the apostle's language from its natural sense, in order to escape the conclusion that he looked upon Christ as God. To affirm, with Meyer, that Paul does not elsewhere speak of Christ as God, or as being over all, and therefore cannot be supposed to do so in this place, is certainly, a mistake; for the apostle does speak of him elsewhere as One who was originally in the form of God, as One who did not deem it robbery to be equal with God, as One in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,1 and as One who is Head over all to the church. These statements are in obvious agreement with the passage now under consideration, and they remove all just grounds for the plea that he could not have described Christ as One who is over all, God blessed forever. It would not be difficult to select many other passages from the New Testament which teach the deity of Christ; nor would it be difficult to prove that several prophecies of the Old Testament represent the Messiah as truly divine. But it is enough to have shown that the Saviour himself and his inspired apostles bear witness to this truth. If their witness is trustworthy, he was God; if it 1 Col. ii. 9. "In whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." If any one prefers to say that this language teaches the deity of the glorified Christ, and not of Christ in his humiliation, it will not affect the force of the passage as teaching the divinity of his higher nature. The word translated "Godhead" is the clearest and strongest possible, viz., OεÓTηTOS. be not, Christianity is a fable; its founder and his authorized representatives were deceivers, and its peculiar doctrines worthless. This is not said for the sake of deterring any reader from the exercise of his own judgment upon the meaning and value of the New Testament. Far from it. Would that more attention were given to this precious volume ! If the study of it were truly earnest, and thorough, and general, there would be less danger of mistaking its import at any vital point, and deeper reverence for its testimony to facts transcending our experience; difficulties would vanish, apparent contradictions would be reconciled, and the glory of Christ would be more wondrously revealed. But it is a fact only too evident, that many writers of the present day are making a thoroughly capricious use of the New Testament, rejecting whatever does not agree with their philosophy or feeling, and constructing from the broken sentences that remain an ideal Christ, utterly unlike the Son of God presented to us by the record in its integrity. In their hands Jesus of Nazareth is simply a good man; their principles of criticism require them to ignore all evidence which proves him divine. Against this arbitrary and unhistorical course we utter our protest. The life of Jesus as a mere man will never be written; for the only authentic sources of knowl edge respecting him assure us that he was not a mere man, that he did not act as such in his public ministry, that he was divine as well as human, in the past as well as in the present, in heaven as well as on earth, and that he taught as One having authority, not as the Scribes. And it cannot be amiss for us to gather up, now and then, as did our pious fathers, the certain evidence of his deity; observing, as we do it, how this evidence pervades the sacred narrative, as life does the human body, and reveals itself alike in what the Saviour said and in what he did not say, in what he did and in what he refused to do, giving to the record all its power and consistency. We hear its voice in his authoritative "Verily, verily, I say unto you,' and in his mysterious "I am the way, the truth, the light, the resurrection, or the life." It is manifested to his glory by his speech and bearing in the exercise of miraculous power, by his predictions of coming to judge all men at the last day, by his response to the adjuration of the high priest, and by his language to Thomas after the emphatic confession of this disciple. It shines forth from the words of Peter which ascribe to Christ the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost; from the worship which primitive believers were accustomed to pay him in prayer; from the homage rendered him by the glorified in heaven, according دو to the testimony of John in the Apocalypse; and from the apostolic declarations which affirm this great truth. It is possible that the deity of Christ has sometimes been taught in such a way as to imply a disregard of his humanity; but if so, the reaction against this error has carried many to the other extreme; for they say little of his divinity, as if that was a matter of small account, while they dwell with delight on his humanity, as if that were enough to qualify him for all the work to be done in behalf of a sinful race. A greater mistake could not be made. We need a divine Redeemer; and Christ, who was divine, as well as human, is, let us hope, our Redeemer. CHAPTER II. THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST. N his able "History of the Doctrine of the that the early Christians were led to inquire respecting the elements of Christ's person, before they attempted to ascertain how these elements were united in him. And this is the natural order of investigation for all time; first, the facts, and then, if possible, the philosophy. For plainly it is needless to trouble ourselves about the union of two natures in Christ, until we know that he possessed two natures. Accordingly, having referred in the previous chapter to some of the evidence which requires us to believe in the deity of Christ, we now proceed to consider more briefly a part of the evidence for his humanity. More briefly; not because the human nature of Christ is a matter of small interest to us, for the salvation of men was dependent, so far as we can see, on his being truly man, but because it is now generally admitted that he was man. There have been times, no doubt, when believers 44 |