FORESIGHT
FORESIGHT
gramme in its detailed completeness lies only in the Divine purpose ; and in Scripture only so far forth as God has chosen to place it there for tlie guidance or the assurance of His people. The
meaning is rather that all th; Jesus in the OT Scriiiluics h ment in Him ; and tli.U cihuii. Him there to assure H i s i n 1 1 , , ii , of His life, and in its, u. ilnn peoted ending, llc-w.is nnl (li the victim of tin- ImIumI nf me His work or iirih.ii.- .mu the
written of IS its certain fultil- li si.iuds written of IS iliat in the course , sir.uige and unex- ; prey of chance or 1, to the marring of defeat of His mis-
sion, but was full(n\ iuy step by step, straight to its goal, the predestined pathway marked out for Him in the counsels of eternity, and sufficiently revealed from of old in the Scriptures to enable all who were not 'foolish and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets h.u,- spoken,' to perceive that
the Christ must Is li;i\ r lived just this life and
fvdfiUedjustthi. dr^tniv.
That the whole cuuisc of tlie life of .Irsns, and especially its culmination in (In' .lo.illi which He died, was foreseen and afurc-]iir|.,ii ,-,l hy ( iud, enters, thus, into the very sulist.iiiro ot tiic Evan- gelical narrative. It enters equally into its very .substance that this life teas from the beginning lived out by Jesus Himself in full view of its drift and its issue. The Evangelists are as far from
hliii.ll
notot 111- own rhooMM-, to all uiiaiitiniMlo,! ,.,mI, as they are from n-pro>eiitiiig Uiiu as tliwarliMl in His purposes, or limited in His achievement, or determined or modified in His aims or methods, by the conditions which from time to time emerged in His way. The very essence of their representa- tion is that Jesus came into the world with a definite mission to execute, of the nature of which He was perfectly aware, and according to which He ordered the whole course of His life as it advanced under His competent control unswerv- ingly to its preconceived mark. In their view His life was lived out, not in ignorance of its issues, or in the form of a series of trials and corrections, least of all in a more or less unavailing effort to wring success out of failure ; but in complete know- ledge of the counsels of God for Him, in perfect acquiescence in them, and in careful and volun- tary fulfilment of them. The 'Divine Sec' whicli governed His life is represented as fully reco;;'- nized by Himself (Mt 10-', Mk 8^', Lk 4*^ 9~ IT'^ 24', Jn3"12*'), and the fullilmcnt of the intimations of prophecy in His lifo as accepted by Him as a rule for His voluntarv action (Mt 265'', Lk 22" 24» « Jn 20", Mk 14*', I-k 4-'. Jn 1.3'8 15=^ 17'= ; cf. Mt 13" 15' 24'= SG'*", Mk 7°). Determining all things, determined by none, the life He actually lived, leading up to the death He actually died, is in their view precisely the life which from the beginning He intended to live, ending in precisely the death in which, from the beginning. He in- tended this life to issue, undeflected by so much as a hair's-breadth from the straight path He had from the start marked out for Himself in the fullest prevision and provision of all the so-called chances and changes which might befall Him. Not only were there no surprises in life for Jesus (ef. art. Amazement, p. 48), and no compulsions ; there were not even ' influences,' as we speak of ' influences ' in a merely human career. The mark of this lifo, ,is tlic Kvancolisls ,lci,i,t it, is its calm and quiet ,-.n]"-riorit v to all eirraim-laiiee and con- dition, an. I to all the \arie.l toices which .sway other li\es ; its |irinie chai.icteii-t ies are volun- tariness aTul imiependence. Neither His mother, nor His brethren, nor His disciples, nor the people He came to serve, nor His enemies bent uf)on His destruction, nor Satan himself with his tempta- VOL. I. — 39
tions, could move Him one step from His chosen path. When men seemed to prevail over Him they were but working His will ; the great ' No one has taken my life away from me ; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again' (Jn 10'*'), is but the enunciation for the supreme act, of the principle that governs all His movements. His own chosen pathway ever lay fully displayed before His feet ; on it His feet fell qiiietly, but they found the way always unblocked. What He did. He came to tlo ; and He carried out His programme with unwavering purpose and indefectible certitude. So at least the Evangelists represent Him. (Cf. the first half of a striking article on ' Die Selbstandigkeit Jesu,' by Trott, in Luthardt's ZKWL, 1883, iv. 233-241 ; in its latter half the art. falls away from its idea, and ends by making Jesus absolutely dependent on Scripture for His knowledge of God and Divine things: ' We have no right whatever to maintain that Jesus received revel.ations from the Father other- wise than through the medium of the sacred Scrip- tures ; that is a part of His complete humanity ' (p. 238)).