no doubt the compressed representation of much of our Lord's teaching. On the other hand, it may be urged that It Is very easy to exaggerate the difficulty of supposing our Lord to have used the phrase In ques- tion. He Is certainly speaking of Himself: He has just designated Himself the 'Son' (verse 2); and now designates Himself by the phrase, " Whom Thou didst send." Why, continuing the use of the third person, should He not solemnly designate Himself by name, and, doing so, why should He not employ the full ceremonious name of ' Jesus Christ ' ? This, of course, would imply that * Christ,' In Its constant ap- plication to Him, had already become, in our Lord's life-time, at least a quasi-proper name. We have seen already, however, that this was very much the case (Mk 9*\ Mt 24^ 27"'22) ; and If Jesus could speak of Himself as ' Christ,' there seems no compelling reason why He should not speak of Himself as ' Jesus Christ.' No doubt even this difficulty might be avoided by tak- ing 'Christ' here predlcatively: "That they may know Thee the only true God and Him whom Thou didst send, Jesus, as the Christ." The structure of the sentence again, however, is not favorable to this con- struction, which would break the parallelism of the clauses. It seems more natural on the whole, there- fore, to take ' Jesus Christ ' together as Jesus' own self-designation of Himself; though if any feel a diffi- culty in assuming that He already used ' Christ ' in this combination completely as a proper name, there seems no reason why it should not be understood as appellative: " Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus the Messiah." It must be recognized. Indeed, that this appellative connotation is in any event not entirely lost,
1 86 The Designations of Our Lord
but throughout the whole use of the name ' Jesus Christ ' In the ApostoHc Church retains its force. In this passage we have only the earliest instance of the combination of the two names ' Jesus,' as the personal, and ' Christ,' as the official designation, into one quasi- proper name: and the solemn employment of It thus by Jesus gives us the point of departure for Its Apos- tolic use from Pentecost on (Acts 2^^ 3^ 4^^ 8^"'^^ etc.) whenever great solemnity demanded the employment of this ceremonious name. This fixed Apostolic usage from the first days of the Infant Church finds Its best explanation In such a solemn employment of It by our Lord as we have here recorded for us by John.«
We ought not to pass finally from this passage with- out fairly facing the apparent contrast which Is drawn . In It between Jesus Christ as the Sent
^"to God^°" ^^ ^^^ ^^'^ ^^^ God who sent Him,
described here as " the only true God,"
that is to say. Him to whom alone belongs the reality
of the idea of God.^ From this contrast It has often
^Luthardt on the passage; also Godet, Ebrard, and Stier (Reden Jesu, ed. 3, 1873, v. 397).
^ Cf . Westcott, in loc: "To regard the juxtaposition of Thee, the only true God, and Him ivhom Thou didst send, as in any way im- pairing the true divinity of Christ, by contrast with the Father, is totally to misunderstand the passage. It is really so framed as to meet the two cardinal errors as to religious truth which arise at all times, the one which finds expression in various forms of polytheism, and the one which treats that which is preparatory in revelation as final. On the one side men make for themselves objects of worship many and imperfect. On the other side they fail to recognize Christ when He comes." Accordingly the knowledge of God which is life is repre- sented as twofold: "a knowledge of God in His sole, supreme Maj- esty, and a knowledge of the revelation which He has made in its final consummation in the mission of Christ." " The contents of the knowl-
^
The Designations in John 187