\l) By the testimony of Jesus is meant the un- conscious impress of His Personality. It is evident, to use with all respect a familiar phrase, that Jesus had a presence. The people marvelled because He spoke with authoritj', although an unlettered man (Mt 7-*- -^, ^Ik 6-). His eyes were as a flame of tire (^Ik 3', Lk 22*^). In the awe of His presence the Temple -courts were cleared, and the tempest calmed (Mk IV^ 6^') ; so that His disciples cried, ' AVhat manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him ? ' (Mk -A"*^). He drew the chil- dren to Him, and cast out demons, and said, ' If I by the tinger of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon j'ou' (Lk 11-"^'). These impres- sions upon His contemporaries simply correspond with His own self -consciousness. He gave up the workshop at Nazareth for the theatre of the world, because He knew Himself as God's beloved Son (Lk 3" 4^- ^^). His first address in the synagogue is not recorded, because it was all in one word, ' I am here ' (4-'). It was enough for the disciples that they should be with Him (Mk S^-^). It was the last folly of the Galihvan cities (Mt 11-^*-) that they did not believe Him for the works' sake : and of Jerusalem, tliat it knew not the day of its visita- tion (Mt 23^, Lk ig-'i'^-)- There was only one leuacv He had to leave, and that alone worth leaving, His spiritual presence (Mt 28'^\ Lk 24^"), which was the true Shekinah (Mt I8"-^\ cf. ' Ubi sedent duo qui legem tractant, Shekina cum illis est,' PirkcAboth, 3 (Schultz, ii. 67)). The difference in this respect between St. John and the Synoptists is that wliereas with them the testimony of Jesus to Himself is mostly unconscious, with him it is altogether self-conscious. St. John never fails to lay stress on the autonomy of Jesus (Moffatt in Expos. VI. iii. [1901] 469). so that, even psychologi- cally speaking, He is not of the Avorld, though in it.
(2) Thus in Jn. the testimony of Christ is merged in His teaching. He speaks of His own presence as living water, heavenly bread, light and life to a needy world (Jn 4^^ 6*« S^- U^). To keep His word is to keep in the presence of God as He Himself does (14^ 15^"). And that presence is an inward abiding which nothing outward can disturb (16-- ^). All His words in the Sj'noptics similarly illustrate that—
' To turn aside from Him is hell, To walk with Him is heaven.'
Only with them His Person is, as it were, so transparent that they present God through Jesus rather than in Him, and we are left to draw the Christian inference that He Himself is the focus of the Father's presence. It is the essential nearness of God that gives all significance to the Beatitudes (Mt 5*- "), to the teaching on prayer (6'^-*), to the interpretation of worship (Mk 7*, cf. Jn 4^), to the illustrations from nature (Mt lO'-'*), to the exhorta- tions against anxiety (Lk 12^'*-), towards watch- fulness (vv.*5- ^), against covetousness (vv.-^--'), towards compassion (Mt lO"*^'"*-). The sphere in which all the teaching moves, which makes it simple and intimate to the heart, and transcendent
in its appeal and its authority, is the presence of God the Father, the truth that —
' Spirit with spirit can meet, Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.'
But the immanence of God reaches a further stage in the gospel of Christ. Not only does Jesus bring God close into His world, as if oipavos meant the atmosphere one breathes rather than the lirma- ment above (cf. to. weTeiva rod oipavov, Mt 6^ etc.), but, according to Jesus, God is immanent in the human nature that makes room for Him. This is expressed in terms of [a) relationship (Mk 3^, Mt 5'«•''^ Jn P-), (b) identification (Mt 10-^'25*), (c) in- dwelling ( Jn 14^''- '"). This last is called the doctrine of the Holj- Ghost. In order to give His own out- look to all disciples, Jesus promised His other self, the Paraclete or Comforter, in whose company and through whose intercession we live on the plane of sons, not only being in the Feather's presence, but He being present in us. Although this doctrine is fully allowed for by the Synoptists (Mt ](>^', Lk 24^^*), it is the special contribution of St. John. ' Jesus answered, If a man love me, he will keep my word : and mj- Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him ' (Jn 14-^j. From diflerent points of view it may be said that Jesus enjoyed the presence of God, that He icas that ^iresence, and that He gave it. This threefold presence is really the basis of the doctrine of the Trinity.
3. What then are we to gather from all this but that, according to Christianity, Christ as God in- carnate is the pledge that God is present, not only Creator-like in the tiniverse, but F"ather-like in the believing heart and the consecrated life ? That is really the meaning of His exhibition of God in human life, and the impartation of His own Spirit. And our safeguard against the errors of Pantheism and of all such systems as tend to merge the Di%-ine in the human instead of moulding the human by the Di\-ine, is to be found in one small but significant phrase, ' ev XpiorJ.' The Christian consciousness must always testify with a modem thinker (W. S. Palmer, An Agnostic's Progress): ' When I lifted up my eyes to God, I found God not only looking through my eyes but looking into them.' It is among a people redeemed from their sins and consecrated to service that God will taber- nacle (<TKr]vihcTei) as an abiding presence [Shekinah, fr. \2t 'abide'). And when the brotherhood is perfected, there will be no need of a Temple (Kev 213.22-27) The revelation of God immanent in a redeemed humanity is the ideal towards which Christianity points'(Eph 1-3, Col p--^ cf. 2 P 3'^, Jn 17-"^'"^), and to which it is slowly moving, but only by otitgrowing many misconceptions and leaN-ing them behind. See, further, Schultz, OT ThcoC \. 353 f., ii. 7-11; artt. 'Ark of the Covenant,' 'Shekinah' in Hastings' Z)£; Beyschlag, NT Theol. i. 95 ff. ; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, § 3, ch. 2 ; Westcott on Jn 14-17).