18 Cf. T. C. Porter in Hastings' B. D., iv., 263 a: "While angels are classed with men, Christ is classed with God ; and various titles and expressions carry us beyond not only the Messianic but also the angelogical speculations of Judaism. He is once called 'the Son of God' (z^^, but see also 2^^ S^'*-"^, cf. i^ 14I) ; once 'the beginning of the creation of God' (3^*), as only the Divine Wisdom is called in O. T. (Prov 822), and as Christ is called only by St. Paul in the N. T. (Col jis). He is called once also the 'Word of God' (19^^), and even this Johannine (Hellenistic) title is surpassed by the title of eter- nity, 'the First and the Last' {i^"^ 2^ az^^)." Cf, Stanton, The Jenuish and Christian Messiah, p. 163.
THE ISSUE OF THE INVESTIGATION
We have now passed in review the whole body of designations which are applied to our Lord in the
Fundamental pages of the New Testament. We the Christian Cannot fail to be impressed with the
Community variety of these designations and the richness of their suggestion. It would be a pleasant task to develop all their implications. This would, however, take us too far afield for our present pur- pose. Let it suffice to observe that at bottom they seem to be charged with three specific convictions on the part of the Christian community, to which they give endlessly repeated and endlessly varied expres- sion. Christ is the Messiah; Christ is our Redeemer; Christ is God: these are the great asseverations which are especially embodied in them. All three are already summed up in the angelic announcement which was made to the shepherds at His birth : " I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of David the Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2"). The whole New Testament may be said to be an exposition and enforcement of that announcement : and In the course of this exposition and enforcement it teaches us many things. Above all, it places beyond dispute the main fact with which we have now to deal,
this fact, to wit, that the whole Christian community,
298
The Issue of the Investigation 299
and that from the very beginning, was firmly convinced that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh.
There really can be found no place for doubt of this fact. But upon its emergence as an indubitable fact This Conviction It becomes plain that it is freighted with
OurLord'? gi'eat significance. The fact that the Teaching whole Christian community from the very beginning held, as to its fundamental principle, to the deity of its founder. Is a very remarkable fact, and surely needs accounting for. And it will be found difficult to impossibility adequately to account for it except upon the assumption that the founder of Chris- tianity really was a divine person. This universal and uniform conviction of the deity of Christ in the primitive Christian body in a word implies the actual deity of Christ, as its presupposition. It cannot be supposed that the whole body of the first Christians firmly believed in the deity of their Master without evidence — without much evidence — ^without convincing evidence. The primary item of this evidence was no doubt our Lord's own self-assertion: and this is a fact of the first importance which is immediately given in the fact of the universal and uniform belief in our Lord's deity which characterized the first age of the Church. That belief cannot possibly be accounted for except on the supposition that it was founded in our Lord's teaching. As certain as it is then that the primi- tive Christians were firmly and without exception con- vinced of our Lord's deity, so certain is it that our Lord — as indeed He is represented to have done in the uniform tradition — asserted Himself to be a divine person. And now we must go further. As certain as it is that these two things are true, that the whole
300 The Designations of Our Lord
Christian community believed their Lord to be divine and that Jesus taught that He was divine, so certain It Is that neither of them could be true If it were not true that our Lord was divine.