3. But, as has been already suggested, in using these and all similar terms, it is iiii|i(irlant to bear in mind their inadequacy and limitations. Not merely has theology suffered to an extent that is little realized, but the spiritual life of thousands has been impoverished through a tenacious clinging to an order of ideas in a region where they no longer apply. The difficulty, of course, is that we must employ such categories of thought even though we are compelled to recognize their inade- quacy. 'A danger besets us in the gravest shape when we endeavour to give distinctness to the unseen world. We transfer, and we must transfer, the language of earth, the imagery of succession in time and space, to an order of being to which, as far as we know, it is wholly inapplicable. We cannot properly employ such terms as " before " and " after," " liere " and " there," of God or of Spirit. AH is, is at once, is present, to Him ; and the revelations of the Risen Lord seem to be designed in part to teach us that, though He resumed all that belongs to the perfection of man's nature. He was not bound by the conditions which we are forced to connect with it ' ( Westcott, The Historie Faith, p. 74). We invoke 'our Father in heaven,' not as One who is divided from us by immeasurable tracts of space, but as far beyond our ignorance and sin — infinitely above us, yet unspeakably near. ' Speak to Him thou tor He hears, and Spirit >vith Spirit can
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.' So, when the Apostle bids us 'seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God' (Col 3'), we must shake off the in- cumbent thought of immeasurable distances to be crossed. And when we think of Christ's Ascension into heaven, we must not conceive of it as a flight into some far-oti' region, but as His passing into a state of existence (of which we gain hints during the great forty days) which we can describe only by employing words which, in the very act of using them, we see to be utterly inadequate. He has gone into a state which we cannot even imagina- tively picture to ourselves without robbing it of much of its truth.
wishes to pursue the subject of the inadequacy of the cate- gories of the understanding, and of the concepts of time and space in relation to spiritual realities, he will find an ' Held of investigation by bcginninj: with Kant's Critiqu
of the Pure lieast
and then,
following orks of I'hilosophy. He will find two valuable chapters (vi. and vii.) in Caird's Intro- duetion to the Philosophy of Religion, dealing with the sub- ject. Arthur Jenkinson.
ABRAHAM.— It is noteworthy that while in the Synoptic Gospels references to the patriarch Abraham are comparatively frequent, and his per- sonality and relation to Israel form part of the historical background which they presuppose, and of the thoughts and conceptions which are their national inheritance, in the Gospel of St. John his name does not appear except in ch. 8. In the Synoptists he is the great historical ancestor of the Jews, holding a unique place in their reve- rence and affections ; he is their father, as they are each of them his children (Mt 3" || Lk 3', Lk 13'6 16=4.30 199). To this the introductory title of St. Matthew's Gospel testifies ; it is ' the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.' And in the genealogical record tliat follows, his name stands at the head (Mt 1-), and through equally graduated stages,— epochs marked by the name of Israel's most famous king, and by the nation's most bitter humiliation (v."), — the ascent of the Christ is traced to the great fountain and source of all Jewish privilege and life. It is otherwise in the genealogy of St. Luke ; and the difference indicates the difterent standpoints of Jewish and Gentile thought. Here the historian records no haltiiigplaces in his genealogy, but carries it back in an uninterrupted chain, of which the patriarch Abraham forms but one link (Lk 3**), to its ultimate source in God. See art. Gene- alogies.
Other references in the Synoptists are on the same plane of thought, and presuppose a prevalent and accepted faith, which not only knew Abraham as the forefather and founder of their national life in the far-off ages of the past, but realized that in some sort or other he was still alive ; and it was believed that to be with him, to be received into his bosom (Lk 16"), was the highest felicity that awaited the righteous man after death. Both St. INIatthew and St. Mark bear emphatic testimony to this belief, in their narrative of the incident of our Lord's solution of the dilemma presented by the Sadducees with their tale of the seven brothers. Jesus quotes Ex 3« in proof of Ihe fact of the patriarchs' resurrection and continued existence (Mt 22^= II Mk 12=« Lk 20^), inasmuch as the Divine sovereignty here asserted over Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob necessarily implies the conscious life of those who are its subjects. In the Songs of Mary and Zacharias, again (Lk 1«-"- «»-"»), Abraham is the forefather of the race, the recipient of the Divine promises (confirmed by an oath, Lk 1") of mercy anil goodwill to himself and his descendants (cf. Gal 3'"- '», He 6", Ac 7", Ro 4") ; and his name is a iilid'c tli.it tlic same mercy will not overlook or eeas.' ("i. -air fnr liis children (Lk 1«). And, finally, to 1h' with Al.ialiam and his great sons, to 'sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven' (Mt 8"), is the desire and re- ward of the faithful Israelite. This reward, how- ever, Christ teaches, is not confined to the Jews, the sons of Abraham according to the flesh, still less is it one to wliirl, tli.y Ikim- any right by virtue of the mere l.i. i ..i | li.N-i.al descent from him ; it is one that will I.. . iij..>.a l.y 'many faith- ful ones from other laml-,, ivjii tu the exclusion of the ' sons of the kingdom,' if they prove themselves, like His present opponents, faithless and unworthy