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absolute sense, as God is to Him ‘the Father’ in an absolute sense (6% 3% 520. 19. 21. 22. 23.26 g85. 36 1.413) Tf, is from this relation of God incarnate that He says, ‘My Father is greater than I.’ For Moses or Paul or Luther to say, ‘God is greater than I am,’ would be absurd. Equally absurd would it be for Christ unless He were conscious of superhuman being, as the Jews saw at once (5%), In the two places where He thus speaks (1029 1428) He addressed His disciples. He might thus speak from the point of view of His humiliation by the incarnation or in reference to the precedence ever given the Father before the Son and Spirit; but, plainly, His pur- pose here is to cheer believers. He does not say, ‘T am less than the Father’; His mind dwells upon the absolute oneness with the Father, so that all the greatness and fulness of the Father are for His people. Hence He says to His disciples (10), ‘ My Father is greater than all’ opponents, and (y.) “T and my Father are one.’ Again (148) He says, ‘If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father; for my Father is greater than I.’ The greatness of the Father is not apart from the Son, but -belongs to the Son, and through the Son becomes His people’s. The Father was not greater than the Son by way of contrast or separation, but in the way of likeness and perfect oneness. No mere ethical union of Jesus with God fully explains this ‘one.’ Only one Divine Being seems able to include such relations and make the infinite fulness of the Father the possession of the Son. Only God could receive all of God. Of such Divine being Christ seems plainly conscious (313 645 828. 38 10°), When charged with making Himself God (1083) He answered that He was Son of God, and gave, as proof, that He was sinless (cf. Lk 1, Jn 10°), sanctified and sent of God—a thing no mere man could claim. The salvation of all the redeemed hangs upon Jesus Christ ; only a oneness of being with God can bear such a load of weal and woe. It is into this transcendent and real relation of Father and Son that Jesus roots the gospel of redemption. It begins and ends in heaven. Because the Son came from God and went to God (138) He could wash the disciples’ feet, and as Divine Providence be ever with His people. From this transcendence He speaks as Jehovah to His people (Ac 9° #-), and from it He sends forth the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is spoken of as in heaven with the Father and Son, and coming to earth at the intercession of the Son.
If there is anything cardinal in NT teachings (1416-19. 96 1526 167 171 90”, Lk 244, Ac 158 94.17. 3, Ro 14 8-9, Gal 31-2), it is that the gift of the Holy Ghost comes through the glorification of the Son. This is the theme of Jn 14-17, es ecially of 16°-15, Here Jesus sends another Paraclete to continue His personal work (14), Jesus never spoke of the Spirit as created ; there is a power from on high (Lk 24°), but its source is the personal Spirit (Ac 18), Nor does He ever speak of the gift or outpouring of the Spirit, as John himself does (1 Jn 4%) Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as a Personal Being, coming from the Father, sent by the Son, to testify before men to Father and Son (1526: 2 ). Hence the disciples would not be ‘orphans’ when Jesus left them (14'8), When He said, ‘ I will come unto you’ (14"*), He meant by the Spirit: the one is as’ per- sonal as the other. The incarnate Son was more of manifestation of God then than the Father ; so Jesus says that the Spirit can do greater things for men than the Son, because the Son returned to the glory of the Father and the Son’ (1476 1526 167), Each takes precedence in His peculiar work. The Father can no more complete the work of redemp- tion without the Son than the Son could begin it without the Father. They are so one that Jesus could say that the Father sanctified Him (10°) or that He sanctified Himself (17%), The Father
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sends the Son; and the Son comes Himself. Jesus excludes in all His teachings separate action of Father and Son (141° 1710-21), And the mission of the Spirit is to witness to Father and Son. This indicates the equal Divinity of all. Unless the Son were God, He could not send the Spirit of God; and the Holy Ghost would not testify to and glorify a man. Jesus teaches that Father, Son, and Spirit are all equally present in the souls of believers (7°*: °) ; yet none loses His personality or is confounded with another. The witness of the Spirit, Jesus says, is twofold—first to the Church, and second to the world. To Christians He would so recall the teachings of Jesus and add to them that believers would know the Son as never before. Jesus taught ‘these things’ (14%); the Spirit would teach ‘all things’ (v.”6), that is, the things of the Father and Son (167), as the Spirit ever hears (16, note the present sense in dko’cy) them in Divine omniscience. To the world also, through the Church, the Spirit would testify for Christ (1681). As in the Synopties, so in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus reveals the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as building up God’s kingdom and destroying that of the devil. The Spirit was to convince the world that it had not glorified the Son. To hate the Son was to hate the Father (1578), and to hate the Son called forth the protest of the Spirit (15-6), Only the Spirit, coming from the glorified Christ, could overcome this hatred (167). And this co-operation of Son and Spirit rested on essential relations to one an- other and to the world (11° 167). Almost dramati- cally it is said of the personal Spirit that éxetvos édOuby (1578) would convict the world of a threefold sin. The triple attack of Satan upon the Son (Lk 45.) is met by a triple defence of the Spirit. The first world sin was disbelief in Christ ; the second was sin against the righteousness of Christ (cf. “eternal sin,’ Mk 3”). Conviction of this sin the Spirit wrought through the triumphant resurrec- tion ‘of Jesus (cf. 1 P 3% 48, 1 Ti 3'°, He 914), and His return to the Father, with whom only the righteous can dwell. The third sin, like the third temptation (Mt 4°), was putting Satan in the place of the Son of God. The Spirit would show that the death of Jesus meant the destruction of the devil: ‘the prince of this world is judged’ (Jn 16"). As intimated in the Synoptics, Jesus here teaches that God is to destroy the kingdom of evil by His Son and Spirit. The prince of this world is judged and doomed. The Son testifies (14!) that the world is lost because it cannot know and receive the Spirit ; the Spirit testifies that the world is lost because it does not accept and honour the Son. The only hope of man, Jesus teaches, lies in com- ing to God through the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Divinity of both and their place in the Trinity appear to be inextricably involved in Christ’s own gospel. In most solemn manner He asks the once blind man (9%), ‘Dost thou believe on the Son of God?’ He accepts his confession of faith in Him as such, ‘ Lord, I believe.’ He also accepts, as He had done before (Mt 14” 16°), worship as Son of God. Here His testimony to His own Divinity and equality with God culminates. But with it He ever associates the Holy Ghost as coming from God (14-17) and continuing the work of the Son in leading men to God (36 14"),