fulfils the divine will, absolutely conforms to the divine good pleasure. He perfectly knows God as his Father in the most intimate and unbroken fellowship. The title Son is for him rather personal than official; as he uses it, it emphasizes rather his relation to God than his relation to his life-work. In view of these distinctive features of Jesus' language concerning his own sonship and that of other men, our previous question recurs: Was his sonship different from that of other men in degree only or also in kind? All will admit that his sonship is unique in the sense. that its ideal is perfectly realized in him, while in others it is but partially fulfilled. Beyschlag says that there is in his sonship "a sublimity and uniqueness of his relation. to God which raises him above all other sons of men." 1 He regards the sinlessness of Jesus as proving that his relation to the Father is original, perfect, and absolute, and that his sonship is thus perfect and absolute, while that of others is but partial and relative.2 Wendt thinks that Jesus occasionally "designated himself in distinction from all others as the Son of God' in a preëminent sense. "He has thus regarded himself as the Son of God” κατ' ἐξοχήν, since he knew that this mutual relation of loving intercourse subsisted between God and himself in unique perfection." 3 Most recent scholars also agree that the term "Son of God" as used in the Synoptics is primarily an ethical one. It emphasizes the perfect union, the absolute intimacy, and mutual knowledge which subsist between the Father and Jesus. It is, as we have seen, a personal rather than an official name. It speaks of a relation sustained to God, whether applied to Jesus or to others. The term is not used in a metaphysical sense as denoting community of essence. If the use of the title involves something more than ethical union, it must be by suggestion and implication, rather than by direct assertion. Those 1 N. T. Theol. I. 71 (Bk. I. ch. iii. § 8). 2 Leben Jesu, pp. 178, 179. 3 Teaching of Jesus, II. 125, 128 (orig. pp. 429, 432). TOTAL who hold that it implies no such significance may fairly challenge their opponents to show that it does. They stand upon the direct and primary reference of the title and may maintain that its import is exclusively ethical until something more is shown to be involved in it. It is not strange that at this point there should be a dividing of the ways. Wendt, for example, holds that the language of our sources does not warrant us in ascribing to the paternal and filial relation which Jesus regarded as existing between God and himself, a character different in principle from the paternal and filial relation which, according to his teaching, exists between God and the members of his Kingdom. Beyschlag, after reviewing the passage, says very emphatically: "All these facts make it so certain that the consciousness of Jesus was at bottom purely human, that only an unconquerable dogmatic prejudice, springing from scholastic tradition and misunderstanding of what religion requires, can resist the force of this testimony." He maintains the sinlessness of Jesus and the absolute ethical uniqueness of his relation to God, but asserts that the notion that these facts involve a consciousness of preëxistence or any character transcending human perfection is "a very curious error," through falling into which Paul and John started the Church on a wrong path in the development of theology. 2 A widely different conclusion is drawn by Reuss. After discussing the title "Son of God," he concludes that the relationship which it emphasizes is, indeed, ethical. But he adds that its use necessarily gives rise to further reflection. "In other words," he continues, "this moral relation, if it is really such as we have just decribed, does not explain itself, nor is it explained, by any analogies supplied by the history of man. We are necessarily led to regard it as the manifestation of a metaphysical relation of a much higher order, and absolutely beyond the reach of any analogy our world can furnish."3 Reuss 1 Teaching of Jesus, II. 124 (orig. p. 429). 2 N. T. Theol. I. 75 (Bk. I. ch. iii. § 10). concludes that the apostolic theology was a legitimate development from Jesus' self-testimony as given in the Synoptics. In an elaborate article on "The Formation and Content of the Messianic Consciousness of Jesus," 1 Hermann Schmidt has discussed the view maintained by Beyschlag that the Synoptic representation does not carry us beyond an ethical human perfection in Jesus. He maintains that we cannot free ourselves thus from metaphysical considerations in treating of this subject, so long as we deal earnestly with the fact of Jesus' sinlessness. It is futile, argues Schmidt, to assert the ethical perfection of Jesus, and then leave it unexplained and inexplicable. Jesus' consciousness of his sinlessness and of the perfect realization in himself, of the moral ideal, is not accounted for unless a fundamental and permanent distinction between himself and other men is recognized. "The ethical as such is always mediated through the will; now there meets us in a race in which all others are in themselves incapable of reaching the right relation of sonship, a personality which not only can of itself become, but from the first is, what, in case of others, can only be attained through aid from without, so that the conclusion cannot be avoided that a peculiar essence, a specific nature, and, indeed, one that is not mediated through the will, lies at its basis; that is, that the life of Jesus has a distinctively metaphysical background." 2 We must, of course, draw a line very carefully between the precise meaning of our passages as determined by exegesis and inferences, however natural, which are derived from that meaning. But we must also admit that the exegetical result, in the case before us, raises a problem respecting the person of Jesus Christ, with which the mind. cannot decline to deal. As Son of God Jesus stands in a unique relation to the Father. The title involves his ethical perfection. Now we cannot simply stop short with these assertions; to do so is to decline the problem to 1 Studien u. Kritiken, 1889, p. 423 sq. 2 Op. cit., 435. which this uniqueness gives rise. Why was Jesus the only sinless man? Was his sinlessness an accident? Why has it never been repeated? If, as is admitted, he possessed the clear consciousness of sinlessness, what is the explanation of so exceptional and marvellous a fact? These questions lead over into the field of doctrinal theology which it is not my purpose to enter. My present task requires me simply to expound the conception of the person of Christ which is presented in our sources. The passages examined ascribe to him the consciousness of sinless perfection and of perfect union with God. The nature of that union they do not describe; its inner mystery they make no effort to resolve. The Synoptic tradition does not refer to the preëxistence of Christ. That basis or background of his uniqueness we meet first in Paul. It must here suffice to have pointed out that even the data furnished by the Synoptics do give rise to a great problem concerning the person of Christ. How is he to be explained? What is the nature of that relation to God which he sustains and which is certainly represented as unique and incomparable? I have already indicated divergent explanations. We shall see that Paul and John answered these questions by attributing to Christ a personal, eternal preëxistence with God. CHAPTER VI THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD THE teaching of Jesus concerning God rests upon an Old Testament basis. In contrast to the pantheistic and polytheistic systems which prevailed among ancient oriental nations, Jesus adhered to the Jewish conception of Jehovah as the one only God, the Almighty Creator and Lord of all. He emphasized the spirituality and holiness of God. The doctrine of Jesus is the ethical monotheism of Israelitish religion, elevated, enriched, and purified. There is nothing in his doctrine for which the Old Testament does not supply a beginning and basis. It would not, however, be correct to suppose that Jesus added nothing to the Old Testament idea of God. True to his principle that he had not come to destroy, but to fulfil (Mt. v. 17), he cleared away from the foundations which had been laid in the earlier stages of revelation what was temporary and inadequate, and reared upon them a permanent structure. He illustrated the maxim which he commended to his followers when he said that the representatives of his truth and Kingdom would bring out of their treasures things new and old (Mt. xiii. 52). This fulfilling of the idea of God did not consist in supplying foreign elements, but in developing, expanding, and clarifying the germs of doctrine which the Jewish people already possessed, and especially in rescuing their idea from certain prevalent misapplications and false inferences. It would not have accorded with the genius of Jesus' teaching for him to give any direct and formal instruction concerning the nature of God. He does not aim to define God; he rather describes how he acts. His teaching is |