* William Law.
202 THE AMAZING GIFT OF LOVE
absolutely true, on the other hand, is the insight which declares, " We love him because he first loved us ! " ^
^ In the next verse, where the same subject is dealt with, a different expression is employed. There we read, " God sent his Son." But here, where the matter in hand is the love of God, sent is far too cold a word, and gave is used as congruous with loved. It must needs be that the Divine love manifest itself even as the human does by an infinite delight in bestowing. The very property and life of love, as we know it even in its tainted and semi-selfish forms as it prevails amongst us, is to give, and the life of the Divine love is the same. He loves, and therefore He gives. His love is a longing to bestow Himself, and the proof and sign that He loves is that " He gave his only begotten Son." ^
3. "He gave his only begotten Son." We cannot reach the bottom of this saying. The shallow sounding lines of men that are cast into that deep water do not touch the bottom, though some imagine that they do. What does it mean ? — " His only begotten Son." There are some that would seek to minimize the force of that wonderful designation " only begotten." They tell us that it does not always signify soleness, or even uniqueness ; and they point us to the fact that Isaac is called Abraham's only begotten son although Ishmael was equally his child. But such an argument is not good enough even to be called sophistical. It has no point and no relevancy. " Only begotten " must of necessity mean both uniqueness and soleness. Isaac was Abraham's only begotten son from the standpoint from which the term was applied. He was so with reference to the promise and the seed of Abraham. He was the promised only begotten son of the sacred line, and that of course is the meaning which no sophistry, no amount of quibbling, can ever get rid of. As applied to Christ it means a relation to God, which is not, and can not, be shared by any other man or by any other creature in the whole universe of God.
^ The true test, as it seems to me, between a view of Christ's nature which can be regarded as a legitimate develop- ment of historical Christianity and one which can only be looked upon as a new and different creed, is this, "Does it admit the Divine Sonship of Christ in some unique, some
* J. Warscbwier * A. Maclaren.
ST. JOHN III. i6 203
solitary sense, or does it make Christ merely one of many sons of God?"i
^ It is hardly denied that Browning's whole being was pene- trated with this idea of Christ as the supreme revealer, the one paramount representative of God to man. And yet we have been told by his biographer that, though he uses the language of Christian Theology, his declarations cannot of course be under- stood in the sense of orthodox Christianity. Why " of course " ? If we tried to get to the bottom of the old phrases in which orthodox Christianity has become stereotyped, we should find perhaps sometimes that the burning words of a nineteenth- century poet are after all only the present-day equivalent of the thoughts and words of a St. John in the first century, and of an Athanasius in the fourth. If there be any truth in the way in which I have attempted to explain this tremendous phrase, " the only begotten Son of God," the thought which they contain is one of which Kobert Browning's poetry is simply full.^
^ Why have we only one Christ ? We have had many philosophers, and neither to Socrates, nor Plato, nor Aristotle among the ancients ; neither to Bacon, nor Descartes, nor Spinoza, nor Kant, nor Schelling, nor Hegel among the moderns, could the palm of solitary, indisputable superiority be given. We have had many poets, and neither to Homer, nor Dante, nor Shakes- peare, nor Milton, nor Goethe could the praise of unique and unapproachable excellence be awarded. We have had many soldiers, and neither to Alexander, nor Hannibal, nor Caesar, nor Charlemagne, nor to any of the mediseval and modern com- manders could absolutely unequalled military genius be attributed. And so in every other department of human thought and action. No man is entirely unique. Every man has many compeers; Christ, and Christ alone, and that in the highest department, the religious, is unique, solitary, incomparable; and our question is, Why? Why has the Creator of men created only one Christ, while He has created myriads of all other kinds of men ? That Creator is infinitely benevolent ; He loves His creatures, He seeks their highest well-being. That well-being Christ has promoted not only more than any other man, but more than all other men that have ever lived. If one Christ has been so mighty for good, what would a multitude have accomplished ? Yet God has given to our poor humanity only one, and if we persist in asking. Why ? can we find a fitter answer than the answer that stands written in the history of the Word made flesh ? God in giving one gave