the utterances in question (ii"^) is In some respects the most remarkable in the whole compass of the four Gospels. Even the Gospel of John contains nothing which penetrates more deeply into the essential rela- tion of the Son to the Father. Indeed, as Dr. Sanday suggests, " we might describe the teaching of the Fourth Gospel " as only " a series of variations upon the one theme, which has Its classical expression In " this "verse of the Synoptics " r^'^ "All things were de- livered unto me by my Father; and no one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." The point of the utterance, it will be seen, Is that In it our Lord asserts for Himself a relation of practical equality with the Father, here described in most elevated terms as the " Lord of heaven and earth" (v. 25).^^ As the Father only can know the Son, so the Son only can know the Father: and others may know the Father only as He is revealed by the Son. That is, not merely is the Son the ex- clusive revealer of God, but the mutual knowledge of Father and Son is put on what seems very much a par. The Son can be known only by the Father in all that He is, as if His being were infinite and as such In- more wisely retains them, as do all the editors. " The documentary evidence in their favor," says Hort justly, " is overwhelming."
32 Criticism of the Neiu Testament, — by a company of scholars, — p. 17.
33 Cf. Zahn on Mt n^s-so (p, 44.0): "As Jesus here names Him whom He has just called ' His Father,' in the second and third clauses simply 'the Father ' — which is not to be paralleled with the address of vv. 25, 26 — so He names Himself three times simply ' the Son,' in order to designate Himself as the only one who stood to God in the full sense of that name in the relation of a Son to a Father."
The Designations in Matthew 83
scrutable to the finite Intelligence; and His knowledge alone — again as if He were infinite In His attributes — is competent to compass the depths of the Father's Infinite being. He who holds this relation to the Father cannot conceivably be a creature, and we ought not to be surprised, therefore, to find in the third of these great utterances (28^^"-*^) the Son made openly a sharer with the Father (and with the Holy Spirit) In the single Name of God: "All authority was given me^* in heaven and In earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them Into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things what- soever I commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Having In the former passage ( 1 1"^) declared His Intercommunion with the Father, who is the Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus here asserts that all authority in heaven and earth has been given Him, and asserts a place for Him- self In the precincts of the Ineffable Name. Here Is a claim not merely to a deity In some sense equivalent to and as It were alongside of the deity of the Father, but to a deity In some high sense one with the deity of the Father.
Alongside of these more usual Messianic titles, there are found in Matthew, as in Mark, traces of the use Less Common of Others of our Lord, apparently less Messianic current among the people. In Mat- Tit.es thew, too, for example, we find Jesus
represented as designated from heaven ' the Be- loved,' who has been chosen out by God as His rep-
3* Note the aorist, which as in ii^^ (cf. W. C. Allen, in loc.) appears to refer to a pre-temporal act.
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84 The Designations of Our Lord
resentative (3" 17^),^^ and as Identifying Himself with the mysterious Shepherd of Zechariah who is Jehovah's fellow (26^^). And we find Him here also not only designating Himself the ' Bridegroom ' (9^^), but elucidating the designation in a couple of striking parables (the parable of the Ten Virgins, 2^1 seq.,5,6,10. ^^^ ^i^g parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, 22^"^"*), the suggestion of which is that the fate of men hangs on their relation to Him; that men all live with reference to Him; and it Is He that opens and shuts the door of life for them. The high significance of these designations as applied to Jesus has already been pointed out when we met with them In Mark. It is more important, therefore, to observe here that the implicit reference in Mark to the ' Serv- ant of Jehovah ' as a designation of Jesus Is made explicit in Matthew by the formal application to Him of the prophecy In Isaiah 40^^^^- (121^^^^-) as a divine prediction of the unostentatiousness of His ministry, In Its striking contrast with the expectations which had been formed of the Messiah's work on the basis of the predictions centering around the Anointed King, the Son of David.
This unostentatiousness entered also into the concep- tion of the Messiah expressed in our Lord's favorite