2. His Messianic consciousness.— Of great signi- ficance in this connexion is tin- Ti'mptation. 'The
all that accompanied it were (o be mediated and, indeed, effected by Himself. Prophecy " '
record of this canmn His own, and the l;i ■ n.arratives of the I!; must be sought in The latter, therefore
t cstimony than
I !)'■ 1 11 \ I. -I position of the -111 iji.i the Temptation
Ml >>iitni<: consciousness. '. must try reverently to
conceive. It seems true to say that the Tempta- tion represents a contrast or conflict of faith that pervades our Lord's entire ministry on earth. In general it is the contrast between God and man, between what is omnipotent and Avhat is humanly possible ; in particular, it is the contrast between a measureless gift and the definite responsibility of usin" it aright. Jesus had received a practically limitless endowment. He was in the world as God, for He was the ' Son ' of God accredited to His own consciousness by His Father. Yet He was flesh and blood, a genuine Brother of men. Each terra of this contrast had its own place in the wUl of God. It was the task of the Messiah to reconcile them. Thus He would do the will of God. An unre- strained use of this gift would remove Him from the brotherhood of men ; a refusal to use it meant the failure of His mission. How was a superhuman task to be done by One who should yet remain a man ? The key to this problem was grasped in the victorious experience of the Temptation. What the solution meant in detail we learn from the subsequent history. Reading that history in the light of the Temptation-narrative, we seem to discern in it two principles : (ri) the one is the principle of faith ; (b) the other is the principle of self-sacrifice. These two principles have, of course, a common root in the one Alessianic life ; but it is useful to view them apart. The principle of faith covers the strictly supernatural side of the work of consummating the Kingdom. It is the hope of what GOD u-ill do through Sis Messianic Son in brinqivg the promised Kingdom from heaven to earth. We cannot do justice to the conscious- ness of our Lord reflected in the Gospels if we fail to note the supremacy of this principle. If we may make for the moment the distinction between faith and dattj, we must find what is at once deep- est and loftiest in the consciousness of Jesus — not in the thought of wliat He Himself is to do in the fulfilment of the Jlessianic career but— in what God is to do in Him and through Him. He never loses .sight of tlie 'one like unto a son of man' who is til come with tlie clouds and receive a dominion iiiiivi'isal ami everlasting. The Messiah- ship is not ^ilnlllv lli^ I'lesent task. It is His hope for HiiiiM'lf ami'ini tlic v.oil.l. The eschatology of Jesus is mainly Hi- lio]ii' of the accomplishment of an act of omini-otrm o, 111 ^\ liirh God will finally constitute the iie.-.-ianie I'eijon and functions. This hojje was necessarily sliadowy in circum- stantial outline, but it rested on an absolutely substantial foundation. Its foundation was the presence of the Spirit that fell to Him as the Son of God. The gift of the Spirit, moreover, was not simply the ground of a hope that related jirimarily and a could give to others helps that were not permissible to Himself. Hence there is a miraculous element in the Messianic ministry even on earth. The miracles are thepremonitory signs of the final Mes- sianic glory. Tiiey are the pledge that the Power which will be manifested in that glory is not far away. AVhile these arjiu'ta and Swiixas abound in the earthly ministry, they are always under the control of the principle of faith. No one is sutt'ered to experience the extraordinary helps who does not believe.
The other principle, resting equally in the depths of our Lord's filial consciousness, is the principle of self-sacrifice. It is in the practical dominance of this principle that we may discern at once the originality of Jesus and tiie difference between His eschatology and that of contemporarj- Jewish faith. While He retains I lie traditional view that the Consummation will lie ettected in transcendent catastrophic fa.shion, — collapse of the present world,
only to Himself. It was a leading of duty j power of benefit in relation to others. He
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appearance of the ' Son of Man,' resurrection, judg- ment,— He reaches the conviction, possibly as early as tlie time of His baptism, that this Con- summation will not be attained previous to His own death and resurrection. How entirely this conviction, once attained, dominated His concep- tion of the Divine purpose and His teaching of His disciples, may be seen in the facts not only that in the Fourtli Gospel the sacrificial death of the Messiah is prmhesied by the Baptist, and is a matter of our Lord's consciousness from the very beginning of His ministry (Jn 2""^-), but also that (as regards the latter point) there is little if any- thing in the Synoptic Gospels opposed to the Johannine view. This may not decide the com