less than a glorification and even a deification of Jesus. He does not call him God, but he proclaims him as the Anointed Son and Saviour who rules in heaven and on earth and does the works of God.

3. The First Epistle of Peter. In the first epistle of Peter we find comparatively little concerning the person of Christ which does not appear in the preaching reported in the Acts. What is written therein on the subject contains no different type of doctrine. The trinitarian element which appears in the first two verses of the first epistle is remarkable: "Foreknowledge of God the Father, sanctification of the Spirit, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." These three are mentioned together in Acts ii, 32, 33, but in a less formal manner. The third verse of the epistle is a brief but beautifully comprehensive statement of the apostolic gospel: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Here Jesus is both Lord and Christ, risen from the dead, and begetting a living hope in them that love and obey him. In iii, 22, he is said to be "on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him." He is called "the Shepherd and Bishop of souls," and "the Chief Shepherd" (ii, 25; v, 4). Repeated reference is made to the sufferings of Christ, and he is called "a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but with God elect, precious" (ii, 4). He has left us an example to follow as those who walk in the steps of one "who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" (ii, 22). He is also spoken of as "a lamb without blemish and without spot, who was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was manifested at the end of the times" (i, 19, 20). Reference is also made to a future "revelation of Jesus Christ," "the revelation of his glory" (i, 7, 13; iv, 13). Believers are called upon to sanctify Christ in their hearts as Lord (iii, 15), and to "set their hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto them" at the time of that future glorious revelation of the Lord. That revelation involves "eternal glory in Christ" (i, 13; v, 10), "whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls" (i, 8, 9).

4. Second Peter and Jude. The second epistle of Peter and that of Jude contain very little that bears distinctive witness to the person of Christ. They both appear to belong to a later time than that of the first epistle of Peter, and what they say of the

Lord Jesus is of the most general character. The epistle of Jude is generally believed to be the earlier of the two, and forms the basis of second Peter, the second chapter of which is largely fashioned after the more original and vigorous writing of Jude. In this brief letter Jesus Christ is called "the only Master (dεOTÓTηs) and our Lord Jesus Christ" (vers. 4, 17, 21, 25). Those who are "called and beloved in God the Father" are firmly "kept for Jesus Christ" (ver. 1), but must also "keep themselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (ver. 21). The ascription of "glory, majesty, dominion, and power to the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord" (ver. 25) clearly recognizes God as the Saviour, and Christ as the Mediator of his glory and grace. In 2 Peter we meet with the phrases, the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (i, 1, 8, 11, 16; ii, 20; iii, 18). These ascriptions of knowledge, salvation, and power to Jesus Christ imply his exaltation at the right hand of God and associate him with God. The old contention that, because the grammatical construction of the words our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, in i, 1, is the same as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in iii, 18, therefore this writer calls Jesus God as well as Lord and Saviour, cannot be fairly maintained; for not only is the translation "our God and the Saviour" conceded as entirely proper, and adopted in the American Standard Revision, but the statement, in i, 17, that Jesus "received from God the Father honor and glory, when there was borne such a voice to him by the Majestic Glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," shows that the author of this epistle conceived the beloved Son as holding a subordinate relation to God the Father. Nevertheless, it must also be conIceded that the construction of the words our God and Saviour so as to make them both refer to Jesus Christ is grammatically both possible and proper.

5. The Epistle of James. The epistle of James makes only a few references to the person of Christ, but those few are sufficient to indicate the author's thoroughly worshipful devotion to "the Lord Jesus Christ" (i, 1; ii, 1), of whom he declares himself a bondservant. The aim of the epistle is conspicuously practical and finds no occasion to speak particularly of Jesus, but it recognizes "the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ" (ii, 1) as a regulative principle of all true Christian life. This faith centers in the Lord Jesus as "the Lord of glory." The grammatical construction of

the genitive τns dóns, of glory, in this last clause has puzzled interpreters, and is confessedly obscure; but that adopted in the current English versions seems on the whole the best, and is made emphatic by repeating the word Lord immediately before these words. We may, however, understand these last words as an adjectival genitive qualifying the entire phrase preceding, and translate accordingly, "the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ." He is glorious in his exaltation, and like God himself has no respect of persons, but "chooses them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to them that love him" (ii, 5). According to this epistle, "the coming of the Lord is near at hand" (v, 8), whence we infer that the author accepted the current belief of the first apostles that their Lord was enthroned in glory and would soon come again to judge the world. The doctrine of these catholic epistles and of the preaching of Peter is thus seen to be in harmony with the portraiture of Christ found in the synoptic gospels. The preaching of Stephen and of Philip, as may be inferred from Acts vi, 14; vii, 52-59; viii, 12, 35, was of the same general type, and aimed to magnify "the Name" (Acts v, 41, 42). The doctrine of the three epistles of John will be more properly considered in connection with the Johannine Christology.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHRIST OF JOHN'S APOCALYPSE

1. Date and Composition of the Book. One may well hesitate in determining the date and rank of the Christology of the New Testament Apocalypse. The present trend of expert criticism is to recognize a variety of sources and older fragments of a somewhat heterogeneous character out of which the book in its present form has been compiled and wrought over into a perceptible unity of plan. The two passages in the book itself which indicate its date are xi, 1, 2, and xvii, 10, from which one naturally infers that the Jewish temple was yet standing and Nero was emperor of Rome. The riddle of "the number of the beast" in xiii, 18, is also best explained by the numerical value of the Hebrew letters in the name Nero Cæsar (DP), which when added together make the sum of six hundred and sixty-six. The external evidence, however, has been quite generally understood as fixing the date near the close of Domitian's reign (about A.D. 96), and it is overwhelmingly strong and uniform in assigning the authorship to John, the son of Zebedee, the disciple of Jesus. It is noteworthy that the apostolic origin of no book of the New Testament is better attested by external evidence than that of this Apocalypse of John. But it may be that the work is composite, and that, like most of the numerous Jewish apocalypses dating all the way from B.C. 175 to A.D. 200, it has appropriated elements of earlier writings. The apostle John himself might have done this, and it is a noteworthy fact that there is scarcely a figure or a symbol in this New Testament Revelation which may not be traced to some corresponding idea written in the Old Testament." So far as it represents a distinctive Christology, we shall regard it as an apocalyptic portraiture of the same Son of man who is described in the synoptic gospels as "coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (comp. Matt. xxiv, 30, and Rev. i, 7). The Christ of this prophecy is the one who was dead, but is risen to the throne of God and "holds the keys of death and Hades." He is "ruler of the kings of the earth," and his throne is the throne of God. In all these conceptions the Christ

1 For what may be said in favor of the apostolic origin and early date of the book, see Biblical Apocalyptics, pp. 253 ff. For the critical discussions see the Encyclopædia Biblica, Art. Apocalypse, and the literature mentioned therein.

of the Apocalypse is identical with the Messiah of the earliest apostolic preaching. But the author's manner of describing the supreme majesty and glory of Jesus Christ is confessedly visional.

2. The Christophany of i, 12-16. The Christophany described in i, 12-16, is a most impressive picture of the Son of man, and its details are appropriated mainly from Dan. vii, 9, 10. His garment and girdle, his forehead and hair white as wool and as snow, his flaming eyes, his feet like burnished brass, his voice like that of many waters, the sword proceeding from his mouth, and his countenance like the dazzling sunlight, are all indicative of a supernatural Being. When, now, this august personage declares himself to be "the first and the last," "the Living One," once dead but now alive for the ages of ages, we cannot mistake the purpose of the writer to honor and glorify this Son even as he would honor the Father Almighty (comp. John v, 23), for he applies to him attributes which the Old Testament prophets apply to Jehovah.

3. The Lamb in the Midst of the Throne. It should also be noted how conspicuously the Christ is associated in the visions of this seer with the throne of God. In v, 6, he appears as "a Lamb in the midst of the throne" (comp. vii, 17). His position was so in the midview of the throne and the Lamb himself was so related to "him that sat on the throne," that the throne itself is called in xxii, 1, "the throne of God and of the Lamb." This Lamb is no other than the "one like unto a son of man" in the Christophany of i, 12-16, and who says in iii, 21, "I overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne." The symbolism of "a Lamb standing as though it had been slain," has unmistakable reference to the redemptive work of the Saviour of men, whom he "purchased unto God with his blood" (v, 9), but our interest at present is only with his exalted position at the throne of heaven. This conception is most naturally connected with the uniform apostolic teaching that Jesus, the Christ, has ascended into heaven and is enthroned at the right hand of God, where, according to Paul (Rom. viii, 34), he "maketh intercession for us." So the Apocalypse of John, like the preaching of Peter and of others, exalts Christ to the right hand of God, to share his throne, and to be "a Prince and a Saviour" (Acts v, 31). It is also worthy of note that this Lamb of the Apocalypse has seven horns, symbols of perfection of power, "and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth" (v, 6). The seven Spirits of God have been already described as so many "lamps of fire burning before the throne" (iv, 5), and being here identified with the seven eyes of the Lamb, we infer that the writer associated the thought of perfection of wisdom as well as perfection of power