the Son (viii. 29, x. 17). And the addition of μovoyevýs to viós, which the evangelist, plainly using words of his own (i. 18), puts on several occasions in the mouth of Jesus (iii. 16, 18), changes nothing in the only interpretation of the concept Son which is true to Scripture. The word which

the evangelist (i. 14) uses apparently of the Logos as such, but really of the historical Christ, who already in ver. 6 is spoken of under the names λóyos and pos, merely denotes that He was an only child (cf. Luke vii. 12), and has nothing to do with the manner of His origin, or even with the idea of an eternal generation; it simply expresses the uniqueness of the relation of Sonship in which Jesus stands to God. We have already remarked above, that the concepts God and Father, even in the Fourth Gospel, are entirely coincident, and that therefore there can be no mention in that Gospel of a "God the Son," in the sense of the later ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity; but that, according to all the laws of speech, the Son of God must be conceived as a being different from God, that is, human. But we have still to consider two express proofs for this christological mode of thought of our Gospel. The first is in the eighth chapter, where Jesus contrasts Himself as Son with the Jews as servants. But the Jews, according to ver. 34, are servants not because they are men, but because they are sinners. It follows therefore that Son-a concept which first makes its appearance quite specifically in ver. 35 as a universal human ideal-is that man who is in unbroken communion with God. There is only one who is really in such communion, and He alone can procure for the servants the rights of children. And in agreement with this, in what immediately follows the relation of Sonship is determined according to Christ's idea as moral likeness, just as the divine Sonship is in Matt. v. 45. The Jews are no children of Abraham, because they do not the works of Abraham. They are not the children of God but of the devil, because lying and murder is their nature. This makes plain the sense in which Jesus claims God as His Father, in contrast with them. Still more remarkable is the other passage, x. 33–38. As it is the only passage in the Fourth Gospel in which the divine Sonship of Jesus is formally discussed, it is quite decisive as to its meaning. The Jews have interpreted His words, "I

came.

and the Father are one," as though He thereby wished to make Himself a God—ἄνθρωπος ὢν ποιεῖς σεαυτὸν θεόν; but Jesus decidedly rejects this interpretation. He does not answer the reproach that He being a man makes Himself a God, as He ought to have done according to the orthodox and critical understanding, "I do not make Myself so, but am so." But He appeals to the fact that the Scriptures, which cannot be broken, call those gods to whom a word of God, that is, a divine communication, making them magistrates or judges, How then can He be reproached with blasphemy who has received from God a mission so much higher, because He claims (the lesser) name Son of God? That is a defence which would be meaningless and even false, if to Him the Son of God were not a human being in the same sense as those "gods." Finally, we are led to the same result by the expression which Jesus here uses concerning His mission, on which rests His right to call Himself the Son of God: dv o πατὴρ ἡγίασεν. Apply that as we may to His anointing at the baptism before entering on His public ministry, or to the election before His birth (the following, kal áπéoteiλev eis tòv Kóσμov, in xvii. 18, allows both), it always designates an act of God such as can only affect a man. For the personal Logos, or God the Son, could neither be anointed with the Holy Spirit, which He in and of Himself would have, nor be chosen, that is, selected, because there would be no others His equals from whom He could be chosen.

§ 4. PURELY HUMAN FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

But the Johannine testimony goes hand in hand with the synoptic, not only in the direct declarations about Himself, such as are contained in the great names, Son of Man and Son of God, but also in the whole description of the consciousness, which is perhaps gathered in a more impressive and convincing manner from indirect expressions. If we were able in a host of expressions and features in the synoptic Gospels to find proof that Christ's consciousness was at bottom. human, and that every higher element rests simply on that human foundation, we could do so much more fully from the Gospel of John; the confession of a true human dependence

on His God and Father sounds through the entire Gospel. In chap. viii. 40, Jesus frankly calls Himself "a man" who tells His people the truth which He has heard of God. According to His own definite declarations, everything He has, speaks, or does, is given Him by His Father, the one God: the men whom He wins as His own (vi. 37, 39, 44, 65, x. 29, xvii. 6); the works and miracles which He performs in His Father's name (x. 25), and which properly the Father Himself dwelling in Him does (v. 36, xiv. 10); the doctrine which He proclaims and the words which He communicates to His own (vii. 16-18, viii. 28, xiv. 24, xvii. 8); nay, eternal life itself, is given to Him that He may have it to give to men (v. 26, vi. 57).1 Accordingly, He does nothing of His own impulse, has not even come of His own impulse, but has been sent and commanded by the Father (v. 43, vii. 28, viii. 28, viii. 42, x. 36); He can do nothing of Himself, according to His own express declarations (v. 19, 30), but only what the Father shows and directs Him to do. As a child observes his father, so He observes God and what He does, in order to know what the Son has to do (v. 19). It is most violent and unnatural to apply such words to the Logos or "eternal Son," and to His dependence on God the Father through an eternal generation. The Gospel nowhere speaks of such an eternal generation, and the subject of all these declarations is not the pre-existent Logos or eternal Son, but the man Jesus as He sojourned among men (cf. especially v. 27). If the Logos or eternal Son were indeed the summary of all God's thoughts, the joint-Author of all God's decrees, and the joint-Creator of men, then how could He say that His words and works were taught and given Him; that the men belonging to Him on earth are given to Him by God; that He did not Himself conceive the purpose of His coming into the world? 2 Could

1 A passage in which it may be asked whether the ζῶ διὰ τὸν πατέρα and o di iu are not meant in the sense of diá cum genitivo.

2 Pfleiderer, Urchristenthum, vii. 54, sees quite correctly that instead of the metaphysical relation between God and the Logos, we have in John an essentially ethical relation between Father and Son. But he does not see that with this the Christ of John ceases to bear the character of the Logos of Philo, at least in His own sayings. If in the Johannine Son of God "the metaphysical mediatorship is limited to His creative activity," of which confessedly there is no mention whatever in the Johannine

the Logos, or God the Son, in that case express Himself with truthfulness when He says, vii. 16: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me"; "whether my doctrine is of God, or whether I speak of Myself"? Can anyone speak of himself more humanly than Jesus has done in vii. 18: "He who speaketh of himself (from his own inspiration) seeketh his own honour; but he who seeketh the honour of him that sent him is true, and no unrighteousness is in him"? But the Johannine Christ attests, if possible, still more clearly His true human relation to God the Father. While a personal Logos must have been simply one in will with the Father from eternity, He distinguishes His true human will from the will of the Father, and declares (quite as in the Gethsemane prayer in the Synoptics) that He doeth not His own will in order that He may do the will of the Father (v. 30, vi. 38). He has received commandments from His Father in the fulfilling of which He sees for Himself the way of eternal life (xii. 49, 50). He has to fulfil these commandments as His disciples have to fulfil His commandments (x. 18, xiv. 31, xv. 10), and in His obedience He can hesitate, waver, and apparently not know for what He is to pray (xii. 27). This brings us to the most decisive proof of His humanity, His prayerful relation to God. The Johannine Christ prays to the Father like the synoptic Christ (xi. 41 f., xvii. 1 f.). He worships Him in common with His people (iv. 22: μeîs πρоσкνvoûμev; cf. Matt. xi. 25); nay, He will still have to pray to Him in His future glory (xiv. 16), and even as the Risen One He calls Him, joining with the disciples, My God and your God (xx. 17). These facts destroy even the most daring Kenotic theory with its seeming explanation. For if in His intercessory prayer, in which He recalls the glory He had with the Father before the world was, if even after the resurrection, when He had again entered on possession of this glory, He did not yet fully know His eternal relation to the Father, a relation in virtue of which He should be worshipped,

sayings of Jesus, does not the Philonic element in these sayings become that Lichtenberg knife without blade, and which lacks the handle. Only by force and against the connection has Pfleiderer imported into the passage (v. 26) a creative activity of the Son, beside His redeeming activity.

Hour the ne

but could not Himself worship,-how should the Kenotic

dogmatist know about this relation? Does he know the Son Mars up!

of God better than He knew Himself?

Do's this fake it wie tothe wits considerat

§ 5. SINLESSNESS AND ONENESS WITH GOD

Now the divine glory of Jesus, even in the Johannine account, rests on that true human relation to God as its foundation. That glory is represented chiefly as a moral uniqueness, as an absolute obedience of the child to the Father, in a word, as sinlessness. It is worthy of note that in the Johannine sayings the sinlessness of Jesus is attested far more frequently and expressly than in the Synoptics. That is also a proof of His true human nature, because, in the case of a divine person, sinlessness would be a selfevident, because a metaphysical quality. But for that very reason it would be superfluous and meaningless to emphasise it. But it is described also in the most human style as unselfishness and absolute surrender to the will and service of the Father. The Johannine Christ, as He declares Himself to be utterly dependent on the Father, has no wish whatever. to be anything else than the Father's passive instrument. He declares that He does not do His own will, but that of the Father (v. 30, vi. 38); He does not express judgments of His own, but such as God inspires (v. 30); He seeketh not His own honour, but the honour of the Father (vii. 18, viii. 50); and, therefore, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him (vii. 18). He can say: "I know Him, and keep His word" (viii. 55); "I abide in His love" (xv. 10); "I do always what is pleasing to Him” (viii. 29); "My meat-My daily satisfaction-is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work" (iv. 34). In this consciousness He can ask His contemporaries: "Which of you convinceth Me of sin?" (viii. 46). When His earthly life is near its end He can comprehend its collective moral deeds in the great words: "I have overcome the world ” (xvi. 33). He can prophesy in view of the last moral test: "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (no part in Me, nothing by which he can lay hold of Me), xiv. 30. That perfect oneness with God, which certainly gives us the right

"