told, and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God shines in His face (2 Cor 4^). And, again. He is the image of the invisible God, the first- born of all creation (Col i^^). The meaning Is that we may see In Christ what God Is: all God's glory Is reflected In Him; and when we see Him we see the Father also. Perhaps the mere term falls short of expressly asserting proper deity, though it would certainly gain force and significance If proper deity were understood to be asserted. In that case It would suggest that Jesus Christ is just the Invisible God made visible. And that this Is Its actual significance with Paul can scarcely be doubted when we recall that he does not hesitate to ascribe proper deity to Jesus, not only by means of the designations ' Lord ' and ' Son of God,' but by the direct application to Him of the name ' God ' Itself and that In its most enhanced form — -' God over all ' (Rom 9^) , the ' Great God ' (Titus
The Corroboration of Paul 255
2*^). That Jesus Christ is intended in both instances by these great designations, seems, despite sustained efforts to deny them to Him, beyond legitimate ques- tion.^^ The natural interpretation of the passages them- selves compels it : and no surprise can be felt that Paul, who everywhere thinks and speaks of Christ as very God, should occasionally call Him by the appropriate designation. These passages in effect supply only the to-be-expected expression in plain language of Paul's most intimate thought of Jesus. He is always and everywhere to his thought just ' our Great God and Saviour,' ' God over all, blessed for ever.'
It was thus, then, that Jesus was thought of, and familiarly spoken of, in the Christian communities Paul's Jesus throughout the epoch in which the Syn- the Primitive optic Gospels were composed or, if we Jesus choose to use such misleading language,
were compounded. The testimony of Paul's letters comes from the sixth and seventh decades of the cen- tury; and assures us that at that time Jesus was to His followers a man indeed and the chosen Messiah who had come to redeem God's people, but in His essential Being just the great God Himself. In the light of this testimony it is impossible to believe there
39 On Rom 9^ see Dwight, Journal of Exegetical Society, 1881, p. 22; and Sanday in loc. with the literature there mentioned. Dr. R. B. Drummond significantly writes {The Academy, March 30, 1895, p. 273): "I must confess that I feel very strongly the grammatical diffi- culty of the Unitarian interpretation; but on the other hand the im- probability of Paul attributing not only deity, but supreme deity (i-Ki TrdvTojv ^£09) to Christ, seems to me so great as to outweigh all other considerations." On Titus 2^3 see Weiss' note (in Meyer's Com.). The case against the application of these titles to Christ may be read, as well as elsewhere, in Ezra Abbott, Journal of Exegetical Society, 1881, reprinted in his Critical Essays.
256 The Designations of Our Lord
ever was a different conception of Jesus prevalent in the Church : the mark of Christians from the begin- ning was obviously that they looked to Jesus as their ' Lord ' and ' called on His name ' in their worship. The general significance of the testimony of Paul, we may say, is universally recognized. Bousset, for ex- ample, when engaged in repelling the crudities of Kalthoff points it out with great distinctness. In Paul, he tells us, we have " a witness of indubitable value from the bosom of the Christian community for the existence and the significance of the Person of Jesus." " His conversion, according to the tradition, goes back very nearly to the death of Jesus. His chief activity falls in any case in the forties and fifties. From his letters the historical existence of Jesus stands out be- fore us In all clearness. And not merely does Paul presuppose this, as we perceive from these letters: he had intercourse with the first generation of Christians, who had themselves seen the Lord Jesus." " Whoever would question the existence of Jesus must erase also the existence of Paul, as he meets us in his letters." *' With the person of Paul the person of Jesus, too, stands established." Nor Is It merely the existence of a Jesus which Paul thus substantiates for us: he rati- fies also the fact that the person of Jesus had for the faith of the first Christian community " no indeter- minate but a perfectly determinate significance. "^'^ In the presence of Paul's letters, therefore. It Is Im- possible to deny that there underlies the whole Chrls-
*'' IV as tuissen ivir von Jesus? 1904, pp. 17-26. This much, says Bousset, is certain from the general testimony of Paul : " First, the fact of a historical Jesus is assured. . . . Secondly, however, it is assured that the Person of Jesus had for the faith of His first community no indefinite but a perfectly determinate significance."
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