Now, in the lirst place, we note that the passages just referred to are not the only evidence for winging the use in question within the cycle of Synoptic language. We may fairly add to these for this purpose Ac l*- ' 2-" ; for not only is the author of Acts the author also of one of our Synoptic Gospels, but it is probable that these early chapters are based upon a document that is very mucli upon the same level with the sources used in the Synoptics.
Next, we o^iserve that if the use of ' the Father ' and • ihe Son ' as theological terms belongs to the Karly Church, it at least goes back to the very lirst moment at which we possess contemijorary evidence for the vocabulary of tliat Churcli, and indeed to a date which is not more than 23 years from the Ascension (see 1 Th 1'). And at the time when we thus first meet with it the use is no novelty, but already firmly and deeply rooted, a tiling generally understood in all the I'auline Churches, and, so far as we can see, without any hint of question or ilispute beyond their borders. As we shall have to illustrate this more at length in the next section, we need not pursue the point further.
These facts demanil an explanation. How are we to account for the rapid growth within some 23 to 2fi years of a u.sage already so lixcd and Htcieotyped ? Where is the workshop in which it was fashioned, if it did not descend trom Christ Himself'; When we think of the way in which
the best authenticated records of His teachin" lead us up to the very verge of the challenged expressions, it seems altogether an easier step to regard them as the natural continuation of that teaching than to seek their origin wholly outside it. Of the two alternatives the former seems not onlv in other ways the more satisfactory, but really the easier and the more critical.
2. 'Tllli liKST OP TUB New TlisTAMi:XT.—1\\e same two convergent lines of doctrine may be traced in the rest of the NT as in the Gospels. Here again we have two groups of passages, the one introducing the title ' Son of God,' and the other speaking rather of 'the Father' and 'the Son.' And here again we find the two groups approach and mutually support each other.
The main ditlerence between the Gospels and the rest of the literature is that, whereas we have seen that in the Gospels there is an ascendin" scale of expression, corresponding to the gradual unfolding of the new conception in the course of the history, in the Epistolary and other books (which though, as writings, for the most part earlier than the Gospels in point of composition, are later than them in the stage of development to which they have reference), — in these books the process retiected in the Gospels is seen as complete. Both titles, or sets of titles, ' Son of God and ' Father and Son,' have come to represent definite thcdlugumena. 'I'licir content is lixed, and carries with it a distinct doctrinal meaning. The clunax to which we have been advancing h.is been reached, and now simply perpetuates itself. The point gained is not lost again.
(n) The title ' Son of God.'— We open the Epistle which stands at the head of the collection in our Bibles, and the state of belief implied in it is revealed to us in the very lirst verses (Ko I''*). We read there that the main subject of the Gospel, or new announcement to mankind, is just tliis, ' the Son of CJod.' And the nature of the announce- ment respecting Hiui is, that while on one side of His Being He satisfies the conditions exjiected in the Jewish Messiah by His descent from David, on another side of ilis Being He is delined or marked out as attaining to a higher designation still. He is nothing less than ' Son of God.' And the incontrovertible proof of His higher nature is to be seen in His victory over death by the Re- surrection .
The term 'Son of God' is evidently by this time chosen and established as the standing formula to express what we m(;an by the Divinity oj CJirist. If in the OT the term did not necessarily imidy Divine origin in the strict sense at all, that state of things has once for all been left beliind ; and this particular formula has been fixed upon by the Christian consciousness as the shortest and most decisive expression for the proposition in wliich its whole laitli centres.
The inference which we thus draw from the opening verses of F,p. to Romans is confirmed on all hands, and shown to hold good for every branch of the Church. Wo need not stay to illus- trate it further from such passages as {!al 2-'", Eph 4" for the Ejip. of St. Paul. But Ac 9=" shows that to pre.ich 'that Jesus is the Son of God' was a current way of describing the gospel. A like result follows from 1 Jn 3" (where ' the Son ol (iod was manifested* is a name for what was after- wards called 'the Incarnation '), and 1 .In4"'5''- '"■ " prove cleaily that the confession of .lesus as the Son of Go<l was the cardinal point in the Chris- tian faith. Somewhat more indirectly the same conclusion follows from He 4'* lU-"' and Rev 2'* (taking up the description of 1"""). The (Jospel of St. tlohn (1"-"*) identities the Only-begotten with the Logos of God.