authority of Jesus. As far as we are sensitive to tlieir demands we are sensitive to His moral claim. Into tlie representations of Jesus as Judge outside of the Gospels it is not necessary to enter.
(b) The authority of Jesus comes before us in another aspect when we think of Hira not as com- manding but as teaching, not as Legislator or Judge, but as Revealer. In the first case, authority means His title to obedience ; in this case, it may he said to mean His title to belief.
Perliaps of all theological questions the nature and limits of this last authority are those which have excited the keenest dLscussion in recent times. On the one hand, there are those who, fixing their minds on the Divinity of Jesus, regard it as essentially un-Christian to question His utter- ances at any point. Whatever Jesus believed, or seemed to believe, on any subject is by that very fact raised above qiiestion. The mind has simply to receive it on His authority. Thus when He refers to Jonah (Mt 123™-, Lk 11»"'-), the literal historicity of the Book of Jonah is guaranteed ; when He ascribes the 110th Psalm to David (Mt 22"'''- and || ), critical discussion of the authorship is foreclosed ; when He recognizes possession by unclean spirits (Mk 1=^"- and often), possession is no longer a theory to explain certain facts, and therefore open to revision ; it is itself a fact : it gives us a glimpse into the constitution of the
spiritual universe which we are not at liberty to question. On the other hand, there are those who, while they declare their faith in the Incarna- tion, argue that it belongs to the very truth of the Incarnation that Jesus should not merely be man, but man of a particular time and environment ; not man in the abstract, but man defined (and therefore in some sense limited) by tlie conditions which constitute reality. He had not simply intelligence, but intelligence which had been moulded by a certain education, and could only reveal itself through a certain language ; and botli of these are conditions which (w'liile essential to Iiistorical reality) nevertheless involve limitation. Hence with repud to the class of subjects just referred to, tliose wlio are here in question feel quite at liliLTty to form their own opinions on relevant grounds. They do not, as they think, set aside the authority of Jesus in doing so : their idea rather is that in these regions Jesus never claimed to have or to exercise any authority. Tlius ill ihr lir^t two instances adduced above, He siiiiply tak. - {\i,- ( i T ,i^ it stands, and He appeals to it i" roll li! Ill a -],jiitiial truth which He is teach- ing OIL its .mn iiiuiils. In Mt 12^''- He is reproach- ing an impenitent people, and He refers to the Book of Jonah for a great example of repentance, and that on the part of a heathen race ; the men of Nineveh who repented will condemn His un- repentant contemporaries in tlie day of judgment. In Mt 22^'"f- He is teaching that the essential thing in Messiahship is not a relation to David, but a relation to God ; and He refers to the 110th Psalm, and to David as its author, as unintelligible except on this hypothesis. In both cases (it is argued) the truths which rest on the authority of Jesus are independent of the OT appeal which is associ- ated with them. That repentance is an essential condition of entering into the Kingdom of God, and that there is no responsibility so hea\'y as that of those who will not repent even when Jesus calls, are truths which are not affected thougli the Book of Jonah is read as an allegoi-y or a poem ; that the fundamental thing in the person of Jesus is not His relation to David (which He sliared witli others) Imt His relation to God (which belonged tii Him aloni'l, is a truth which is not atlected thiiugh the llnth Psalm is .ascribed to thi- >laceaba?aii period. In otiier words, the autliority
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of Jesus as a revealer of God and of the laws of His Kingdom is not touched, though we suppose Hinx to share on such matters as are here in question the views which were current among His contemporaries. It is not denying His Divinity to say this ; it is rather denying His liumanity if we say the opposite. Parallel considerations apply to the belief in possession which Jesus undoubtedly shared with His fellow-countrymen, and in fact with His contemporaries generally. Possession was the current theory of certain morbid condi- tions of human nature, physical, mental, and probably in some cases also moral ; but the one thing of consequence in the Gospel is not that Jesus held this or any other theory about these morbid conditions, but that in Him the power of God was present to heal them. Our theory of them may be different, but that only means that we belong to a different age ; it does not touch the truth that from these terrible and mysterious woes Jesus was mighty to save. It does not matter that His notions of medicine and psychology were different from ours ; He did not come to reveal medicine or pyschology— to 'reveal' such things is a contradiction in terms ; He came to reveal the Father, and His authority has its centre tjiere.