becomes blood, bone, muscle, ligament, hair, and nails. ''Omnia exeunt in mysteriuw/' (all things go out in mystery), was a proverb of the Latins. It holds good in regard to everything with which imperfect man has to do. Since true of the common things of this life, how much more true of the things of the life to come, and still more true in respect to Him who is infinitely above us. His modes of existence. His different manifestations. His purposes, and His manner of working out those purposes in, for, and through man imperfect. "We must, of necessity, hold that there is some- thing exceptional, yet worthy of God, which does not admit of comparison at all, not merely in things, but which cannot even be conceived by thought, or discerned by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend how the unbegotten God should be made the Father of the 16 The Divinity of Our Lord only begotten Son. Because His generation is as eternal and everlasting as the brilliancy which is produced by the sun. For it is not by receiving the breath of life that He is made Son, or by any outward act, but by His own nature."^ "These are notions," the trinity in unity, and the unity in trinity, "which may well puzzle our reason in con- ceiving how they agree, but should not stagger our faith in assenting that they are true, upon which we should meditate, not with hope to comprehend, but with dispositions to admire, veiling our faces in the presence, and prostrating our reason at the feet of wisdom so far transcending us." It is just at this point that many have gone astray as to the person and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because they have not been able to understand the Trinity, the preexistence of the Son, the two natures in one person, they have thrown out of their creeds and practice these truths of revelation, declaring them to be unin- telligible and self-contradictory, assuming that only pernicious results can come from assent to and belief in what is above our natural reason though it may not be contrary to it. » Origen. 2 17 The Divinity of Our Lord Such were the Gnostics in the first and second centuries, who represented Christ as one of a series of emanations from God, thus reducing Him to the rank of dependent beings, exalted above others of the same class in rank, but not in nature. Also Monarchians, Patripassians, or Unitarians as they were indifferently called in the third century, "who admitted a modal Trinity, acknowledging the true divinity of the Christ, but denying any personal distinctness in the Godhead"; Arians in the fourth century, who held the preexistence of Christ, but denied His entire equality with God, that He was homoiousion, that is, similar to God, but He was not Tiomoousion, that is, the same as God, not very God of very God. Modern Unitarians vary so much in their be- liefs in respect to our Lord that it is difficult to represent them fairly in any brief statement. One of their number uses this language in regard to the Father: "The Almighty and Infinite Being, to whom universal nature, both material and spirit- ual, owes its existence and preservation, is strictly one, one in a sense similar to that in which the word is employed when we speak of an individual belonging to any order or species of intellectual 18 The Divinity of Our Lord natures, — one mind, one spirit, one person, one agent, "This Being, and He alone, is self -existent, nn- derived, independent; the only absolute possessor of every perfection ; the single and original source of all existence, of all might, of all wisdom, of all goodness ; the God and Father of all intelligences, whether celestial or terrestrial, human or divine; the God and Father even of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though immeasurably superior in moral and spiritual grandeur to all other beings of whom we have any knowledge, was and is dependent on one supreme and universal Parent for His existence. His powers, and His offices, — for His authority and qualifications as the Messiah, as the Eepre- sentative or Vicegerent of God, as the Teacher, the Saviour, the King, and the Judge of men." As to the Son, the same author writes: "The Christ of the Holy Scriptures was no natural or essential son of God, no physical or metaphysical emanation from the Father, no eternally-begotten Person or Being, no second Person of the God- head or of a Triune Deity, no God-man possessed of properties destructive of each other; but a man the most highly chosen and approved of God ; the 19 The Divinity of Our Lord divinest of God's messengers and prophets, raised up and appointed by God to be the Redeemer of the world, filled with all the exuberance of the Father's spirit, blessed by all the tenderness of the Father's love; more than a Son of God — the Son of God, the only begotten and best beloved of God, because distinguished above all God's chil- dren, whether prophets or philosophers, by a deeper insight into God's designs, by a holier love for His character, by a more devout and reverent submission to His will." From the foregoing it is easy to see an unwill- ingness to accept the exalted truth as to the per- son of the Son as taught in the Old and New Tes- taments and as held by the large body of believers in all the centuries of the Christian era, and it is not difficult to recognize a determination to subor- dinate God's objective revelation to the human reason. Over against the Unitarian statements of their own belief, it may be well to place the so-called 'Ath- anasian Creed, an amplification of those of Nice and of Constantinople, which in substance is what the church has held since 381 A. D. ^'Whoever v/ould be saved, must first of all take care that he hold 20 The Divinity of Our Lord the catholic faith, which, except a man preserve whole and inviolate, he shall, without donbt, perish eternally. But this is the catholic faith, that we worship one God in trinity, and trinity in nnity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance; for the person of the Father is one; of the Son, is another; of the Holy Spirit, is an- other. But the divinity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty equal. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son, and such the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, the Holy Spirit is infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one eternal Being. So also there are not three uncreated beings, nor three in- finite beings, but one uncreated and one infinite Being. In like manner the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. And yet there are not three omnip- otent beings, but one omnipotent Being. Thus the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God. And yet there are not three Gods, 21 The Divinity of Our Lord but one God only. The Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord. And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord only. For as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess each person distinctively to be both God and Lord, we are prohibited by the catholic religion from saying that there are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made by none, not created, or be- gotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and the Son, or be- gotten, but proceeds. Therefore, there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons ; one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits. And in this Trinity there is nothing prior or posterior, nothing greater or less, but all three persons are coetemal, and coequal with themselves. So that through all, as was said above, both unity in trin- ity, and trinity in unity is to be adored. Whoever would be saved, let him thus think concerning the Trinity.'' Well said the apostle, "For this cause it is of faith, that it might be according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that 22 The Divinity of Our Lord also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." Hence, our dependence and safety in these stud- ies, as in everything, are not in what men have understood and said, but upon what God has said. To this we now turn. 23 THIED STUDY. Jesus' Claim to Divinity. 2f! He is the central miracle of the whole gospel. — Philip Schaff. Christ came into the iDorld hy one miracle, and went out hy another. — Liddon. 26 THIRD STUDY. Jesus' Claim to Divinity. At once we must face a most serious question — either we must receive His testimony or reject Him altogether. We cannot do one or the other in part only. He did not hesitate to invite per- sons to Himself, not to creeds or theories. He is Himself the fact of Christianity. He asks the questions: "What think ye of the Christ ? Whose son is he ?" "Who say ye that I am ?" Is there any room for doubting His veracity? Is there a word or act in all the more than thirty years of His existence on earth that will allow even a suspicion that He was not to the highest degree truthful and did not act from the most ex- alted motives ? We may narrowly scrutinize His childhood and youth in the little home at Nazareth; His long years of quiet training and patient waiting, asso- ciated with brothers and sisters in the same toil, 2T The Divinity of Our Lord trials, and triumphs; His emergence into the larger sphere of His active public ministry; His absolute sinlessness through the three years, no one convincing Him of sin ; His perfect holiness in the sight of God; the completeness and universal- ity of His character; that all graces and virtues were found in Him ; or gaze long upon His unjust treatment, suffering, and cruel death, yet never be able to detect a single act, utterance, tone, or temper that reflect the least discredit, or make Him in the least degree less than He claimed to be. Can we doubt Him? Let us hear Him on a few out of many points in favor of His own di- vinity. PREEXISTENCE. He laid definite and oft-repeated claim to ex- istence before He came into this world, and this to different persons in widely different circum- stances and localities, persons friendly to Him, who, doubtless, heard it with astonishment and, perhaps, with favor, and to persons who heard the claim with scoffing and hostility. To Nico- demus, who sought Him by night, a timid inquirer, during the first passover in the year 27, with whom, too, He had dealt so fairly in opening most 28 Tlie Divinity of Our Lord momentous truth, yet intimating this was only the beginning of the greater things He had to reveal, He said, continuing to lead his mind on and out to the greater mystery, "And no man hath as- cended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven." Here He not only asserts His preexistence and His descent out of heaven to earth, but that He belonged at that very moment equally to both worlds. He was in Jerusalem, and yet in heaven. Two years later, about the time of the third passover, which He did not attend, as He was busy, patiently teaching, healing, and feeding the multitudes, up north of the sea of Galilee, He said to a great crowd, most of whom were not in spir- itual sympathy with Him, for they followed Him only because they ate of the loaves and were filled, "What then if ye should behold the Son of man ascending where he was before ?" This is plainly advanced teaching over that to Nicodemus. It forms a climax in the astounding utterances of that day, and one reason that from this time many companied no more with Him. Again, six months later, and only six months before His crucifixion, during the feast of taber- 29 The Divinity of Our Lord nacles, among many other profound truths inex- plicable to minds not illuminated by the Spirit of God, to the crowd of Jews asking Him, "Who art thou ?" "Art thou greater than our father Abra- ham?" "Hast thou seen Abraham?" He said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you. Before Abraham was, I am." "In these tremendous words," says Liddon, "the speaker institutes a double contrast, in respect both of the duration and of the mode of existence, between Himself and the great ancestor of Israel : irplv 'Adpaa/i yeviadai, Before Abraham to have be- come, or was born. Abraham, then, had come into existence at some given point of time. Abraham did not exist until his parents gave him birth. Ey6 et/ii, I am. Here is simple existence, with no note of beginning or end. Our Lord says not. Before Abraham was I was, but I am. He claims preexistence, indeed, but He does not merely claim preexistence. He unveils a consciousness of eternal being. He speaks as one on whom time has no effect, and for whom it has no meaning. He is the I am of ancient Israel; He is unbegin- ning, unending Being." Then, six months later, in the upper room in The Divinity of Our Lord Jerusalem, alone with the apostles who were to carry forward what He had begun, whom He was so shortly to leave, whom, too, He was initiating into the deeper mysteries of His being and of His kingdom, an awful future casting its shadow upon them all. He carried their minds backward to His preexistence with the Father, and also for- ward to the reestablishment of that original re- lation, in these words, "I came out from the Fa- ther, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father." They were convinced as never before, for they said, "By this we believe that thou camest forth from God.'^ Still later, well on toward midnight, in that same upper room, Jesus leaving His disciples as it were in the outer court, and pressing His way into the holy of holies and offering to His Father that high-priestly prayer for Himself, for His dis- ciples, and for those who should believe upoh Him, He breathed out the most wonderful re- quest ever recorded, "And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." In this He not only claims preexistence, but also His nat- ural and inalienable right to the manifested ex- 31 'The Divinity of Our Lord cellence accorded Him, before He emptied Him- self and took the form of a servant. No prophet, priest, or king had ever gone so far in petition. Others had longed, hungered, cried out for the liv- ing God in language of great intensity, but never had such utterance come from human lips. What does it mean, if not that He was conscious of His preexistence, and that now He was about to be reinstated to His former unforfeited dignity and glory? With this claim of his directly asserted with increasing emphasis through all the years of His active ministry, agree all the writers of the New Testament. There are so many incidental assertions of the same truth. It pervades the whole Book of Eevelation, which would be mean- ingless without it. HIS CLAIM TO KNOW GOD. Early in the second year of His ministry, after the Sermon on the Mount, and after Jolm the Baptist in prison had sent two of his disciples to Him, Jesus, having pronounced woes upon those who had great light and yet did not use it, (re- sponsibility is in proportion to light,) with grati- tude He acquiesced in the will of His Father, and 32 The Divinity of Our Lord said, "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth who the Son is, save the Father; and who the Father is, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to re- veal him." But in John 8 : 55, about six months before His death. He advances and claims exclusive, preemi- nent, and absolute knowledge of God. "And ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar : but I know him, and keep his word."' Again, John 10 : 15, "Even as the Father know- eth me, and I know the Father." Did ever philosopher or prophet or apostle or saint make claim to know the infinite God? To know His works, any one of them, or any one of His attributes would be a claim an archangel would not dare to make. But to know God Him- self, and to know Him to the degree that God Himself knows, is a claim none but an infinite one would dare to make. HIS CLAIM TO BE GOD. This is much more than preexistence and know- ing God, the other assertions He had made. 3 33 The Divinity of Our Lord 1. That He is one with the Father. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). And the Jews fully understood the extent of His claim in these words, for immediately they took up stones again to stone Him. Did He yield the ground? Eather He advanced upon His malicious enemies with the challenge, that if He did not the works of God they were at liberty not to believe Him, but if He did the works of God, then they ought to believe the works though they did inconsist- ently reject the worker, "that ye may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." "He that beholdeth me beholdeth him that sent me." "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." 2. That He is entitled to equal honor with tJie Father. At the time of the second passover, John 5 : 1, great indignation was manifested toward Him by the Jews because He had healed upon the Sabbath day a man with an infirmity of thirty- eight years, and they determined to kill him. The whole chapter is a defense of His right to do as He had done because He was Himself God. "That all may honour the Son, even as thy honour the 34 The Divinity of Our Lord Father. He that honoureth not the Son honour- eth not the Father which sent him." 3. That He is equal with the Father in send- ing the Holy Spirit. Compare John 14: 16 with John 15 : 26. "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter." "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send nnto you from the Father." 4. That as God He is the owner of all things. "All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine" (John 16: 15). That he is Lord of the Sabbath equally with the Father. (John 5: 17; Mark 2: 28.) Hence He had the right to do works of mercy and to change Jewish observances. 5. That He had the power to forgive sins, which was acknowledged hy all to he the preroga- tive of God alone. Mark 2:7, 10 : "Who can forgive sins but one, even God?" "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," and the man walked away healed in body and soul. To the woman who, out of great love, washed His feet as He sat in Simon^s house and wiped them with her hair. He gra- ciously announced (Luke 7:48), "Thy sins [they were many] are forgiven." 35 The Divinity of Our Lord 6. TJiai Be was equally with God entitled to their faith in the most crucial hours of their ex- perience. John 14 : 1 : "Ye believe in God, be- lieve also in me/' What an impostor He must have been, if, knowing what was coming upon His stricken followers within a few short hours, and for days and years to follow. He asked them to do what He knew had no divine reality in it — to believe in Him as they believed in God ! What cruel mockery! Not even His worst enemy can believe Him guilty of such base imposition. Far, far easier is it to receive Him as divine, as He claimed to be, than to believe He told and acted a lie at such a time as this. The morning following the above interview with friends, prolonged far into the night. He was in the power of murderous enemies who disputed His claim, progressively asserted through the past three years. Only one of His former close friends now stood near Him. All had forsaken and fled. One, however, had recovered himself and was pres- ent at this preliminary trial. Will He now maintain His claim to be divine in such circumstances? Yes, the record (Matt. 26: 63-67) says. He was not only true to his claim, 36 The Divinity of Our Lord to Himself, to His Father, and to all mankind, as previously set forth, but He advances the new and larger truth implied in that claim, "Hence- forth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven." His examiners, Caiaphas and his com- mittee of the Sanhedrin, called before daylight to look into His case and formulate a measure to be adopted by the whole body to be regularly called after daylight, fully understanding the extent of His claim to be God, declared the case made against Him by rising and rending their garments, by spitting in His face, by buffeting, smiting, mocking Him, and the events of that ever-mem- orable Friday morning, enforced by the testimony of His bitterest enemies and by the resurrection morning and all subsequent events, proved the validity of His claim that He was divine. He was and is BeavOpunog, the Son of God, the Son of man. "Seventy-seven times He is called Lord; and one with the Father, seventeen ; ten times are the same things spoken of Him as of God; and in fifty-two is He presented as an object of worship. In fifty-eight places He is spoken of as a Sav- iour, in fourteen as Redeemer, in fifteen as pos- 37 The Divinity of Our Lord sessing eternal life, in fifteen as Giver of eternal life, in seventeen as Judge of the world, in twenty as the Bestower of rewards, and in twenty-four as Executor of the punishment of the wicked/'^ If Jesus was not what He claimed to be, why in all the ages have there not been others like Him? » Townsend. 38 FOURTH STUDY. The Gospels Assert His Divinity. All I think, all I hope, all I write, all I live for, is tased upon the divinity of Jesus Christ, the central joy of my poor wayward life. — William E. Gladstone. 40 FOURTH STUDY. The Gospels Assert His Divinity. In the four Gospels we have two views of our Lord. The first three, called the Synoptic Gos- pels, present Him as the Human-Divine Being, the last as the Divine-Human. In the synoptists we see Him horn, growing to youth and manhood, in His baptism, ministry of healing, teaching, working miracles, rejected, be- trayed, suffering, dying, buried, rising, much as we might read the story of any other one, little be- ing said of His divinity, though it is taken for granted in all the record. But in John we are at once taken into the realm of the divine, and the divine side of His great person is constantly prom- inent, the human not denied but taken for granted. synoptists. The synoptists are not without explicit testi- mony as to His divinity. The whole message of 41 The Divinity of Our Lord the angel to Mary, Luke 1 : 28-35, preannouneing His birth, is permeated with the idea of His di- vinity, ascribing to Him absolute greatness, exal- tation, kingship, eternity, and holiness. "Where- fore also that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God." Then at the age of thirty, probably in January, A. D. 27, when He was baptized in the river Jor- dan, all three synoptists record that the Father gave testimony by sending the Spirit in a bodily form upon Him and by "a voice out of the heav- ens, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Then all through His ministry of more than three years, each of these writers looked at Him from his particular viewpoint, and made record for different classes of readers. Matthew for the Jew wrote on the subject, "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Messiah promised in the Old Testa- ment." He saw Him as Prophet, Priest, and King. In each office He was more than human. He was divine. What teacher ever laid down such elements of character as Jesus did in the first seven Beatitudes, and who had found such depths of spirituality in the law as He gave in Matthew 42 The Divinity of Our Lord 5 : 17-48, and such ideas of the kingdom as He fascinatingly portrayed in chapter 13, and snch prophetic unfolding of the future as He gave in chapters 2-1 and 25 ? There is no more convincing argument for the divinity of our Lord than can be read in the sim- ple yet natural divisions of each Gospel. Matthew gives (1) the advent of the Messiah, 1 : 4-11; (2) the pubHc proclamation of the Messiah — the prophet idea prominent, 4:12 — 16:12; (3) the public claim of the Messiah, the King, 16 : 13 — 23 : 34; (4) the sacrifice of the Messiah, the Priest, 24 — 27; conclusion, the triumph of the Messiah as prophet, king, and priest, 28. Mark wrote his Gospel for the Eomans, who were the conquerors of the world and delighted in power, and the subject of his Gospel is "Jesus Christ, the Son of God in His conquering power,'' and gives deeds, rather than discourses as Matthew: (1) The advent of the Conqueror, 1: 1-13; (2) His conquests in eastern Galilee, 1: 14 — 7:23; (3) His conquests in upper Galilee, 7:24—9; (4) His conquests in Perea, 10:1-45; (5) His conquests in Judsea, 10: 46 — 15; (6) His 43 The Divinity of Our Lord conquests over Jews, Romans, death, the grave, and the world, 16. Luke wrote his Gospel for the Greeks, who were at that time in all lands, and hence the representa- tives of mankind, and the subject he set forth is "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of all mankind": (1) His identity with all mankind in His birth, 1 — 3; (2) His work for all Jewish mankind in Galilee, 4 — 9:50; (3) His work for all Gentile mankind in Perea, 9: 51— 18: 30; (4), His journey, sacrifice, and triumph for all man- kind, 18 : 31—24. The most convincing treatise on the divinity of our Lord is the threefold story of the human- divine One as read according to the analyses given, or read just as recorded by the authors. He is supernatural in his teaching, in his control of nat- ural elements, of animal nature, of demoniacal spirits, of disease, and of death itself. He is om- niscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. "At the mouth of two witnesses or three every word may be es- tablished." THE FOURTH GOSPEL. Of the four evangelists, it is chiefly to John that we turn for direct and positive testimony as 44 The Divinity of Our Lord to our Lord's divinity. Had we no more evidence than what John gives in the prologue to his Gos- pel, first eighteen verses, we need not be in doubt upon this fundamental truth. "It is the profound- est page in the New Testament.''^ In the opening sentence he plunges us in be- yond the depth of our reason. How different from the beginning of the other Gospels, where we were led down through His humanity and on up to His divinity ! In this it is divinity first. "In the be- ginning, before God created the heavens and the earth, the Word already was. He did not come into being, but was. Before this Word, who is announced in the Gospel, appeared in time, He was in the beginning; before He became the life and the light of men, He was with God; before He became flesh. He was God; before He dwelt with us. He had been from all eternity with God." Bengel says, "Verses one and two place Him be- fore the creation of the world; verse three, at the creation of the world; verse four, at the time of the fall ; and verse five, after the time of the fall." The whole prologue as it bears directly upon His divinity as manifested may be analyzed thus : *Dr. McLaren. 45 The Divinity of Our Lord I. His absolute eternal preexistence as the Word, verses 1-5. 1. His existence beyond time (1). 2. His personal existence in active communion with God (1). 3. His nature — God in essence (1). 4. In personal communion with God (2). 5. The agent in creation (3). 6. The self-contained cause of all things (4). 7. His conflict, as light with darkness (5). II. His historic manifestation as the Word, verses 6-18. 1. By prophecy of John : His personality (6) ; the end of His mission (7) ; His nature (8). 2. As light: by special revelation (9); by personal immanence (10). 3. By His personal coming to His chosen peo- ple (11-13) : natural unbelief encountered (11) ; personal faith of some (12, 13). 4. By His incarnation (14-17) : personal ap- pearing (14) ; John's witness (15) ; experience of believers (16) ; His relation to law (17). 5. By His declaring the Father (18). Of the twenty-two names applied by the writer in this chapter to Christ, fifteen directly imply His 46 The Divinity of Our Lord divinity. John the Baptist bare record that this is the Son of God, and pointed out "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." To the spiritually-minded Nathanael, confessing, "Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel,'' He opened larger truths along the same line. We might be satisfied with John's testimony in this chapter alone, but every chapter adds new evidence. As Creator He makes water into the best of wine; foretells His own resurrection three years in advance; leads the inquiring Jewish teacher into momentous truth; discovers to the outcast Samaritan woman His Messiahship before He tells eminent men of His own nation or even His personal friends; makes Himself equal with God in the work He does and in the honor He claims, in the life He has, and in that Moses wrote of Him; feeds the thousands from a few loaves and fishes; calls Himself the Bread of Life and the Resurrection ; receives without protest the con- fession of Peter that He is the Holy One of God ; by His marvelous teaching on the last great day of the feast He divides His hearers, many being convinced that He is the Christ; places Himself 47 The Divinity of Our Lord before Abraham in His eternal preexistence ; opens the eyes of a man born blind; is the Shep- herd of His sheep whom He knows, calls, gathers, guides, feeds, protects, preserves, dies for, and gives eternal life; raises Lazarus, His friend, and affirms Himself the resurrection and the life; ac- cepts anointing and public homage as King, not only without protest, but even approves and com- mends the acts. These first twelve chapters of John were His self -revelation to the world. The remaining part of the book is His self-revelation to the inner cir- cle of His own, and is weighty with evidence of His divinity. A recent writer says, "The critical penetrative- ness of that writer is too little recognized. He overleapt centuries of controversy. He saw at the first glance what all history has abundantly demonstrated, that all intermediate compromises, such as the Arian, were neither historically nor logically tenable, and that therefore the issue was clean and clear between mere humanity and very deity. With that direct issue before him, he wrote, not so much the best or the highest, but the only description of Jesus that he could write. As a 48 The Divinity of Our Lord Christian, he could not describe Jesus as a mere man ; nor can we. As a thinker, he could not de- scribe Him as an intermediate divinity; nor can we. If, then, he was to write at all, he could write but one thing, and if we are to say at all what Christ is, we can say but that one thing, too. It is, I repeat, saved from being quite incredible only by being quite inevitable.'^^ *P. Carnegie Simpson. 49 FIFTH STUDY. More Testimony by John. 51 My Lord and my Ood. — Thomas. 52 FIFTH STUDY. More Testimony by John. The first Epistle of John was written from Ephesus to Christians in Asia Minor, among whom many insidious and dangerous errors as to our Lord's divinity had arisen. By some, matter was held to be in itself essentially evil, and, there- fore, Jesus could not have taken to Himself a real body, but He only seemed to have a body. Again, that He was not eternally begotten, but was only one of a great number of emanations from God, the highest, to be sure, yet not divine. Others had degraded Him by exalting the worship of angels, and not holding Him as the Head over all things to His church. John writes with a view to putting Him in His rightful, exalted place as the divine Sovereign and Saviour, through whom alone man can ap- proach God and be saved. Although sixty or sev- enty years had passed since the cloud received 53 The Divinity of Our Lord Him out of the sight of the astonished, upward- gazing apostles on the Mount of Olives, Jesus was still a living, real person to John, as real, 'airjOivSg, a favorite word, as when he leaned upon His bosom at the table in the upper room, and he wanted his readers to hold Him as real, though not present to their bodily vision. "Whom not having seen ye love ; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Now again, as in the prologue to his Gospel, had he given us no more than the introductory verses, the first four of this letter, we should be obliged to consider the author's purpose estab- lished. "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerneth the Word of life (and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us) ; that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us : yea, and our fellow- ship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus 54 The Divinity of Our Lord Christ: and these things we write, that onr joy may be fulfilled." Even the first word, repeated three times, 6 , "what, that which," being neuter, refers to more than the historic Christ, teaching His preexistence, hence His divinity. Then he proceeds to bring ont the reality of His humanity. Or had we no more than the last four verses of this letter, we should have the reality and di- vinity of our Lord sufficiently proved. "We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not; but he that was begotten of God keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in the evil one. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. My little children, keep yourselves from idols." In the author's love for trinal arrangement of ideas, we have in his "we know," "we know,'' "wg know," that Christians are begotten of God, be- long to God, that the Son of God "is come," pres- ent tense, hence here now, not came or has come, but "is come," an ever-present, real person. Then 55 The Divinity of Our Lord read real in the place of true, as the original un- deniably warrants and you have, "An understand- ing, that we may know the real one, and we are in the real one, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the real God and life ageless." Is it any wonder he closes his letter with the affectionate entreaty, "My little children, guard yourselves from idols'^ ? ISTot only the first and last verses prove the di- vine reality of our Lord, but there are strong as- sertions throughout this letter. "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abid- eth in him, and he in God." "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also." Faith in the Son conquers the world, gives the witness within, and endows with the ageless life. The subject of John's testimony in Eevelation is, "The church's struggle and victory." Eead it with the victory side outmost, for it is the key- note, and Christ is the organizer and leader in that victory. "It is one continued hymn of praise to Christ, setting forth the glory of His person and the triumph of His kingdom; representing Him as the ground of confidence to His people, and the object of worship to all the inhabitants 56 The Divinity of Our Lord of heaven. He is declared to be the ruler of the kings of the earth. He has made us kings and priests unto God. He is the First and the Last, language never used but of God, and true of Him alone. In the epistles to the churches, Christ as- sumes the titles and prerogatives of God." It is interesting to trace in this prophetic book the progress of the victory of which He is Head and Promoter. First we are made acquainted with Him in person, transcendingly great; then He commends, rebukes, threatens, and rewards the seven churches; then is set before us the orderly arrangement of heaven; then the Lamb prevailing and worshiped by living creatures, the four and twenty elders, the angels joining, and every created thing in the universe uniting to swell the chorus with ascriptions of praise ^'unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honour, and tlje glory, and the dominion for ever and ever"; then on in chapter seven the innumerable company arrayed in white robes and with palms in their hands cry with a great voice, ^^Salvation unto our God which sit- teth on the throne, and unto the Lamb," with the antiphonal answer from angels, elders, and living 57 The Divinity of Our Lord creatures, all on their faces worshiping and say- ing, "Amen : blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen." Then the last chapters give forth one final peal of victory of the redeemed under the triumphant leadership of Him who answers, "Behold, I come quickly." To John He was divine. 58 SIXTH STUDY, Paul Affirms. It will J)e commonly found that half the merit of an argument lies in the genuineness of its aim or olject. — Horace Bushnell. 60 SIXTH STUDY. Paul Affirms. "It is a small part of the evidence of the divinity of oiir Lord that can be gathered np from the general teaching of the New Testament. It is important to bear in mind that faith in this doc- trine rests not on this or that passage, or on this or that mode of representation, but upon the whole revelation of God concerning His Son. The di- vinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is wrought into the texture of the Scriptures, and is everywhere as- serted or assumed." The foregoing is especially true of the writings of Saint Paul. From the hour of midday, out on the hill at Damascus, when he said, "Who art thou, Lord?" and heard, "I am Jesus," Paul was always and increasingly loyal to his risen Lord. He knew only one Lord — the Lord Jesus ; only one faith— faith in Him; only one baptism — baptism into union with Him in His death, burial, resur- 61 The Divinity of Our Lord rection, ascension, and session at the right hand of God. He filled the whole horizon of Paul's vision. To him to live was Christ; to die, gain. All things were loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Him. He was more than conqueror through Him from whose love nothing could sep- arate him for a moment, and he died with clear vision of the crown ready to be placed on his head by his crucified and risen Lord. He was anxious that all whom he could in any way influence should have like precious faith in his divine Lord. Hence, in A. D. 52, he wrote his Thessalonian converts, just out of heathenism, "to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead," and that "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven" as a conqueror, and we shall "be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord," and afterward he corrected their mistaken ideas of the time and manner of His second com- ing. Being deeply grieved that the converts in Gala- tia had been tempted through the persuasion of Judaizing teachers to discount the work of Christ, in A. D. 54, he wrote them a strong letter upon 62 The Divinity of Our Lord "The Perfect Work of Christ," declaring himself one sent forth through Him raised from the dead, that faith in Him was all-sufficient without ob- servances of the law, that Christ is Abraham's seed, that all who by faith belong to Him are children cf Abraham, and they only are free. In A. D. 57, he had heard, in Ephesus, by those of the house of Chloe, of the spirit of party in the Corinthian church, some two hundred miles to the west, and wrote at once to get their eyes and hearts away from the mere human agents — Paul, Cephas, and Apollos — back upon Christ alone, of whose body they formed a part, that He alone was the2<$(^m, the true system of philosophy, and the inherent power of God, that in Him alone was lib- erty, that He was the spiritual rock who sustained their fathers in the wilderness (I. Cor. 10:4), that as Head of the church His authority and Sacraments are to be observed (ch. 11), and this can be done only by the Spirit of God (12:3), through whom He bestows nine spiritual gifts, that our Lord's resurrection explains and makes certain our resurrection (ch. 15), and every one not loving such a Lord brings deserved anathema upon himself (ch. 16), but the looking with un- 63 The Divinity of Our Lord veiled face upon His glory brings metamorphosis into the same image from glory to glory (II. Cor. 3:18). In A. D. 58, he wrote to the saints in Eome of "A Eighteousness of God Revealed/' inherent in God, manifested in Jesus Christ, and by faith in every believer," cogently portraying the necessity, nature, effects, and application of that righteous- ness through Christ alone, His divinity being im- plied. He gives, also, direct testimony in Romans 1:4: "Who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness [subjective spirit] by the resurrection of the dead ; even Jesus Christ our Lord" ; and, 9 : 5, "Who [Jesus] is over all, God blessed for ever. Am^n" ; and 10 : 9, "Because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, an.d shalt believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Next we know him as the prisoner, not of the Roman government so much, or because even of the hostility of his own nation, but of Jesus Christ; he belongs to Him, and so he writes from prison, in Rome, in 62, four letters in which he exalts his Lord as divine. 64 The Divinity of Our Lord He would have the saints in Ephesus (1:10) see all things summed up in Christ, "the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth/' and to recognize Him as the "head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all," that they are alive from the death of sin together with Him (2:5), that He descended, and ascended, and that the church (4:16) derives all its life and sustenance from Him. To the Philippian saints, loving and loved, he tells (2:6), that although He was in the form of God once, yet did not count it a prize to be seized and held, but became less in order that oth- ers might be great, and because of this every knee shall bow, and every tongue in the universe shall confess His lordship, and (3 : 20) He shall change the body of our humiliation that it may be con- formed to the body of His glory. He wrote to the Colossian believers that his and their divine Lord was more than the agent in crea- tion, that '% him" as the sphere, or element, were all things created, inanimate and animate, angelic and human, that in all things He might have the preeminence, that in Him is all fullness of the 5 65 The Divinity of Our Lord Godhead bodily, that spiritual reconciliation of things upon the earth and things in the heavens is due to Him. Assuming Paul wrote to the Hebrew Christians in 63, after a wonderful summary in the first four verses, giving nine statements of His per- son and work, he places Christ far above angels in name, nature, office (ch. 1), and above Moses, as son over His own house is above the servant in the house (3:1-6), and above Aaron, perfect, un- dying, efficient, unending. Throughout the book He is the effulgence of His Father's glory. Finally, in his three pastoral letters, he often asserts the divinity of his Lord. Among many, he gives this summary of a confession current in that day, "Without controversy great is the mys- tery of godliness; he was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, re- ceived up in glory." So through more than thirty years of eminent service, and awful trials, from his conversion in 36 or 37, to his crowning in 67 or 68, and in thir- teen or fourteen letters written in different places and circumstances to very different people, to The Divinity of Ow Lord saints, to churches, to public servants, and to pri- vate individuals, Paul bears unmistakable testi- mony that Christ was what He professed to be and the Gospels had said he was, the theanthropos, very God of very God. 67 SEVENTH STUDY. The Prophets Foretold. 69 // they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead. — Jesus. 70 SEVENTH STUDY. The Prophets Foretold. Dr. Frank Delitzsch, an eminent Hebrew scholar, said, "There are three hundred and thirty-three distinct prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament." The close reader is gratified in noticing the de- cided progress in clearness of statement, in vivid- ness of portrayal of His character and work, from the first. Genesis 3 : 15, to the last one, Malachi 4:2. ISTo wonder devout persons like Simeon, Anna, Nathanael, waited and longed for the consolation of Israel, for no doubt they, in some form, had studied and pondered the inspiring vision opening more and more toward reality as brought out in Genesis 3:15; 12:3; 49:10; :N"umbers 24:17; Deuteronomy 18: 15 (1300 B. C.) ; Psalms 2, 16, 22, 40, 45, 72, 110 (1000 B. C.) ; Isaiah 7: 14; 9 : 6 ; 11 : 1, 53 ; Micah 5 : 2 ( 750 B. C.) ; Jeremiah 71 The Divinity of Our Lord 33:15; 23:5 (630 B. C.) Zechariah 3:8, 9; 6: 13; 9:9; 11:12, 13; 12:10; 13:1 (520 B. C.) ; and Malachi 3: 1; 4: 2 (450 to 400 B. C). Passing over the historical books, in which is repeated mention of the Jehovah angel who has generally been understood to be the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity, we come to the acknowledged Messianic Psalms, and to the brief mention of the plain utterances of some of the prophets. In the second Psalm the nations are depicted in open hostility toward their rightful sovereign (1-3) ; the Lord's attitude toward them of de- rision and of determination to sustain His king upon the throne (4-6) ; the record of the covenant with His Son that His reign should be triumphant and universal (7-9) ; and His loving entreaty with kings and judges to avoid impending doom, with benediction upon all who thus surrender and trust Him (10-12). In Psalm 16:8-10 we have language applicable in its full sense only to Jesus Chrst, as brought out in Acts 2 : 27, 31, and 13 : 35. The seventy-second Psalm Hengstenberg calls the program of the crucifixion, although written 72 The Divinity of Our Lord one thousand years before our Lord appropriated the words to Himself on Calvary. The forty-fifth Psalm gives a description of a king which the writer to the Hebrews applies (vs. 6, 7) directly to Christ as superior to angels, being Himself God seated upon a throne, ruling in equity because He inherently loved righteousness, hence He had been anointed by God above all those ad- ministering the affairs of His kingdom. The seventy-second Psalm speaks both of the King and the extent of His kingdom, all nations bringing their glory and honor into it, and in every way contributing to its magnificence and perpetuity until the whole earth shall be under His rule. Amen and amen. The one hundred and tenth Psalm describes the kingly Priest after the order of Melchizedek, greater than Abraham in that he blessed him, and to whom Abraham, in recognition of his superior- ity, paid tithes from the top of the spoil taken in war. This is repeatedly applied to Christ in He- brews. Now put these six poetic descriptions, all ac- knowledged to be Messianic, together, and whose portrait is it if not that of our Lord Jesus as 73 The Divinity of Our Lord brought out in New Testament applications to Him? Is He divine? Is tlie Old Covenant, and the New as well, false, and are both failures ? In Isaiah we have Him (4:2), as "the branch of the Lord" beautiful and glorious; in chapter six, as upon a throne, high and lifted up. His train filling the temple, all of which (John 12:4) ap- plies to Christ; in chapters seven and nine, as a child of a virgin; a son given, strong to rule, wise in counsel, whose name is Wonderful, Coun- sellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father or Father of eternities, Prince of Peace, whose kingdom is everlasting ; and in fifty-three we have His person and sacrifice and its effect upon Him and upon the world. While Isaiah makes us acquainted with Him and creates longings to see Him, Micah 5 : 1-5 gratifies in telling where He is to be born, and Zechariah 9 : 9 gives us the scene of His riding into Jerusalem "upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass"; in 11:12, 13 we see "the thirty pieces of silver" for which Judas sold Him ; in 12 : 10, the mourning and bitterness which fol- lowed; and in 13: 1, the opening of the fountain to the house of David and to the inhabitants of 74 The Divinity of Our Lord Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness ; that is, atone- ment perfect and universal. And finally Malachi closes the attractive per- spective of the Old Covenant with a few touches of warning and of hope and gladness (ch. 3:1), "And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple ; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in, behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts"; and (ch. 4 : 2), "The sun of right- eousness shall arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and gambol as calves of the stall." What more need be said? Time would fail in telling how the Scriptures set forth the excellency of God, as one with the Father, as the first begot- ten of God, as Lord of lords, as the image of God, as Creator, as the blessed God, as Mediator, as Prophet, as Priest, as King, as Judge, as Shep- herd, as Head of the church, as the true Light, as the Foundation of the church, as the Way, as the Truth, as the Life, as incarnate, as divine in His works, in His words, in His sinless perfection, in the fullness of His grace and truth, in His transfiguring, in His exaltation, in calling the Gentiles, in the restoration of the Jews, in His 75 The Divinity of Our Lord triumphs, in His sufferings, in His resurrection, in His immutability, in His incomparability, in His impartation to the saints, in His adoration by the redeemed in heaven where His saints behold His face evermore, and serve Him day and night. 76 EIGHTH STUDY. The Undivided Testimony of Ages. 77 Christ the Power of God. — Paul. His followers are nations and generations. — Fichte. 78 EIGHTH STUDY. The Undivided Testimony of Ages. "With the goodly company of the prophets and the apostles; with the martyrs of the earliest Christian ages ; with the earlier and later fathers ; with the strong scholars who, differing on much else, are on this truth essentially and persistently one; with the continental and English reformers, and the Anglican and Puritan and American di- vines; with Athanasius and Tholuck, with Fene- lon and Knox, with Augustine and Anselm, with Calvin and Wesley, with Luther and Bossnet, with Bull and Baxter, Horsley and Howe, Pearson, Newman, Pascal, Cudworth, Wolf, Butler, Taul- erand, Hopkins, Edwards, Sherlock, and D wight, Park and Neander, with Nice, Trent, Augsburg, Westminster, Edinburgh, Leipzig, Berlin, Prince- ton, New Haven, and Andover, shall not Boston say, Let the anthem roll on ?"^ With such a eata- > Joseph Cook on "The Trinity a Practical Truth." 79 The Divinity of Our Lord logne of eminent scholars and recognized coun- cils who held Jesus divine, what if Locke, New- ton, Franklin, Channing, and Parke did not re- ceive Him? How does it come that Jesus becomes greater and greater as men study Him more and more through the ages? that nations which carry out the principles taught by Him become great and greater, and those who do not know, or knowing forsake Him, become less and less until they pass away? If there is no divinity in His doctrine of sin, ato'nement, regeneration, sanctification, resurrec- tion, immortality, judgment, how account for the gracious ■ results which in all ages and among all classes have attended the faithful preaching and reception of them ? Why do we find from one hun- dred to two hundred churches flourishing, based upon His divinity, and one Unitarian — perhaps not one? Have the great missionary movements of any age sprung from the Trinitarians or from the Unitarians? Whence the great Eeformation? If He is not divine, why this constantly increasing demand for His Word, of which He is the central theme, the The Divinity of Our Lord Sun? Translations are being made into lan- guages and dialects with increasing rapidity and accuracy, so that it is said to-day that twelve hun- dred of the fifteen hundred millions of the race could have the Word of life in their own tongue. Have the world-wide movements now blessing this age sprung from those who doubt and deny our Lord's divine nature? Are Unitarians dis- cussing whether they have any mission ? Is Har- vard University facing toward Christ by inviting into its theological faculty men of avowed loyalty to Christ as divine ? What changes have come in Germany in the past thirty years, when it is affirmed that "out of the thirty universities of that most learned land, only one can be called rationalistic to-day. I do not know of a single infidel book over a hundred years old that has not been put on the upper neg- lected shelf by scholars."^ "The most remarkable feature of religious scholarship in recent times is the study of the Jesus of nineteen hundred years ago."^ We con- clude, then, that the undivided testimony of the Christian church in all ages has been, and the * Joseph Cook. •Simpson. 6 81 The Divinity of Our Lord trend of thought now is, in favor of our Lord'v? divinity. There has been much of imperfect statement, of cloudiness of belief, of indefinite thinking and realization, of denial in practice, on the surface, but the under-currents have been and are toward Him. NINTH STUDY. The Christ Within^. 83 The influences of the Holy Spirit are Chri^fs con- tinued life. — Joseph Cook. 84 NINTH STUDY. The Christ Within. Is THERE such a thing as the Christian or Christ consciousness by which we know God directly? Is there a sixth sense ? Are its perceptions as def- inite as any of the five physical senses ? There has been but one opinion among believers in our Lord's divinity as to the reality and reliability of this inner spiritual sense. The Word, also, .con- firms this conviction. In the first Epistle of John, chapter five, four witnesses as to our Lord's di- vinity are summoned: "the water," His baptism in the beginning of His ministry; "the blood," His death at the close of His life on earth; "the Spirit," given as the result and a continuance of His ministry on earth: and the witness within, for "he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in him," and "he that hath the Son hath the life : he that hath not the Son hath not the life." In his Gospel, 14 : 22, the same writer says, 85 The Divinity of Our Lord "What is come to pass that thou wilt manifest thy- self unto us and not unto the world ?" Indeed, in the whole book it is assumed that, when its teachings are received, important, radical change takes place in man — the eyes of the under- standing are opened, the heart changed, the will renewed, the old put off, the new put on. "It is the heart that makes the theologian."^ This change is the result of belief in a divine philos- ophy which can only be understood by the human spirit enlightened and energized by the Spirit of God, but then it can discern "even the deep tilings of God,'^ "for we have the mind of Christ." In such persons not only is the deity of Christ accepted, but also all the doctrines growing out of that central fact, such as the divinity in the word itself, the fallen state of man, his restora- tion through Christ by a power other than his own, growth into His image, longing to be like Him until the vision opens only to things above where Christ is seated, for He is the life, and thus all such come into the truest socialism with patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs — all who have served Him in all ages (Heb. 12:22-24) » Neander. The Divinity of Our Lord and feel themselves by virtue of life with, their risen Lord thrust out into service as He Himself came out to minister and to give His life a ran- som. Thus the Christ-life is lived by those who are Christ's. Martyrs prayed to Him as divine.^ The hymns of the ages have been of Him as divine. Toplady, the Calvinist, wrote "Eock of Ages, cleft for me." Wesley, the Arminian, "Jesus, Lover of my soul."" The practical value of hymns as teaching the deity of Christ cannot be overstated, for they are the expression of the deepest and highest religious emotions. The Gloria in Excelsis belongs to the second century, and the Te Deum has been traced to an early date. Prayers to Him as divine have come down to us from the days of His ministry on earth. If He is not divine, how account for these vast changes in individual lives and the beneficial re- sults to societies and nations when controlled by men who believe Him divine? Why are men of extraordinary power for good while loyal to Him, shorn of that power when they have wilfully turned their backs upon him ? « Vide, Liddon, p. 390. 87 The Divinity of Our Lord Another takes us to the same conclusion, the di- vinity of Jesus, by emphasizing that the great data for Christianity are to be found in Christ Himself, that the historic Christ implies the Christ of experience, also, for as we think to ex- amine Him intellectually we find Him examining us spiritually, and that means the fact of sin, sin needs forgiveness, forgiveness implies a forgiver, pure, loving, tender, humble, which implies in- carnation, and incarnation atonement, and atone- ment divinity, so that He comes into our place, and we by union with Him stand in His place, so that it is no longer I, but Christ liveth in me, for he that believeth is not condemned, and he that willeth to do His will shall know of the doc- trine of the divinity of his Lord, for "he that he- lieveth on the Son of God hath the witness in him: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he hath not believed in the ivitness that God hath borne concerning his Son/' TENTH STUDY. The Witness of Unbelievers. 0 Galilean, TJiou hast conquered! — Julian the Apostate. 90 TENTH STUDY. The Witness of Unbelievers.* Pontius Pilate and his wife. Seven or eight times on that fatal Friday morning when Pilate rather than Jesus was on trial did Pilate declare Jesus innocent. "While he [Pilate] was sitting on the judgement-seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that right- eous man : for I have suffered many thing this day in a dream because of him." "When Pilate saw that he prevailed nothing, but rather that a tu- mult was arising, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am inno- cent of the blood of this righteous man : see ye to it" rMatt. 27:19. 24). The Centurion at the cross. '^Now the cen- turion, and they that were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the *The author acknowledges his debt to others, chiefly to Schafl'and Townsend. 91 The Divinity of Our Lord things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying. Truly this was the Son of God'' (Matt. 27: 54).' Judas. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood" (Matt. 27:3, 4). Flavins Josephus, A. D. 93. "About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if it be proper to call Him a man, for He was the doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to Him both many of the Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the investigation of the principal men among us, had condemned Him to the cross, those who had loved Him at the first did not forsake Him. For He appeared to them alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things concerning Him. And the sect of Chris- tians, so named after Him, are not extinct to this day." The Talmud bears indirect testimony to the truth of Christianity, and hence to the divinity 92 The Divinity of Our Lord of its founder, Jesus Christ, as do also the heathen, Greek, and Koman writers of the first five centuries, both by their incidental allusions and their direct attacks. Among the latter was Julian the Apostate, Eoman emperor, 361-363, who did all in his power by personal example and by the exercise of his absolute authority as em- peror to arrest the progress of Christianity and to restore paganism throughout the empire. In his final and disastrous Persian campaign he took care to restore the heathen gods. He died of a wound in battle, and, possibly, his dying words were, "0 Galilean, thou hast conquered." Passing to modern witnesses, we have among Germans : Lessing, born 1729, one of the greatest names in German literature, opposed to evangelical Christianity: "Christ came, and Christ became the first reliable, practical teacher of the immor- tality of the soul. The first reliable teacher. Re- liable because of the prophecies which seemed ful- filled in Him; reliable because of the miracles which He wrought; reliable because of His own reviving after a death by which He sealed His doctrine." 93 The Divinity of Our Lord Immanuel Kant, born 1724, the noted G^man philosopher, expressing religious horror on hear- ing a comparison between his morals and those of Jesus, said, "One of those names, before which the heavens bow, is sacred, while the other is only that of a poor scholar endeavoring to explain, to the best of his ability, the teachings of his Master." Schelling, born 1798, the illustrious German philosopher, a pantheist and unbeliever: '"The advent of Jesus Christ was the turning-point of the world's history." "Jesus Christ was a living word, an eternal discourse." Fich.tc, born 1797, the skeptic and atheist: "Till the end of time, all the sensible will bow before this Jesus of Nazareth, and all will humbly acknowledge the exceeding glory of this great phenomenon. His followers are nations and gen- erations." BicMer, born 1763, a German humorist and sentimentalist of the greatest singularity, "a satir- ist of orthodox Christianity," calls Jesus "the pur- est of the mighty and the mightiest of the pure, who with pierced hands raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its 94 The Divinity of Our Lord old channels, and still continues to rule and guide the ages." In infidel France we have : Jean Jacques Rousseau, born 1712, of whom Doctor Schaff says: "This famous French phi- losopher and rhetorician did as much as any writer, Voltaire not excepted, to prepare the way for the French Revolution and the consequent overthrow of the whole social order in France. When Plato describes his imaginary righteous man, loaded with all the punishments of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he ex- actly describes the character of Jesus Christ. The death of Socrates, peacefully philosophizing among his friends, appears the most agreeable that one could wish ; that of Jesus, expiring in agonies, abused, insulted, and accused by a whole nation, is the most horrible that one could fear. Socrates, indeed, receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner, but Jesus, amidst excruciat- ing tortures, prayed for His merciless tormentors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of t^ god." Napoleon Bonaparte, born 1769 : "I know men, 95 The Divinity of Our Lord and I tell you that Jesus Clirist is not a man. I see in Lycurgus, Numa, and Mohammed, only legislators, who have the first rank in the state; have sought the best solution of the social prob- lem; but I see nothing there which reveals di- vinity. It is not so with Christ. Everything in Him astonishes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whomever else in the world there is no possible comparison. He is truly a be- ing by Himself. I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Alexander, Caesar^ Charlemagne, and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded His em- pire upon love; and, at this hour millions of men would die for Him. What a proof of the divinity of Christ! What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ, which is pro- claimed, loved, adored, and which is extending over all the earth !'^ F. Pecant. "To what height does the character of Jesus Christ rise above the most sublime and yet ever imperfect types of antiquity! Jesus Christ has ever been humble and patient, holy, 96 The Divinity of Our Lord holy, holy before God; terrible to devils; without any sin. His moral life is wholly penetrated by God." Ernest Benan, who in his life of Jesus treats the whole story as legendary, confesses that "all history is incomprehensible without Him." "The highest consciousness of God which ever existed in the breast of humanity was that of Jesus. Jesus had no visions. God does not speak to Him from without. God is in Him; He feels that He is with God, and draws from His heart what He says of His Father. He lives in the bosom of God by uninterrupted communication. He is the God of humanity." From France we turn to England : James Martineau, born 1805, an English Uni- tarian who uttered many hard things against evan- gelical beliefs, "Christ is the commissioned Prophet, the merciful Eedeemer, the inspired Teacher, the perfect Model, the heavenly Guide." Thomas Carlyle, born 1795, not positively com- mitted to Christianity in his personal belief: "The tidings of the most important event ever transacted in this world is the life and death of the divine Man in Judaea, at once the symptom 7 97 The Divinity of Our Lord and the cause of immeasurable changes to all peo- ple in the world. Our divinest symbol. Higher has the human thought not yet reached." Lord Byron, born 1788, "If ever man was God, or God was man, Jesus Christ was both." James Antho7iy Froude, born 1818, "The most perfect being who ever trod the soil of this planet was called the Man of sorrows." Charles Dickens, born 1812, "I commit my soul to the mercy of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children to guide themselves by the teachings of the New Testament." Mrs. Humphry Ward, authoress of "Robert Elsmere," wrote, in 1899, to the London Times that "the school I represent still says as Peter said of old, ^Thou hast the words of eternal life,' not, indeed, from Peter's standpoint, but with Peter's persuasion that there is the light to be sought." From England we turn to America for a few testimonials from persons not classed among or- thodox believers. Deists like Thomas Paine, Ben- jamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, did not stop short of acknowledging the exalted character of the life and work of Jesus Christ. 98 The Divinity of Our Lord It is difficult to classify American Unitarians. Doctor Channing represents the right wing, and Doctor Parker the left wing. Doctor Channing, born 1780, the father of American Unitarianism : "I maintain that this is a character wholly remote from human concep- tion. I contemplate it with a veneration second only to the profound awe with which I look upon God. It was a real character. It belongs to and manifests the beloved Son of God and the Saviour of the world. Dr. Theodore ParTcer, born 1810: "That mightiest heart that ever beat, stirred by the Spirit of God, how it wrought in His bosom ! Measure Jesus Christ by the shadow He has cast into the world? N'o, by the light He has shed upon it." James Freeman Clarice, born 1810, a noted Uni- tarian: "Christ was something more thali mere man. The Word of God dwelt in Him, and did not merely come to Him as a transient influence. The Spirit in Christ was one with God." These witnesses have been brought from differ- ent lands. They represent different schools of thought, different professions as philosophers, his- torians, theologians, preachers, men of letters, rep- 99 The Divinity of Our Lord resenting, also, various phases of unbelief. What impression do their testimonies make ? Is it easier to accept Jesus as He claimed to be the Son of God, the Saviour of men, two natures in one Per- son, than to account for Him in any other vray? "What think ye of the Christ T "Who say ye that lam?" 100