His earthly life, was possibly quite intelligible to those who first read the Gospel ; they knew that it was a spiritual Gosiiel, and that it was never intended to be taken as a literal record of Jesus' discourses, but as an inspired interpretation of all that He was and did. Kead in this light, it has its authority in itself, as the other NT books have, and as Jesus Himself had when He spoke with men face to face : and it is an authority, as ex- perience proves, not less potent than that which is claimed and wielded by Christ in any other of His witnesses. If we compare it with the other Gospels, which have in a higher degree the char- acter of literal transcripts of word and deed, we may even say that it is a fulfilment of the words found in the lips of Jesus in 14'- ' He that be- lieveth on me, the works that I do shall he also do : and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go to the Father.' Faith in Jesus has never achieved anything surpassing the witness — the true witness ^ of this Gospel to the Son of God. The final and supremely authoritative testi- mony to Jesus is nodoul't tliat whieli is given in His Ijeing and in His woiK in lie- world; but so dull of eye and slow of li> .m \\. le the disciples, that had 'He put all the inij.ort ..f I his into words they could not have taken it in. What He could
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not say on earth, however. He was able to say by His Spirit from heaven ; and when that one of the disciples who was able to hear puts what he has heard into the Master's lips, he is only giving Him His own. The authority of the word of Jesus here, as everywhere in the NT, lies in itself, and in the fact which it interprets. It is an authority which lias never failed to win recognition, and it may be said of it with emphasis, ' Every one that is of the truth heareth this voice.'
LiTEBiTURE.— H. P. Liddon, Hampton Lectures, 166 ff. ; C. Gore, Dampton Lectures, cli. vii. ; A. B. Bruce, Training of the Twelve, f>mft., Apologetics, 492 ff.; J. Denney, Studies in Tkeology, ii., iii. ; A. Sabatier, Religions of Authority and Religion of the Spirit, 292 ff.; H. H. Henson, Value of the Bale, 260 ff. ; M. Fuller, In Terra Pax, 124 ff.
James Denney.
AUTHORITY IN RELIGION.-l. Varmis conno- tations of the word ' mit/writy.'— The familiar dis- tinction between legislative, judicial, and executive authority is one that is not only convenient, but rational and necessary. These several kinds of authority differ in their respective sources and appropriate modes of exjiression, and may differ also in their respective repositories. Again, authority may be original or delegated. The latter, more- over, while on a dift'erent plane, is not one whit less real than the former. And, passing by other uses of the word, it will be found that the idea lying at the heart of them all is that of a right on the part of somebody to submission of some sort and in some degree on the part of somebody else. In other words, the use of the term ' authority ' implies the existence of an ethical standard. We shall not, therefore, have reached the ultimate authority along any line until we have arrived at this ultimate standard of right, by which the reality of all other authorities is tested. To avoid con- fusion, then, in considering Christ's teachings re- garding authority in religion, we shall have at every step to talie account of the particular kind of authority then being dealt with.
2. Christ's conception of religion. — That Christ's conception of religion must have conditioned and shaped His teachings upon authority in religion is too obvious to be questioned. Hence we must at least glance at His conception of religion ; but as this subject is itself a large one, we can at most merely glance at it. Our Lord, of course, has no- where given us a formal delinition of religion, nor has He anywhere formally discussed its nature. At the same time, few, we presume, will affirm that Christ has left us wholly at sea upon such a point. By common consent, religion is a term of relation. For present purposes we may, without unwarrantable assumption, say that the terms of this relation are God and man. Further, without undue assumption, we may add that true religion and right relation between God and man are equivalent expressions. Our present question, then, resolves itself into this. What, according to Christ, are the essentials of right relation between God and man ?
Now, for answering this question, three state- ments of our Lord seem to the writer to be of fundamental importance. (1) The first of these occurs in His high priestly prayer. ' This,' says He, 'is eternal life, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ ' (Jn 17^). Here the last clause may be an epexegetical addition of the Evangelist himself. With this statement naturally associate themselves, among others, those in Jn 10'" W-, Mt 11'-''. Now, certainly no one will even for a moment suppose that our Lord here lends any countenance to anything that can properly be called intel- leetualism. And yet it would be violent exegesis indeed that eradicated from His words the idea that right relations to God invariably imply, and