was highest and lowest in social order, and the infusion and uplift of a new volcanic f could invert its masses and confuse such es lished lines of cleavage.
Itv
i largely ■
the first
familiar form of i-.i |.|.. - ,i,,i <<m|i. ,i ,,, - nient. A similar desire I" [. i.; .;i ii i . ,( |i ,,, niind of Christ and til'- -p II! .. I M i< l,iirj<|,.ni ■ ' i - i ^v -idraw upon the discoveries nf (ili\^ii;al ^cirii'. , , ..i roni- mercial expansion, and the iiicenti\'cs(ii I ! n . Intlie East it woultl measure the followiiiL; - ' m. self- denial of the de\otee, likeness to Ilitii v,..li n,. . ; ~ aste,
and turn towards our Heavenly Father I Ir >rrMi,ii._.| Lhunisof ancestor-worship.
There were, however, two great relationships in the Hebrew-Roman world that were strangely marked by aloofness and disruption, namely, spiritual fellowship between God and man, and the racial status of Jew and Greek. Among the Jews the voice of prophecy and of direct communi- cation with God had ceased. The word of Ezekiel (37") had been fulfilled, ' Our bones are dried, and our Iiope is lost.' The message of religious teach- ing had dropt its preface, 'Thus saith the Lord,' and had come to express the contention of a .sect, the presentation of a view, the quotation of hearer from hearer. On this account the teaching of Christ arrested the ear as sounding a note that had become unfamiliar, tlie voice of original authority. In the Roman world, the most sincere and eloquent teacher of the age (Lucretius) had shown that there was no Divine care for man as had been once supposed, for in his vision of the opened heavens he had seen the gods in a happy seclusion of their own, undisturbed by the sound of human pain and sorrow {de Rer. Nat. iii. 18ff. ; cf. Homer, II. vi. 41 ft'. ). In that jaded and dis- enchanted day the most popular and reasoned religion could only unite gods and men in the creed of avoided care.
With regard to the mutual recognition of Jew and Gentile, the antagonism was regarded on both sides as radical and permanent. The Jew despised the Gentile as 'flesh and blood,' hvimanity witliout religion ; the Gentile saw in the Jew the negation of all social instinct, the genius of unnatural hate, religion without humanity. It must have been indescribably wonderful in such an age to learn that 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself ' (2 Co 5'*). It was a great task that was soon to confront the gospel, for the Jew had to be convinced that the alien had been divinely
grovided for in the promises (Eph 2'"), and the entile had to learn that there was no place for pride where a wild branch had been grafted con- trary to custom into a cultivated stem, and owed not only its sustenance but the higher quality of its new fruit to that incorporation (Ro 11"""). And yet in a quarter of a century after Christ's death it could be stated as something that had passed beyond comment and controversy, — ' There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus ' (Gal 3=8; see POWER). The Christian was thus a ' new creature,' and for him all things had become new (2 Co 5") ; but this did not mean that he had any resident authority enabling him henceforth to please himself. Every- thing was in Christ Jesus. To come to Christ was to accept His yoke, and the spirit of bondage (Ro 8'*) had only been exchanged for a nobler con- straint (2 Co 5"). Wherever there was freedom from the law of sin and death, there was the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Ro 8=).
George M. Mackie. CLAIMS (OF CHRIST). — In any attempt to arrive at the truth with regard to the person of Christ, it is with the self-consciousness of Jesus
336
CLAIMS OF CHRIST
CLAIMS OF CHRIST
and His witness regarding Himself that we must begin. To answer the question, ' ^Vhat think ye of Christ ? ' we need above all to know what Christ thought of Himself. It was the men who knew Jesus only in an external fashion that took Him to be John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets (Mt 16"). It was one who had come into the closest contact with the mind of the Master, and had learned to jud"e Him, not by outward signs merely, but by His implicit and explicit claims, that broke into the great con- fession, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God' (v.'^). Hence it becomes a matter of the liighe-st importance to consider the testimony of the Gospels as to our Lord's pei-sonal claims.
1. The fundamental claim of Jesus was a claim to ///'/,((/ iiidlun-'dy. And this authority was asM'it>d in t«o way's, (re) He claimed the authority of ;i //i"v/r /■, ail aiithority over the will and the life, to whi.'li (lUeaience was the only natural response. It was by this most probably that the earliest dis- ciples were first impressed. ' Follow me,' Jesus said to men (Mt 4'^. 21 y ^a 99 || 1921 1|_ j„ jja) . and they either rose up straightway and followed Him (Mt 4JU. 22 II 99 11)^ or, if they failed to do so, ' went away sorrowful,' feeling in their inmost hearts that they had made ' the grand refusal ' (Mt 19~ II). (h) But, further. He claimed authority as a teacher. If His immediate followers were first impressed by His claim to be obeyed, it was the authority of His teaching that first struck the multitude and filled them \vith astonishment (Mt 7^- -'' II). It was not only that He constantly placed Himself in opposition to their acknowledged instructors, those scribes who sat in Moses' seat, and set His simple ' Verily I say unto you ' against all the traditional learning of the synagogue. He did much more than tills. He claimed the ri^ht either to abrogate altogether or to reinterpret in His own way laws which were regarded as clothed with Divine sanc- tions—the law of retaliation (Mt o^'^), the law of divorce (v.*^'), and even the thrice-holy law of the Sabbath (Mt I2"r-'>"f- ||, Lk 13", Jn 7-''). See art. Authority of Christ.