There is, no doubt, great possibility of error in arguing from such abstract ideas as ' Divinity ' and ' humanity,' especially when they are in some way opposed to one anotlier in our minds : how- ever we may define them, we must remember that they were in no sense opposed or inconsistent in Christ. He was at once and consistently ail that we mean by Divine and all that we mean by human, but we cannot learn what that was by looking up ' divine ' and ' human ' in the dictionary, or in a book of dogmatic theology. We must look at Jesus Himself as He is presented to us in the Go-spels. And further, we must consider that there is a vast region of things in which there neither is nor can be any such thing as authority — the region, namely, which is covered by science. Now questions of the kind to which reference has just been made all belong to the domain of science. The nature of the Book of Jonah, the date and authorship of the UOth Psalm, tlie exjilanation of the morbid phenomena which the ancients ascribed to evil spirits inhabiting the bodies of men : these are questions for literary, for historical, for medical science. It is a misleading way of speaking about them, and needlessly hurts some Christian feel- ings, to say that the authority of Jesus was limited, and did not extend to such matters. "The truth rather is that such matters belong to a region where there is no such thing as authority, or where the only authority is that of facts, which those in quest of knowledge must apprehend and interpret for themselves. It is a negation of the very idea of science to suppose that any con- stituent of it could be revealed, or could rest upon authority, even the authority of Jesus. Hence in regard to all sucli subjects the question of Jesus' authority ought never to be raised : it is not only misleading, but unreal. On the other hand, when we come to the authority which Jesus actually claims as a revealer of God, and of the things of His Kingdom, we iind that it is not only real but absolute— an authority to which the soul renders unreserved acknowledgment.
This is brought out most clearly in Mt IP'. Here Jesus speaks in explicit terms of His function as Revealer, and we see at once the absoluteness of His authority, and its sphere. 'All things have been delivered unto me by my Father, and no one knoweth the Son save the Father, neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Sou willeth to reveal him.'
Whatever else these words express, they express Jesus' sense of absolute competence in His vocation : He had everything given to Him which belonged to the work He had to do, and He was conscious of being equal to His task. If we try to interpret 'all things' by reference to the context, then whether we look before or after we must say that the ' all things' in view are those involved in the revelation of God : in the work of revelation, and especially in the revelation of Himself as Father, God has no organ but Christ, and in Christ He has an adequate organ. The passage anticipates Jn 14" ' I am the way, the truth, and the life : no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' It is in a word like this—/ am the truth— thut we find the key to the problems which have been raised about the authority of Jesus as a Teacher or Revealer. The truth which we accept on His authority is the truth which we recognize in Him. It is' not announced by Him from a world into which we cannot enter; it is present here, in Him, in the world in which we live. It is not declared on authority to which we blindly surrender; it is exhibited in a Person and a Life which pass before us and win our hearts. To put it othermse, the truth which we owe to Jesus, and for which He is our authority, is not information ; it is not a contribution to science, physical or historical— for this we are ca.st by God on our own resources ; it is the truth which is identical with His own being and life in the world, which is embodied or incarnate in Him. It is the truth which is in- volved in His own relation to God and man, and in His perfect consciousness of that relation : it is the truth of His own personality, not any casual .scientific fact. He does not claim to know every- thing, and it would be difficult to reconcile such a claim with true manhood ; but He does claim full knowledge of the Father, and not His words only, but His whole being and life are the justi- fication of His claim.*
The authority of Christ as a Teacher and Revealer has been called in question mainly in connexion with His words about the future. There is no doubt that these present great difficulty to those who believe in Him. They seem to say quite un- mistakably that certain things will happen, and happen within a comparatively short time, which (if we are to read literally) have not happened yet. ' Ye shall not have gone through the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come ' (Mt 10'=') ; ' Verily I say unto you, there be .some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom ' (Mt 16-8 ; cf. Mt 24=3•=^ Mk 133«'-, Lk '21'-'"). The coming of the Son of man in His kingdom was conceived quite definitely by the Apostolic Church as a supernatural visible coming on the clouds of