the same way as the existence "of His day" at the time of Abraham. The present earthly existence of Jesus, in which He is the Messiah, was not a real thing before Abraham's time; but yet it could truly be spoken of, in so far as it held good in the Spirit of God, in the thoughts, purposes, and promises of God. So far as Jesus felt Himself to be the Messiah, He knew that His earthly life was not a fortuitous event, but from the beginning-not by any means only from the date of the promise and fulfilment given to Abraham, but already before the time of Abraham— it was predetermined and foreseen by God. scious of having had in this sense pre-existence for God, and, by means of the promises of God, also for the Old Testament saints, Jesus made the claim of assuredly being greater than Abraham. Con If we explain the words of Jesus in this sense, they not only present themselves in close connection, but they also furnish such a meaning as most admirably accords with the self-judgment of Jesus elsewhere attested for us. It is certainly a highly idealistic mode of view and of speech when Jesus designates His ideal existence for God-which He knew that He had always had as the Messiah, and therefore as the object of Divine predestination and of the love of God—simply as existence, as if it were a real existence. This idealistic mode of view and of speech, however, is not of a philosophic, but of a purely religious kind and foundation, and it has its analogy in the other sayings of Jesus, in which He judges the existence and value of things by no means according to the standard of their earthly existence and value, but only according to the standard of their value for God.' The distinction which we moderns draw between ideal existence and value and real existence, was not expressed by Jesus,-just as the ancients in general did not express it. But though the plain expression is absent, and the discourse is fashioned ast if it treated of real existence, we can still perceive from the connection that an ideal existence is intended, and we must plainly exhibit on our part that distinction of ideas. Moreover, it holds good, alike with regard to the passages last explained as with regard to the discourses of Jesus in the fourth Gospel generally, that we must claim historical authenticity, not for their form, but for their essential contents. The contents of these lately-discussed words of Jesus do not overpass the limits of such a consciousness on the part of Jesus towards God as is attested for us through our synoptical sources. But if we must believe that the peculiar form of all these Johannine sayings of Jesus in regard to the relation of His person to God has undoubtedly been determined by the individual mode of apprehension and expression of the writer, still this peculiar form as a whole is a 1 Cf. vol. i. pp. 228 and 239. 2 We also cannot say that, just because He made no sharply expressed logical distinction between the real and the ideal existence, Jesus disclosed in the assurance of His ideal pre-existence the intimation of His real pre-existence, and that He has plainly displayed this intimation in our passage. For the existence of which Jesus speaks in our passage is, according to the connection of the passage, His present existence as Messiah on earth. If Jesus has understood His pre-existence not in a purely ideal, but at the same time in a real sense, He must also have thought of a real form of this earthly life in the past. But if one does not wish, like the Jews, to impute to Him this thought of a real pre-existence in the earthly life, one need not, instead of this, ascribe to Him the thought of a real pre-existence in the heavenly life. VOL. II. M grand expression of the endeavour to seize and bring prominently out the truth and value of religious facts which have been inwardly experienced and which have certainly happened; and we can well say that those Johannine discourses and transactions of Jesus express, if in a somewhat altered form, yet faithfully according to the essential matter, the historical recollection of Jesus' most intimate disciple, in regard to the incomparable loftiness of the religious consciousness of the Master, and the deep gulf which, in the communication of this consciousness, separated Him from the understanding of the great mass of His Pharisaic-Jewish contemporaries. 8. We must now, however, complete our account of the self-judgment of Jesus according to the Johannine discourses, by indicating that, along with His incomparably lofty religious consciousness of standing, as the Son of God, in most intimate fellowship with God, of being the medium of a truly Divine life and a truly Divine revelation, and, in virtue of this His filial relation to God, of being the Messiah and Saviour for all other men, Jesus has at the same time expressed His lowly consciousness of being a weak, human creature. He made the highest Divine claims only inasmuch as He was aware of having received from God all His words and works, His mission and His power to accomplish it (v. 19 ff.; vii. 16 f.; viii. 28, 42; x. 29, 32; xii. 49 f.; xiv. 10, 24; xvii. 2, 7 f., 22 f.); and the promises to His disciples that He would be the mediator for them of Divine power and blessings out of His heavenly life in the future, were also founded by Him, not upon the idea that He could then give them anything of Himself, but only on the thought of His continued fellowship with God after His earthly life, in accordance with which He could declare that all that was God's was also His (xvi. 14 f.), and could depend, on behalf of His disciples, on the gracious saving influences of the Father, who is greater than He (xiv. 12, 28). Since He sought in sincere piety to be nothing in Himself, but all things in God, and since He knew the Divine power and revelation, which He manifested in His works and words, to be wholly independent of His physical constitution, it meant no contradiction for Him that, in all His lofty declarations concerning Himself, He was yet simply a man, and would have His human creaturehood specially recognised. In this sense He also, according to the discourses of the fourth Gospel, frequently designated Himself as "the Son of man," and, indeed, just in the connections where He asserts His intercourse with heaven (iii. 13), His prerogative of bestowing heavenly food sufficient for eternal life (vi. 27), His receiving of Divine authority to execute judgment also (ver. 27), His previous heavenly glorification by God (xii. 23), and, on men's part, has commanded the believing elevation, that is, the recognition, of His Divine saving significance (iii. 14; viii. 28). The explanation, which we have found above, of the use of this name in the sayings of Jesus attested by our Gospel sources, can also be applied directly to these Johannine passages. For Jesus here also designates Himself neither merely as man, nor merely as Messiah, but as both, in accordance with the prophetic promises : a human creature, and yet the heavenly Messiah. This very thought, for which Jesus gives a compendious Scripture foundation in the name "Son of man," is expressed by Him also in the discourse of chap. vi., where He terms "His flesh," or "His flesh and blood," as food which makes men partakers of everlasting life (vi. 51-56). If, on the one hand, it is considered that Jesus in this discourse for the first time designates Himself in whole as the bread which came down from heaven, and which suffices for everlasting life (vers. 35, 48-51), then, instead of Himself, He represents, sometimes His "flesh" (ver. 516), sometimes His "flesh and blood" (vers. 53-56), as the meat to be enjoyed, and finally again designates Himself in whole as the bread which has come down from heaven, and which ministers to everlasting life (ver. 57); and if, on the other hand, we know that, in the New Testament use of speech, the same thing is always denoted elsewhere by the conjoined ideas "flesh and blood" as that which, in accordance with the Old and New Testament usage, can also be simply termed "flesh," namely, the creature life, with its special characteristic of weakness and transitoriness, in contrast with God or the Spirit of God, it cannot then be doubtful that this declaration of Jesusthat His "flesh," or "the flesh and blood of the Son of man" (ver. 53), was a food for men sufficing for everlasting life-signifies that He as a weak human creature was the indispensable medium of obtaining eternal life.1 This declaration of Jesus was occasioned 1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 298 f. |