In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.
In the letter of Pliny to Trajan, it is said of the early Christians“quod essent soliti carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere invicem.â€The prayers and hymns of the church show what the church has believed Scripture to teach. Dwight Moody is said to have[pg 314]received his first conviction of the truth of the gospel from hearing the concluding words of a prayer,“For Christ's sake, Amen,â€when awakened from physical slumber in Dr. Kirk's church, Boston. These words, wherever uttered, imply man's dependence and Christ's deity. See New Englander, 1878:432. InEph. 4:32, the Revised Version substitutes“in Christâ€for“for Christ's sake.â€The exact phrase“for Christ's sakeâ€is not found in the N. T. in connection with prayer, although the O. T. phrase“for my name's sakeâ€(Ps. 25:11)passes into the N. T. phrase“in the name of Jesusâ€(Phil. 2:10);cf.Ps. 72:15—“men shall pray for him continuallyâ€= the words of the hymn:“For him shall endless prayer be made, And endless blessings crown his head.â€All this is proof that the idea of prayer for Christ's sake is in Scripture, though the phrase is absent.
A caricature scratched on the wall of the Palatine palace in Rome, and dating back to the third century, represents a human figure with an ass's head, hanging upon a cross, while a man stands before it in the attitude of worship. Under the effigy is this ill-spelled inscription:“Alexamenos adores his God.â€
This appeal to the testimony of Christian consciousness was first made by Schleiermacher. William E. Gladstone:“All I write, and all I think, and all I hope, is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor, wayward race.â€E. G. Robinson:“When you preach salvation by faith in Christ, you preach the Trinity.â€W. G. T. Shedd:“The construction of the doctrine of the Trinity started, not from the consideration of the three persons, but from belief in the deity of one of them.â€On the worship of Christ in the authorized services of the Anglican church, see Stanley, Church and State, 333-335; Liddon, Divinity of our Lord, 514.
In contemplating passages apparently inconsistent with those now cited, in that they impute to Christ weakness and ignorance, limitation and subjection, we are to remember, first, that our Lord was truly man, as well as truly God, and that this ignorance and weakness may be predicated of him as the God-man in whom deity and humanity are united; secondly, that the divine nature itself was in some way limited and humbled during our Savior's earthly life, and that these passages may describe him as he was in his estate of humiliation, rather than in his original and present glory; and, thirdly, that there is an order of office and operation which is consistent with essential oneness and equality, but which permits the Father to be spoken of as first and the Son as second. These statements will be further elucidated in the treatment of the present doctrine and in subsequent examination of the doctrine of the Person of Christ.
There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.
There are certain things of which Christ was ignorant:Mark 13:32—“of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.â€He was subject to physical fatigue:John 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.â€There was a limitation connected with Christ's taking of human flesh:Phil. 2:7—“emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of menâ€;John 14:28—“the Father is greater than I.â€There is a subjection, as respects order of office and operation, which is yet consistent with equality of essence and oneness with God;1 Cor. 15:28—“then shall the Son also himself be subjected to him that did subject all things unto him, that God may be all in all.â€This must be interpreted consistently withJohn 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,â€and withPhil. 2:6, where this glory is described as being“the form of Godâ€and“equality with God.â€
Even in his humiliation, Christ was the Essential Truth, and ignorance in him never involved error or false teaching. Ignorance on his part might make his teaching at times incomplete,—it never in the smallest particular made his teaching false. Yet here we must distinguish between what heintendedto teach and what was merelyincidentalto his teaching. When he said: Moses“wrote of meâ€(John 5:46)and“David in the Spirit called him Lordâ€(Mat. 22:43), if his purpose was to teach the authorship of the Pentateuch and of the 110th Psalm, we should regard his words as absolutely authoritative. But it is possible that he intended only tolocatethe passages referred to, and if so, his words cannot be used to exclude critical conclusions as to their authorship. Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 136—“If he spoke of Moses or David, it was only to identify the passage. The authority of the earlier dispensation did not rest upon its record being due to Moses, nor did the appropriateness of the Psalm lie in its being uttered by David.[pg 315]There is no evidence that the question of authorship ever came before him.â€Adamson rather more precariously suggests that“there may have been a lapse of memory in Jesus' mention of‘Zachariah, son of Barachiah’(Mat. 23:35), since this was a matter of no spiritual import.â€
For assertions of Jesus' knowledge, seeJohn 2:24, 25—“he knew all men ... he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in manâ€;6:64—“Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray himâ€;12:33—“this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should dieâ€;21:19—“Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he[Peter]should glorify Godâ€;13:1—“knowing that his hour was come that he should departâ€;Mat. 25:31—“when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his gloryâ€= he knew that he was to act as final judge of the human race. Other instances are mentioned by Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9;John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33;18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).
On the other hand there are assertions and implications of Jesus' ignorance: he did not know the day of the end (Mark 13:32), though even here he intimates his superiority to angels;5:30-34—“Who touched my garments?â€though even here power had gone forth from him to heal;John 11:34—“Where have ye laid him?â€though here he is about to raise Lazarus from the dead;Mark 11:13—“seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereonâ€= he did not know that it had no fruit, yet he had power to curse it. With these evidences of the limitations of Jesus' knowledge, we must assent to the judgment of Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, 33—“We must decline to stake the authority of Jesus on a question of literary criticismâ€; and of Gore, Incarnation, 195—“That the use by our Lord of such a phrase as‘Moses wrote of me’binds us to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole, I do not think we need to yield.â€See our section on The Person of Christ; also Rush Rhees, Life of Jesus, 243, 244.Per contra, see Swayne, Our Lord's Knowledge as Man; and Crooker, The New Bible, who very unwisely claims that belief in a Kenosis involves the surrender of Christ's authority and atonement.
It is inconceivable that any merecreatureshould say,“God is greater than I am,â€or should be spoken of as ultimately and in a mysterious way becoming“subject to God.â€In his state of humiliation Christ was subject to the Spirit (Acts 1:2—“after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spiritâ€;10:38—“God anointed him with the Holy Spirit ... for God was with himâ€;Heb.9:14—“through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto Godâ€), but in his state of exaltation Christ is Lord of the Spirit (κυÏίου πνεÏματος—2 Cor. 3:18—Meyer), giving the Spirit and working through the Spirit.Heb. 2:7, marg.—“Thou madest him for a little while lower than the angels.â€On the whole subject, see Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 262, 351; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:61-64; Liddon, Our Lord's Divinity, 127, 207, 458;per contra, see Examination of Liddon, 252, 294; Professors of Andover Seminary, Divinity of Christ.