810
INCARNATION
INCARNATION
nient ; when, also, the utmost that human thought could do had been done in the way of a solution. The last and most strenuous effort of human thought to meet the demand of the human spirit had found expression in Philo's Logos speculation, ■which owed its origin partly to developments of Hebrew thought as to the word and wisdom of God, and partly to ideas wliieh had been the motive power of the whole history of Greek philo- sophy. It was not possible for Christianity to ignore the problem. Christianity is more immedi- ately concerned with the problem of the redemp- tion of man ; but this cannot be dissociated from the \\-ider problem of the relation of God to the world. The key to the one must unlock the other also. St. Paul and St. .John, accordingly, take up the technical terms most in vogue, with whatever they stand for, and say in effect : Wliat human thought has endeavoured to achieve by its ma- chinery of angels or powers, or by its hypostatiza- tion of the Logos, has been accomplished in the Person of the Son of God. He is the life of the redeemed. He is the life also of the whole universe of God. There is but one purpose in creation and redemption, and that is summed up in Christ. He is the Logos.
The terra Lo^os, accordingly, is used by St. John to express the identity of Him whom we know as Jesus Christ, vdth the personal "Wisdom and Power of God, who is God's agent in creation, who alone could redeem men, and who achieved this in the only way possible, by Himself assuming human nature, and dwelling for a space with men. The term, having served the pui-pose of presenting Christ as the goal of the immemorial quest of the human spirit for union with God, is not again employed in the Gospel.
It is not necessary to attempt here a detailed analysis of the Prologue (see Westcolt's Com. ; Uods in Expos. Gr. Test. ; and a valuable paper bj- Principal Falconer in Expositor, V. v. [1S97] 222). The lejidincr ideas are plain— (1) The eternity of the Logos (li- 2, cf. 17^ 85s, i Jn li). The Logos had a being coeval with God, and did not come into existence at a point in time, and therefore is not a creature. (2) The fellowship of the Logos icith God. The Loses is personal, h.i3 a life of His own, whichyetisdirectedtowai^i ■ r " %TTM' ir. ,i,
and is * in the bosom of tlv- I '
of the LogoSy as identical r i
as a person. (4) The cr
cf. Collie, He 12. 3). (:,) ; .'/.-■
(v.-lf). (6) The historical manift\^tati-d ,•( the Lnqos (vv.s lo). (7) The incarnation of the Logos (vv.m^). This is the climax to which the Prologue has led up. This is the event of which the whole Gospel narrative is the record and description. The Logos, tlie same Being who had dwelt in the circle of the God- head, left the glory which He had with God (17^), and, retaining His personal identity, became ' flesh,* i.e. became man, assumed human nature in its fulness, and dwelt among men as a man.
The problems with regard to the life of the incarnate Logos, which press so heavily on our minds, are not discussed by St. John any more than by St. Paul. He is wholly occupied with the glorious fact. It is amazing, but it has happened ; and in that great event the whole purpose of God, creative as well as redempti\'e, has reached its consummation. Revelation is com- plete. Xo one can declare God save One who is God, and this IS He, Jesus Christ, ' God only-begotten ' (v.iS).
From the simple missionary preaching of the Acts to the high intense thinking of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel is a long movement. It is a movement, however, not away from the facts, but toward their inward, spiritual, universal, and eter- nal meanin". This movement, moreover, has not been dependent on unaided human reflexion, nor are its results mere guesses or inferences. It has been conducted under the guidance of Christ's own self-witness and the illumination of Christ's own Spirit ; and its conclusions express the wealth of Cnristian experience, and in experience find their ultimate demonstration.
Conclusion and Outlonk. — A study of the charac- ter of Christ, and a dcise and reverent attention to His self-witne.ss, compel the inference that His Person, completely and really human though He is, is not constituted like that "of other men. It is to
be admitted, however, or rather it is to he urged, that what the facts suggest and demand cannot be fully apprehended by any merely intellectual process whatever. What Christ is, in His own Person, can be known only by those who know Him ; and personal knowledge has conditions which are not satisfied in any exercise of the mere under- standing, however careful and exact. Such condi- tions are an attitude or direction of the human spirit, and an immediate operation, at once illumin- ating and quickening, of the Divine Spirit. When these conditions meet and interact, in that profound region where the Spirit of God and the spirit of man touch and interpenetrate one another, there is produced that knowledge of God and of Christ which our Lord describes as life. There is no other knowledge of Christ ; and if Christology is supposed to be an intellectual process, governed by forms of discursive thought, and issuing in propositions for which is claimed the cogency of a logical demon- stration, it stands condemned as being out of all relation to Christian experience. But this personal experience is knowledge of Christ. He is as really known in this spiritual fellowship as one human person is known by another, and is known more closely and fully than one man can be known by another. Christianity, accordingly, presents to the Avorld the solution of its problem, the answer to its need ; while, at the same time, it has before itself a constant problem, the answer to which it seeks, not with ever-growing weariness and sense of defeat, but with ever-renewed energy of faith and love.