1230 13.W 1522-28 19:^9^ jill- 140. 41 25-11 534 923. 24. 37 IQSS. 52 13!> 143-9, Lk 1^-^ 9"-=-=« lO"-'"- *^ n^ 14=5-33 1717-19 1822
19«, Jn 5-* 6=8- 35 7='- 38 8'= etc. The extraordinary claim involved in these passages, and in many others, would strike us much more than it does were it not for the fact that the experience of the Christian centuries has amply justified it. Chris- tianity, together with all the moral and spiritual benefits which it has bestowed upon mankind, is the ett'ect produced not primarily by any doctrinal system or method of organization, but by a per- sonality. It was the deliberate aim of our Lord, with full consciousness of the method He was adopting, to influence humanity by the revelation of Himself.
II. PsvCHOLOcaCAL rrOBLEMS.— These are many and difficult.
i. Growth. — In the case of a merely human in- telligence, growth is a necessary element ; and a psycliological examination would aim at tracing the course of development by showing how the mind reacted upon the circumstances of its history and environment. Our Lord was truly human ; but He was not merely human, and therefore it is unsafe to reason from ordinary experience apart from the facts of His life as given in the Gosjiels. Concern- ing His early years, we are distinctly told that there was development. ' The child grew and waxed strong, filled (becoming full, ir\ripoviJ.evov) with wisdom' (Lk 2^"). And again (v.'--), 'Jesus advanced {wpodKoirTev) in wisdom and stature.' The language in both places implies growth in the true sense of the term. 'We are not, then, to imagine the infant Jesus looking out upon the world, from His mother's arms, with eyes already gleaming with the fulness of that superhuman knowledge which He afterwards possessed, as cer- tain ancient pictuies would suggest. In His con- sciousness, as in His bodily frame. He developed from helpless infancy to maturity. But there is unmistakable evidence that, as His consciousness unfolded, it attained, in ways which were to it perfectly normal and proper, experiences which are unique among the phenomena of human ex- istence. It is clear from what has been already- stated, that Jesus, from His childhood, possessed a consciousness of God as His Father which was utterly different from the faith to which others attain through teaching and the influence of re- ligious surroundings. The incident of His child- hood which reveals this fact must be viewed in the light of the self-revelation which fills all His teach- ing. Then its meaning is clear. We learn that His knowledge of His Father in heaven and of the loving harmony of will which subsisted between them was not a revelation imparted when the time of His public ministry drew near. It was an essential element in His earliest spiritual ex- periences. So far we are carried by the mere facts.
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CONSCIOUSNESS
CONSCIOUSNESS
Every attempt at a theological, or even psycho- logical, co-ordination of these facts will carry us much further, and show that this inexplicable knowledge of God and consciousness of harmony with Him form together the ruling and guiding principle of our Lord's whole life.
We have already passed in review the large classes of passages which show most distinctly our Lord's self-revelation of His consciousness of union with His Father. The force of these passages is greatly augmented when certain negative charac- teristics most clearly manifested in the Gospels are taken into consideration.
1. Tliere is no trace in our Lord's teaching or life of any effort to arrive at truth by means of reasoning. Jesus was never a seeker for truth : it was not any task of His to discern God's will before He began to do it, or to satisfy His own intelligence before He taught others. In dealing with the things of God, He moves with the abso- lute certainty of One who knew the truth from within. His use of Holy Scripture is never an effort to fortify His own mind : He speaks and acts as One who knew Himself a superior authority. Just as He was greater than the temple and Loid of the Sabbath, so is He above the Law and able to take the position of One who has the right to modify it or deepen it on His sole authority (see Mt 5"-='-»2-28 etc. T^--" 12«, .Mk •2--'). When, in His teaching. He reasons from Scripture or from nature, it is simply that He may con\-ey to others, in a way which corresponds to their mental equip- ment, the truth which He Himself knows inde- pendently. In such cases there is always some degree of that ' fulfilling of the Law,' that drawing out of a deeper meaning, of which so many in- stances occur in the Sermon on the JNIount. Per- haps the most remarkable example is His proof of the future life from the revelation at the Bush ( Mt 2232, Mk 12=s- =", Lk 20"- ^8). Here the real proof is the manifestation of the character of God as it is involved in the declaration to Moses. See for other instances of argument of this kind from Scripture, from reason, or from nature, Mt 5^^ 6'- "■ -'''"■ 7"- '" 12"f- "•■=•«»'•, Mk2'-" S-" 7'™- 1V«- 1235ff-, Lk 13'= 14s. 28ff.^ jn 1314 n is qnite plain in these and all other instances that our Lord is reasoning, not in order to satisfy His own mind, but to carry con- \-iction to the minds of His hearers. There is not the faintest trace of the struggle for truth.