Throughout his Epistles we notice the profound reverence with which St. Paul bows before Christ as in the presence of One incomparably greater than himself or the greatest of men. There is no com- parison of Christ with other men, and no trace of familiarity, or of that sense of equality, which no differences of rank or ability can altonether efface. But there is evennvhere a recognition of the honour of being a servant, or indeed a slave, of so glorious a Master.
St. Paul speaks of Christ, e.g. in Ro 1* 5'",
1 Co P, Gal 4', as the Son of God, using this term as a title of honour distinguishin" Him even from the adopted sons of God. In Ro 8^, and again in v.*^, he calls Him God's own Son whom He sent into the world and gave up on behalf of us all. This last passage suggests a comjjarison with a human father who gives up to peril or death his own son to save others who are not his sons. And this comparison dominates the whole teaching of St. Paul and of the NT about the death of Christ. It implies that Christ is the Son of God in a sense not shared by other men. Now the word son suggests derivation of one person from another. And the term Son of God given to Christ as a mark of honour, distinguishing Him from all others, suggests irresistibly that He is derived from the Father, but in a manner differing in kind from that by which we sprang from the Creator's hands.
In Ro 3" St. Paul teaches that God gave up Christ to die in order to harmonise with His own justice the justification of those who believe in Christ. This implies, not only that among a race of sinners Christ is sinless, but that in moral worth He is equal to the whole race for which He died. In Ro 5>»-'» Christ is contrasted with Adam as the second and greater Head of the race. This gives to Him a unique superiority to all the generations of men.
In Ro 2^* we read that 'God will judge the secret things of men through Jesus Christ ' ; and in
2 Co 5'° St. Paul writes that himself and all others 'must needs appear before the judgment-seat of Christ.' Similar teaching is attributed to St. Paul in an address recorded in Ac 17". In 1 Th 4" we read that at the voice of Christ the dead will rise ; and in Ph 3" that by His mighty power He will transform the lowly bodies of His servants into the likeness of His own "lorious body.
In Col 1'*, a document w-liich we may accept with complete confidence as written by St. Paul, we read that in Christ, and through His agency, and for Him, all things, even the successive ranks of angels, were created ; that He is earlier than all things ; and that in Him all things have their unity, or 'stand together.'
All this proves decisively that, in the eyes of the pupil of Gamaliel, the Carpenter of Nazareth stood inhnitely above men and angels, in a position of unique aignity and unique nearness to (iJod. This must be accepted as well-attested historical fact.
2. We turn now to anotlier grouji of documents dilFering widely from the Epistles of St. Paul, the Synoptic Gospels. These were accepted without a shadow of doubt in the latter part of the 2nd cent, all round the Mediterranean as written by tlie Apostle Matthew, and by Mark and Luke, friends of apostles. The First Gospel, as the flirt liHst removed from the theological standpoint
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of St. Paal, U specUJly valuable in the Inquiry before as.
Throughout the Synoptic Gospels we find Christ making for Himself claims corresponding to the homage constantly paid to Him in the Epistles of St. Paul. In Mt 5" the young Teacher from Naza- reth announces that He has come, not to annul the law and the prophets, but to complete and fulfil. In ch. 11" He asserts that He alone and those taught by Him know God. He calls to Him- self all the weary and heavy-laden, and promises to give them rest by laying upon them His yoke. Yet He speaks of Himself as meek and lowly of heart. And no one resents these strange assertions as involving undue assumption.
As in the Epistles of St. Paul, so in the Synoptic Gospels, Christ is called, in a special sense, the Son of God. This title is given to Him by a voice from heaven at His baptism, in Mt 3", Mk 1", Lk 3»'; and His claim to it is the question at issue in His temptation. The same august title is, as narrated in Mt 16", given to Him by St. Peter, and is accepted by Christ at an important turning-point of His teaching. Its meaning is expounded by Christ in the Parable of the Vineyard in Mt 21"", Mlc 12'-*, Lk 20»-"' ; where, after the ill-treatment of hie servants, the master sends his son, thinking that, whatever the vinedressers have done to them, they will reverence him. Christ here claims to be as mucli above the prophets of the Old Covenant, above Moses and Isaiah and John the Baptist, as the master's son is above the highest of his ser- vants. The same contrast is found in He S'-', where Moses is called a faithful servant in the household, and Christ a Son over the household. That this comparison is found in these four docu- ments, one of them so different from the others, reveals its firm place in the thoucht of the apos- tolic Church. It implies clearly that, to the writer's thought, Christ s relation to God, in virtue of His derivation from Him, differs in kind from that of even the greatest of men.