But, further, that Christ found the ultimate standard of right in God's nature as expressed through God's will, is clear also from such state- ments as these: 'Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from tliis hour ? but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name ' (Jn 12'"'-). Here, it will be seen, our Lord places Himself absolutely at the disposal of the Divine will. But this would have been sheer moral insanity, unless God's nature contained the final norm of righteousness. And tliis language is by no means exceptional ; for, as all know, the Gospel of John abounds with expressions of Christ making the will of God tlie standard to wliich everything is to be referred {e.ff. 4^ 5™ 6^'). Nor is the case different when we turn to the Synoptics (cf. Mt 5^6'" 11-"-, Lk 22^-). All these passages and others leave no room to doubt that Christ taught that the nature of God, as finding expres- sion through His will, is the ultimate standard of right.
And as, for Christ, God's nature is the ultimate norm of right, so for Him God's will is the fountain and source of all particular rights. Wherever there exists a right upon the part of anybody to sub- mission of any kind or degree from anybody else, such right exists in virtue of God's ordering, and is delimited by God's will. These statements, it seems to us, are involved in the passages already cited. All authority, in other words, is simply author-ity writ short and differently pronounced. A free creature, like man, may be, in a limited sense, an original source of power, but never of rights. His rights are all derived from, and bear the stamp of, the author of his being. Not only the primary and all-comprehending dependence, but all subordinate dependences and interdependences ground themselves ultimately on the relation that subsists between the Creator, as Creator, and the creature, as creature.
ii. Legislative authority in religio.v. — 1. Term defined. — What we have called legislative authority is concerned primarily with diiti/. Its prescriptions, while mediated, at least so far as the knowledge of them goes, through the understand- ing, terminate upon the conscience and the will. It is the right to require or to forbid. It is the right
to establish relations and define the duties or the privileges attaching to them. It is the first and most fundamental form of authority, cleaving closest to the etymological and logical sense of the word, which as already noted is simply author- ity. Legislative authority is really or approxi- mately a creative function. In the case of God, of course, it is really creative. Behind it lies only the Divine nature, which alone conditions and regulates its exercise. From it arise all the re- lations of the creature to the Creator, and to his fellow - creatures, Avith the duties and the privi- leges that inhere in them, or that, in the wisdom of God, are, from time to time and under the par- ticular circumstances, attached to them.
Now, according to our Lord's teachino;, all legis- lative authority in religion vests exclusively in God. He represents God as in the most absolute sense ' Lord of the conscience.' To Him it belongs to say, ' Thou shalt,' and to Him also to say, ' Thou shalt not.' As He has determined the re- lations between Himself and His creatures ( ' Father, Lord of heaven and earth,' Mt 11" ; cf. also 19^), it is for Him to define the duties emerging from those relations.
2. If, now, we pass to Christ's teaching as to how this legislative authority belonging exclusively to God comes to expression, we find— (1) That our Lord is wholly silent as to the manifestation of God's legislative authority in what we call 'the laws of nature,' using this phrase so as to include not only the laws of matter, but of mind as well, and also so as to include what St. Paul calls ' the law written in the heart.' For instance, nowhere does He directly advert to ' the ordinance of heaven' (Jer 31^'-, Job 38'') as an expression of the Divine will ; nowhere does He refer His hearers to the constitution of their own nature, physical, mental, or moral, as embodying an expression of the Divine will regarding this or that. There is, it may be, the glimmer of such a reference in passages like Jn lO''""-, Mt 10=«'-, but it is at most a glimmer, and need not detain us.
(2) But that the legislative authority of God is exercised mediately as well as immediately is also taught by Christ, (n) Thus the i}rccepiivc])ortions of the OT, though mediated by ' NIoses and the prophets,' are really ' the commandments of God.' Moses and the prophets, quoad this matter, are, so to speak, merely the heralds of the ' Great King,' or, to borrow an OT account of the relation be- tween the prophet and God, the former is the ' mouth • of the latter (Ex 4"', cf. V]. And so, while 'Moses said. Honour thy father and thy mother' (Mk 7'"), this is still for Christ 'the com- mandment of God.' Further, that ' the law of Moses ' was for Him the law of God appears from the fact that, when He was Himself tempted, and had to choose between two courses, what was written in Deuteronomy prescribed for Him the path of duty (Mt 4-'- '• >»• "). In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, our Lord puts these very sig- nificant words into the mouth of Abraham, ' They have Moses and the prophets ; let them hear them ' (Lk 16=»). The law in Nu 2S'- " (or per- haps in 1 Ch 9'^), according to which ' the priests in the temple profane ' (ironical thrust at His ad- versaries) ' the Sabbath and are guiltless ' (Mt 12*), was for Christ determinative of duty and of privi- lege. Indeed, He virtually puts it upon the same plane for authority as the primary intuition and verdict of conscience, namely, that ' it is lawful to do good— on the Sabbath day ' (Mt 12'^). Further, Christ's summaries of ' the law and the prophets ' (Mt 7'- 22'"'-) bear impressive testimony to the fact that He regarded the whole preceptive por- tion of the OT as an expression of the will of God. ' ^Vhatsoever ye would that men should do tn you.