appears as the Messiah, the Son of Man, in the fourth Gospel as the incarnate Word of God. The divine sonship proper emerges out of the Messianic claim in the common synoptic tradition and the Messianic character is prominent in St. John. But still there is a difference in the point of view, and the strictly divine nature of Jesus is more emphatic in the fourth Gospel than in the other three. Thus there exist among the writers of the New Testament differences in point of view as regards the person of Christ and distinct stages of doctrinal development. But that these differences are not discrepancies may be best shown by the fact that they admit of being brought together in one comprehensive theory without violence to any.

§ 1.

The evidence of the Gospels'.

The conditions of our Lord's early childhood are veiled from us. Nothing is told us about His education, nor are we given any glimpse of Him at the period when men learn most from those outside them, but He grew so truly as a human child that Joseph and His mother had not been led to expect from Him conduct incompatible with childhood, when they took Him up with them to the temple in His thirteenth year. This must mean that He was taught as the young are taught;

1 What follows is largely, but not altogether, repeated from my Bampton Lectures, pp. 145 ff.

and in the temple courts He impressed the doctors as a child of marvellous insight and intelligence. Not but what, even then, there was present to Him the consciousness of His unique sonship: 'Wist ye not,' He said to His parents, 'that I must be about my Father's business 1?' but that consciousness of divine sonship did not, we are led to suppose, interfere with His properly human growth. The child grew and waxed strong,' says St. Luke, 'becoming full of wisdom, and the favour of God was upon him.' Again, Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men 2;' -the phrase being borrowed from the record of Samuel's childhood, with the specifications added, 'in wisdom and stature.' There was a real growth in mental apprehension and spiritual capacity, as in bodily stature.

The divine sonship is impressively asserted at the baptism of Jesus by John in the river Jordan 3. The pre-eminent dignity of the person of Jesus appears indeed nowhere in the Gospels more strikingly than in His

1 St. Luke ii. 49 èv Toîs Toû raтpós μov, 'among my Father's matters,' or, perhaps, 'in my Father's house' (as R. V.). The expression 'my Father' appears to involve, in some measure, a repudiation of Mary's phrase 'thy father,' as applied to Joseph (ver. 48). I think it is plain that our Lord claims a certain unique sonship, but was the consciousness of this derived from meditation on such phrases in the O. T. as ' He shall call me, Thou art my father' (Ps. lxxxix. 26), the child Jesus being already conscious of His Messianic mission as Son of David? or was it the absolute consciousness of divine sonship? To answer this question requires, perhaps, more knowledge than we possess. But it is plain that to our Lord's mind during His ministry the office of the Messiah, including as it did the office of universal and ultimate Judge, was inseparable from proper divine sonship. The Christ was also the Son of God: cf. above, p. 17, n. 8, for a very brief discussion of the relation of the Messianic to the divine claims of our Lord.

2 St. Luke ii. 40, 52; cf. 1 Sam. ii. 26.

9 St. Mark i. II.

relation to John the Baptist, as described in all the Gospels; and that this pre-eminent dignity carried with it throughout our Lord's ministerial life a consciousness of properly divine sonship, it is not possible for any one to doubt who accepts, even generally, the historical character of the synoptic Gospels and of St. John's. If His eternal pre-existence is plainly asserted by Him only in St. John, yet this is not separable from the essential sonship asserted in the synoptists. But this consciousness of divine sonship is represented as co-existing with a really human development of life. He receives as man the unction of the Holy Ghost; He was led as man 'of the Spirit into the wilderness,' and hungered, and was subjected as man to real temptations of Satan, such as made their appeal to properly human faculties and were met by the free employment of human will. He was 'in all points tempted like as we are, apart from sin2.' When He goes out to exercise His ministry, He bases His authority on the unction of the Spirit according to Isaiah's prophecy. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' He reads, 'because he anointed me to preach 3.' 'God,' comments St. Peter, anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. Thus if His miraculous power appears as the appropriate endowment of His person, it

1 The essential sonship is in the synoptic Gospels expressed in such passages as St. Matt. xi. 27, St. Mark xii. 6, 37, xiii. 32, xiv. 62, and the parallel passages.

2 Hebr. iv. 15. On the temptations apart from sin,' see Bampton Lectures, pp. 221–222.

3 St. Luke iv. 18.

* Acts x. 38.

was still a gift of God to Him as man.

'The power of the Lord was with him to heal,' says the evangelist: 'by the Spirit of God,' He Himself declared, He cast out devils1 and St. John, in recording the words of Jesus before the raising of Lazarus, would teach us to see, at least in some of His miracles, what is suggested also elsewhere by our Lord's gestures, a power dependent on the exercise of prayer. 'Father, I thank thee that thou didst hear me?'

He

Once more, to come more closely to our proper subject, while as very Son Jesus knows the Father as He is known of Him and reveals Him to whom He will, He does not appear to teach out of an absolute divine omniscience, but rather as conditioned by human nature. It is surely beyond question that our Lord is represented in the Gospels as an infallible no less than as a sinless teacher. He challenges criticism. 3 speaks in the tone of authority only justifiable to one who taught with absolute certainty 'the word of God.' 'Heaven and earth,' He said, 'shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.' But infallibility is not omniscience. Again it is beyond question that our Lord's consciousness, not only towards God but towards the world, was extraordinary. Thus He frequently exhibits a supernatural knowledge, insight, and foresight. He saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, and knew the incident in the life of the Samaritan woman, and told Peter how he would find the piece of money in the 1 St. Luke v. 17; St. Matt. xii. 28.

2 St. John xi. 41; St. Matt. xiv. 19; St. Mark vii 34: cf. v. 19.

3 On our Lord's sinlessness and impeccability, see B. L. pp. 165 ff., also p. 153. 4 St. Matt. xxiv. 35.

fish's mouth, and the disciples how they would find the colt tied up in the village and the man bearing a pitcher of water to take them to the upper chamber. He discerned from the beginning' the heart of Judas', and prophesied the denial of Peter, and had in view His own passion, death, and resurrection the third day. But all such supernatural illumination is, if of higher quality, yet analogous to that vouchsafed to prophets and apostles. It is not necessarily divine consciousness. It suggests in itself no more than the remark of the woman of Samaria, 'I perceive that thou art a prophet 3. And it coincides in the case of our Lord with apparent limitations of knowledge. The evidence for this we may group under four heads.

(1) There are constantly attributed to our Lord human experiences which seem inconsistent with practical omniscience. Thus He expresses surprise at the conduct of His parents, and the unbelief of men, and the barrenness of the fig-tree, and the slowness of His disciples' faith. He expresses surprise on many occasions, and therefore, we must believe, really felt it; and on other occasions He asks for information and receives it, as when He came down from the Mount of Trans

St. John vi. 64. The words 'from the beginning' apply undoubtedly to the early days of His ministry, when He first began to gather around Him a circle of personal disciples. Cf. xv. 27, xvi. 4; Acts i. 21, 22.

2

2 Kings vi. 12 'Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber.' Cf. v. 26' Went not mine heart with thee?' Acts v. 3, 4 (St. Peter discerning the sin of Ananias), xxi. 11-14 (the foreknowledge of St. Paul's fate).

3 St. John iv. 19. Cf. St. Luke vii. 39 ' This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what manner of woman this is which toucheth him, that she is a sinner.'

1 St. Luke ii. 49; St. Mark vi. 6, xi. 13, iv. 40, vii. 18, viii. 21, xiv. 37.

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