16 Cf. e.g. A. H. Blom, De Leer van het Messiasrijk, etc., pp. 58-9, 70, 71: "We think we may conclude that the Christians as little as the Jews connected with the ' Son of God ' the conception of a divine na- ture; and that the ethical element in the idea of the Messiah lay more in the Tra?? than in the ulog of God " . . . "It attracts our at- tention that Jesus here and there speaks of God as ' the Father * (Acts 1*''^), and that Peter too on one occasion made use of this desig- nation (2^^). Seeing how that elsewhere in the N.T. the most inti- mate communion of God with men, His life for and in men, is ex- pressed by this term, it is all the more remarkable that Jesus by speak-
214 The Designations of Our Lord
passages alone to consider, we might hesitate to ascribe to Acts the doctrine of a divine Messiah. But this is by no means the case, and we need only note In passing that the title of ' Son of God ' Is very little In evidence In Acts either In Its precise form or in Its cognate modes of expression. Nevertheless, the locution ' the Father ' does not appear In the usage of it here to be without suggestion of Its correlative ' the Son '; and Paul's cita- tion of the second Psalm does not seem to be without Implication of a Sonship for Jesus lying deeper than either His resurrection or His Incarnation.
The prevailing Messianic designation In Acts is the
simple ' Christ,' and Luke tells us that the staple of
the Apostolic teaching was that Jesus
o^/'ChrUt' i^ 'the Christ' (5^v8; r' i8^-^), and illustrates this fact by instances recorded both from Peter (2^^'^® -^18,20^ ^^^ from Paul (17^ 26"^). The general employment of the compound names, 'Jesus Christ,' 'the Lord Jesus Christ' (or * our Lord Jesus Christ ') and even ' Christ Jesus,' tes- tifies to the fixedness of the conviction that Jesus was ' the Christ ' and the close attachment of the title to His person as at least a quasi-proper name. Luke does not himself make use of any other Messianic title, except in the one instance when he tells us that Paul
ing not of His but of the Father, does not lay claim by it for Himself alone to such a relation to God. And Peter follows Him in this, since he emplo3's the term to the Jews, who did not yet believe in Christ, from which it may be inferred that this fatherlike love of God for men was not conceived as dependent on their belief in Christ, but as grounded in His nature. . . . And if we were not arbitrary in suggesting that for the early Christians the title ' Servant of Jehovah ' was of much more ethical significance than that of ' Son of God,' it would seem to follow that we should not seek a rich ethical sense in the name of Father."
The Designations in Acts 215
on his conversion began at once " to proclaim Jesus that He Is the Son of God" (q"*^). But he quotes quite a rich variety of such titles as employed by others. To Peter there is ascribed, for example, a considerable series, which, moreover, he Is represented as weaving together In a most striking way, as all alike designa- tions of the same Jesus, which bring out the several aspects of the unitary conception fulfilled In Him. Prominent among them are those which apply to Jesus the prophecies concerning ' the Righteous Servant of Jehovah ' (313-11,26^ cf. 42^'=^«) and ' the Prophet like unto Moses' (3'"'^^), which are Inextricably combined with those which speak of Him as ' the Anointed King.'"