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CHAPTER II.

The Soteriology of the New Testament.

III. THE TEACHING OF THE FOUR GOSPELS.

O the historical manifestation of the Messiah we
We find it in the four Gospels.

now come.

And first we have to remark that their narrative contains indications that the whole Jewish people were at that time expecting His manifestation; and further, that the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah had largely helped to shape their conception of His character. They had apparently, since that prophecy was uttered, come to connect Him with the thought of sacrifice and atonement for sin. The exclamation of the Baptist—" Behold the Lamb of God!" was clearly intended to be a pointing out of the Messiah to his disciples; and implies, therefore, that this was one of the many expressions by which the Jews had come to designate Him whom they expected. This must have been due to the deep impression made on the national mind by Isaiah's prophecy.' We have a further indication that this was so in the words of Zacharias,

1 The Targums written before the Christian era interpret Isa. liii. of Messiah. See Lyall's Propædia Prophetica, and Hengstenberg's Christology of Old Testament, Appendix 4.

who connects the salvation to be accomplished by the Messiah with the sacrificial idea of remission of sins (Luke i. 77); and by the words of Simeon, who, with the Holy Child in his arms, spoke of suffering and persecution. Again we find St. Matthew forcibly reminded of the fifty-third of Isaiah, when he beheld Jesus entering into such close fellowship with human suffering: "He healed the sick," that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias (in this chapter), "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses” (viii. 17). And again in Jesus' unwillingness to be known he recognises at once Isaiah's portraiture: "Behold My Servant whom I have chosen ; My beloved in whom My soul is well pleased.

He shall not strive nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, till He send forth judgment unto victory" (xii. 17-21).

And how entirely the whole impression left on the mind by the Gospel narrative is that of a perfectly holy sufferer, fulfilling with almost startling exactness the image that rose before Isaiah's mind!

He moved among men as one conscious that He was their Lord and Master, that He was born to be a King, that He was the Son of David of whose kingdom there was to be no end; but conscious also that He could only ascend His throne and be glorified by passing through suffering and death. The temptation suggested by the Evil One in the wilderness, and again by Simon Peter's ill-advised protest, was that He should ascend His throne without the suffering; but He repelled it.

He had a baptism of suffering to be baptized with, and till that was accomplished, He must confine Himself ("straiten") Himself thereto (Luke xii. 50). It was entirely consistent with this view of His mission that He should speak little of the profound purpose of His death. But from time to time He used expressions of the deepest significance concerning it. Let us carefully consider them.

At the very outset of the ministry we have the conversation with Nicodemus, revealing the great truth that Christ had come to offer regeneration to mankind; and that in order to this regeneration His death was necessary: -"As Moses lifted up the serpent' in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." (Three times2 our Lord used this phrase "lifted up”—and the Evangelist's comment is, "This said He, signifying what death He should die.") And our Lord indicates to Nicodemus how His death would regenerate man: the believer would have a new vital principle, a divine life, infused into him and that it might thus enter into man, it must first be poured forth by Christ. And this great gift to man is the Father's gift-it is all-important to observe this-" For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but should have this eternal life (imparted to him)."

This thought is continually reappearing in our Lord's

1 The symbol seems to point out that Christ would die "in the likeness of sinful flesh." See St. Augustine's comment on Rom. viii. 3, referred to infra, page 189.

2 John iii. 14; viii. 28; xii. 32.

discourses as related by St. John,—that for this infusion of divine life which was to regenerate man, His death was necessary, and that it was His Father's gift to mankind:"My Father giveth you the true bread from Heaven. For the bread of God is He which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world." "I am that bread of life." "I am the living bread which came down from Heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." When the Jews murmured, thinking He spoke of giving His flesh there and then to them, He added words, which to a Jew would necessarily carry the meaning that His death must first take place; for He explained that He meant His flesh and blood in a state of separation, that is, after death. "Verily I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you" (ye cannot be regenerated).

The sacrificial allusion would have been plain to them but for that addition about drinking His blood. In all sacrifices the drinking of the blood was forbidden on pain of death.

To this paradox we must presently return; but first let us consider two other pregnant utterances of our Lord respecting His approaching death.

Not many months before it, He was speaking of Himself (in Isaiah's phrase) as "the Good Shepherd." But a further thought was added:-"The Good Shepherdgiveth His life for the sheep." We ask how? and why? The how is declared to us in the same passage :—in con

flict with "the wolf" (John x. 1-18). And that He viewed His agony as a conflict with the Evil One is plainly revealed, as we shall see.

But why should the Good Shepherd lay down His life? He tells us, "This commandment have I received from the Father." It was an act of crowning obedience. And it was voluntarily rendered. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.”

But do we ask further, "Why this commandment?” One profound reason has been already revealed to us:—there was a mysterious necessity that His human life (u) should be poured forth in order that it might pass into man and regenerate him. This life of Christ was God's gift to man, and it involved the death of Christ as the essential condition of its communication.

And now we are in the right point of view from which to consider an all-important word spoken by Christ respecting His death the week before His Passion. have it in St. Matthew (xx. 28), and in St. Mark (x. 45). Christ had been again announcing to His Apostles His approaching death, with all its fearful details; the judgment, the delivery to the Romans, the mocking, the scourging, the crucifixion, to be followed by resurrection. And the doctrine of this death is summed up in one word a few moments later:-" The Son of Man came to give His life (x) a ransom for many."

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