(iv.) The dijciples. — The highest point of recog- nition of our Lord's true nature was no doubt reached in St. Peter's confession. We have seen that there is some presumption (the extent of which we would not exaggerate, though it seems to us real) that St. Peter liid actually use the words attributed to him by Matthew. If so, 'the Son of the living God ' would be stronger still than the more common phrase without the epithet. Not only (as we have suggested) does this at once bring before the mind a whole ma^s of most central OT teaching, but by the very fact of varying from and adding to the current phrase it prepares us for a variation from and addition to the meaning. ' The Son ' is emphatically taken out of the common category of all others who may be described as 'sons.' And, 'the Son of the living God' is as much as to s.ay 'the Son of Jehovah Himself,' the God of Kevelation and Redemption, .and the expression of His Personal Being. We are on the way to\\ards the iLravyaana TTjs oo^Tjs Kal xapa/CTTjp Tijs uiroaTaffiuis of He 1*.
(b) For Je.iiis Himself. — But the question that concerns us most is, of course, What sense did the title and its equivalents bear for Jesus Himself? And here again we shall have to regard the ques- tion from several distinct points of view. We shall do well to look at it, (i.) in the light of our Lord's own filial consciousness; (ii.) in the light of the external testimony borne to Him by the Father; (iii.) with reference to the two distinct things, Messiahship and Divinity; (iv.) and lastly, with reference to the extent to which the Divine Son- ship is to be carried back behind the Incarnation.
(1.) The Jilial con.iriousness of Jexu-t. — We have expressed our reluctance to sjieak too freely of the human consciousness of our Lord (art. JESUS Christ, ii. 603). But there can be no question that the central constituent in that consciousness was the complete and unclouded sense of the filial relation, evidenced at once by perfect mutu- ality of knowledge between the Son and the Father, and perfect submission and response on the iiart of the Son to the Father's will. On this head it may bo said that critics of all shades are agreed (.see, e.r/., Holtzmann, Neutest. Theol. i. 2SIf., with numerous authorities quoted on p. 282 ; also Harnack, li'hnt is Christianity i p. 127 fl'. )
But, that being so, it is r.ather strange that tht references to this filial relation in the Synoptic Gospels should be so conijiaratively few. It is indeed implied in the many places in which (as we have seen) Jesus speaks of ' My Father ' in a sense peculiar to Himself. But, apart from these, there are but two conspicuous passages in which
SON OF GOD
SON OF GOD
the relation in question is described On tl.e sule
wlrd converse thiwit'l'""* ^"= 1 '^s^"?" ''''' ,■" ■
^"'"' And on U. .de of . J^r^^^i^'^ol^ ^^J:!^
t Zl ^Zr tErSher^nVither aoti. any know
: l"tl,". save the Son and he to ^<^^^_
Fatlier who sent Him (Mlv 9^11).
In the Synoptic Gospels, with these tew excep tions the filiaf relation is rather felt as an under- gng presupposition of the narrative than direct exnressed in it. But when we turn to the l'"""'. GospeT wl at has been hitherto of the nature o in" de tal con.ment or in.pHcation ^ecoiue. nut lan^ l"ss than a standing theme, worked out in gicat variety of detail.
The Son U come forth from Ood, from th^^Jj*?' l^i-lf l,^-; li) ; He is not come of U.msel . t>"t'THe returns to God ind as lie comes '""^ '^X. Fathl?s L^me (6«)Tnot W fia:>18*0. lie 3 come m the r«»<''^* "„. L.ii,'A8 ,481 17161- fltso\^lin. hut the will of "■"- '^at sent llm, n^ 63J H 1 ) ,
to.ao that will is t''J..^"l'>~5^;„l»S the "on does not seek H,s whole hcng (i-^)- 'ii°''.°77i5^so 174); and, as the con-
roeak Iron, himself hut "'h-'' '™ "''^„^' "he lif e and cliur- tLse shall he ^1'<--^J /Ifg' ='-tit1,''a« a «Lle, i^^^^^^^ »
i':;rwtt"e« L'l.im (U. 8.S lt't'h":"sorhy 'the^Kat-her iS the »"'U-''~„''^„.''., „,".'•. ,,,„ ,',„„„, „( both DosseasinK and
most critical of critics they supplied the real key- note to the whole history. A scient.hc exaiiuna- Uon ol the Gospels, whatever else U brings out, brin.'sou this, 'that the root-element in the con- sdou^ne-ss of Jesus was a sense of Sonship to the D vinri'-ather, deeper, clearer, more intiniat* more all embracing [ind all-absorbing, than ever was vouchsafed to a child of man
(ii.) The tctimomi of </"; ,''' «""^'^; ,-, V,f„ ''"j^ spoken so far of what might be called the sub- ject ve consciousness of Jesus. As nmch at least ^.^ hts not only follows f™m the logic ot le history but is distinctly revealed to us— in the Svnoptc Gospels sulliciently, in tlie Fourth Gospel aOantlv. But to this sub ective conviction on His part tie narratives tell us that t^iere was also added an objective eonlirination. The conl.rn.a- tion w^s civen in the two voices at the Baptism and Tthe Transfiguration (Mk I" II 9' ID, and also i we take in St? John-by the voice heard at Uie^^t of the Greeks (Jn 1%-). How are we to