The first, SON OF GOD, is an honorific ascription when used by the disciples or by the Jews, and it is nearly if not perfectly identical with ■ Messiah.' It is paralleled by the extraordinary prevalence of like terms among surrounding re- ligions and nations. In Ej.'j-pt the same king is often set forth on monuments as 'the son' and ' beloved ' of many diflVrent personages of the Pan- theon. God-bom was the highest superlative to denote glorv and authority. Nathanael (l""") identifies ' tlie Son of God with the tlieocratic king. Martha (11-'') anticipates the advent of one so near to and beloved of God as to have power over death and Hades. Still, the Synoptic citation of the adjuration of Caiaphas shows tliat he re- garded the title, not only as an honorific term for Messiah, but as one which it was blasphemy to assume. The claim to be ' Son of God ' in a unique sense, a sense that associated Him with God and enthroned Him as supreme Judge, was tlie specific charge on which Jesus was condemned by the Satihedrin. Not merely is He the human otl- spring of the eternal God, but, as He spake of Him- self, pre-eminently the Son, the highest expression of the relation of Son to Father, the archetype of Sonship in itself. Doubtless He is 'sent into the world,' to reveal the Father because He is the eternal spectator and companion of the Father, the object or eternal love, the conscious exposition of the Father's character and grace. The entire term is chastened and exalted by the ordered sequence of events. In 3=»- ^ 4™- ^ 6" the expected ' Prophet ' rather than the triumphant 'King' comes into view, and Simon Peter's confession (6"*'- RV) shows that he had grasped the richer aspect of Messiah- ship which Jesus now permits to become His self- revelation. 12'*-"' **■" convey the most explicit acceptance of the term by Him, and He actually uses it in the intercessory prayer (17^). The entire progress of the thought ciuminating in 20^' shows that the evangelist blended into one the correlated ideas of ' Logos made flesh,' ' the Son of God,' and ' the Christ.'
The other term SoN OF MAN is a mode of ex- pression which, with only two exceptions (Ac 7", Kev 1'*;, is never used by any of the disciples, but is confined to His own self-designation. It is being more and more conceded oy criticism that the expression is not a euphemism for ' jnnn ' as in the prophecies of Ezekiel, or a translation of the Aram. ' bar-enosh,' but a reflection of the transcendent meaning assijjned to it in Dn 7. The ideal man there is litted into the highest gloiy, and receives an eternal kingdom. It is as Son of Man that Jesus claims to be Lord of the Sabbath, the forgiver of sin, the judire of quick and dead. In the Synoptic representations and in this Gospel He calls himself Son of Man, because of the divine nature wliich is the substratum and explanation of the human. In 3" S-'' and else- where we find in this title a revelation of the highest glory and the most perfect sympathj', not a lertium quid, neither God nor man, but at once both fioi and man. He was known to be Sou of
Man, tlie highest, holiest man, by the experience ol those who knew Him best. He did not hesitate to use the title of Himself. The inference was, and still is, that He is ' Son of God,' i.e. that the divine will and indwelling must be presupposed to justify such a term.
(8) The relation oi the Father and the Son, or of Theos and Logos, does not exhaust the Johannine conception of 'the only true God.' Indeed the OT wiilrrs speak of t/ie Spirit of God as the agent of the Eternal in creation, as the primal source ol the human Ego, and as discriminating I lie living soul of man from that of the animal. With them Spirit is the cause of all beauty or genius, of all pro- phitic gift, and all sanctifying grace. The Spirit of God is by the Synoptists set forth as the occa- sion of the numanity and formation of the person of the Lord Jesus. The divine personal Spirit perfects the human character and coiiii)letes the ollicial equipment of the Son of Man to be the Saviour of the world. So completely is He domi- nated by the Sjurit, that He claims to communicate the Holy Spirit to others (Mt 3", cf . Lk 1 1'»), while the Pauline teaching identifies the Spirit of Christ with that of the Father (Ho 8»-")- I'I'e NT yearns after the unity of the self-conscious Father and the self-conscious Son — the unity of the divine nature as self-conscious in the Christ, together with the conscience of human nature, the unity of all believers in one body by the One all co-ordinating Head. These unities find their best explanation in tlie Lord's own teaoliing concerning the Spirit. In the Synop. (Mt 12-''-'" and parallel passages) the dispensation of the Son of JIan is contrasted with tlie dispensation of the Spirit ; and in the Fourth (Jospel Christ claims to give the Sjiirit to the Church, that the u-orld niaj- be con- vinced 'of sin, rij,'hteousness, and judgment.' The Lord so states tlie relation of the Holy Spirit to His own consciousness, that He identifies the coming of the Comforter with His own return. The indwelling of the Father and of the Son in human souls is ell'ectuated by nothing less than the Spirit, i.e. by the activitj' and personality of all the fulness of the Godhead. His advent was an inenniiiig to souls both of the Father and of the Son, for the one cannot be without the other. I'eysehlag, Reuss, and others seem anxious lest they find anything like Trinitarian doctrine in these numberless references to the Ego of the Father, of the Son, of the Spirit, of the Christ. The Uni- tarian development of the 4th to the 6tli cent, is not homogeneous, because encumbered by the attempt to reiiudiate the philosophical explanations of the so-called heretics. The Gospels, and particularly the Fourth, like the greatest symbols of the faith, are content to say (a) that Jesus was Son of Man ; to show that He was Man in body, soul, spirit, will — Man, i.e. in all respects, in birth, frailty, limitations, suflerings, and death ; (b) that the mind of Jesus sounded also the depth of the divine consciousness, so that in His full personality He had dwelt in the bosom of the Father and was able to reveal Him (1'*); (c) that in the completing and glorifying of the Son of Man, in the resurrection and ascension of tlie Christ, the God-man shared finally in the very glory of the Eternal.