than to say that "Christ is God." We may affirm the true biblical interpretation of both these statements, but our Christology will become more scriptural, more impressive, and more worshipful by conforming to apostolic ways of expression than by strenuous adherence to the nonhuman, abstract, metaphysical dogma of Christ's deity as set forth in the Nicene creed and in the later Trinitarian symbols. It is only by exact interpretation of all the relevant scriptures and by a dispassionate comparison and adjustment of them that we escape the one-sidedness of partisan polemics, and recognize the various types of doctrine and peculiar forms of speech which are perceptible among the different biblical writers.

4. The Simplest Facts of His Life. We begin most naturally with a study of the simplest facts of the reported life of Jesus. There is a large body of these facts over which no serious differences of opinion exist. Jesus was truly human, born of a woman, a scion of the tribe of Judah and the house of David. He grew up from dependent infancy and childhood to middle age like other He doubtless learned as other children learn, for he advanced in wisdom as he advanced in years and in physical growth. His baptism by John, his subsequent ministry, his conflict with the leaders of the Jewish people, and his crucifixion are familiar facts which no one now disputes.

men.

5. His Subordinate Relation to God. We observe, next, that he became conscious at an early period of his life that he was sent upon a divine mission by his heavenly Father. According to Luke's gospel, when he was only twelve years old he spoke with an understanding of sacred things which astonished the Jewish teachers in the temple. In his later ministry he spoke with a wisdom and authority unparalleled among the great religious teachers of the world. He never claimed or assumed omniscience, but God so possessed him from the beginning to the end of his earthly life, that, though he advanced in wisdom, he never uttered that which was not truthful, never maintained a false opinion, never had to correct an error in his own teaching, and never committed an act of sin. His obedience and subjection to the will of God constitute a conspicuous feature of his life and teaching. In John's gospel, where we find the most remarkable self-expression of superior wisdom and power, we find also the most positive assertions of his subordination to the Father. He calls himself a man who tells the truth which he received from God (viii, 40). He can do nothing of himself, but the Father who sent him and who abides in him is the real doer of his mighty works. His prayers accord perfectly with this acknowledged subordination; his sufferings and his supplications in Gethsemane and the bitter cry on the cross, "My God,

why hast thou forsaken me," evince these facts of his dependence in a manner most impressive.

6. His Consciousness of Unique Relationship to God. As he advanced in wisdom the consciousness of his unique relationship to God seems to have deepened and strengthened within him. The heavenly revelation made to him at his baptism in the Jordan (Mark i, 10, 11) marked a distinctive crisis in his life, and drove him for a time into the wilderness of temptation; but, unlike the first Adam in his hour of trial, he "counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped," but humbled himself and chose the way of obedience. From that day onward Jesus proceeded with his work "in the power of the Spirit" (Luke iv, 14), and more and more his conscious convictions deepened into the knowledge that he came forth from God and was going away to be with God (pòs tòv dɛòv úñáyεi, John xiii, 3; comp. i, 1). The various recorded expressions of his self-consciousness reveal such transcendent knowledge of the Father Almighty as to exalt him immeasurably above all other prophets and teachers. It became perfectly natural for him to say of himself: "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father: and no one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any know the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him" (Matt. xi, 27). And so, as he neared the end of his earthly ministry, he expressed this heavenly consciousness with an intensified emphasis: "Have I been so long time with you, and thou dost not know me? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John xiv, 9).

7. His Heavenly Preëxistence. This profound inner consciousness of God found at times both a natural and a supernatural expression in allusions to his heavenly preexistence and his coming forth from God. This doctrine appears unmistakably in the writings of Paul and of John, and is best accounted for as having first found utterance in the teaching of Jesus himself. In the light of this teaching we are led to think of God as existing eternally in the perfection of personal sensibility, intellect, and will. These constituent elements of personality subsist and act in God as in man, who "exists as the image and glory of God" (1 Cor. xi, 7). The greatest and most real Being in the universe is He who speaks of himself in this wise: "I AM WHO I AM." Every intelligent being, bearing the personal image of God, and existing in the glory and power of heavenly life, must needs experience emotional resources of delight within himself, and so this "only begotten Son of God" speaks of a glory and a love of the Father with himself "before the foundation of the world" (John xvii, 5, 24). These facts agree with John's conception of the Logos existing in

the beginning with God, and existing as only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. The facts and the various expressions indicative of preëxistence find their best explanation in the fundamental truth that "the Word was God." Thus in the depths of the divine nature and personality the Father loved the Son before the foundation of the world; for the eternal Father, Word, and Spirit have, within the Father's bosom, infinite resources of delightful love. So, too, according to Paul, "the Son of his love, who is the image of the invisible God, is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col. i, 13-17).

8. Self-Coherence of the Supernatural in Christ. This doctrine of the preexistent Word is the logical complement and clearest explanation of the supernatural which forces itself upon us in the manifestation of Jesus Christ in the flesh. This adequately explains, so far as we may know it, the mystery of the miraculous birth, and gives intense significance to the incarnation of "the only begotten Son." The mystery of his coming into the world comports uniquely with his resurrection and exit from the world, and with all the miraculous works and the incomparable words of wisdom and truth which appear in the records of his earthly life. His exaltation at the right hand of God places his person and his name far above every name, "that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. ii, 10, 11). The apostolic salutations, doxologies, and benedictions associate these heavenly names, and teach us to honor and worship the Son even as we worship the Father.

9. A Likeness of Method in Paul and John. Paul's manner of addressing the philosophers of Athens was somewhat like that of John in setting forth a new and higher doctrine of the Logos to the thinkers of his time, whom he would fain persuade to the belief that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." As the apostle to the Gentiles found an altar in Athens inscribed "to an unknown God," and as he appropriated that inscription as a text and starting point from which to turn the thoughts of the men of Athens to the true doctrine of "the God who made the world and all things therein" (Acts xvii, 24), so John appropriated a word, Logos, long common in Greek philosophy, and suggestive of much that was deepest in Hellenic and in Jewish theosophical thought, and filled it with a sublime significance. He gave the term an emphatic personal setting, and made its far-reaching suggestiveness a means of setting forth the true concept of the Son of God in his essential relations to the everlasting Father. In the manifestation of Jesus in the flesh, whom he had personally heard and seen and touched

(1 John i, 1), John beheld the true Word of life and light, a radiation of the real Logos who was in the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. And by his superior witness to the facts with which he was very familiar, he has filled that old philosophical term Logos with a divine significance which it never contained before, and which can never be taken away from it.

10. The Godhead of Christ Jesus. According to Paul's Christology it was the Father's good pleasure that in the Son of his love "all the fulness should dwell," and he affirms that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. i, 19; ii, 9). He should not, therefore, be conceived as an incarnation of a part of God, as of one element, one πрóσшяоν, or оnе úпóσraois, of eternal Deity. In him dwelt and was manifest the totality of Deity, "all the fulness of the Godhead." Somehow he enshrined the fullness of God in a human personality, and now and ever in him the Divine Essence in its fulness permanently dwells. According to John's Christology he is the "only begotten from the Father," and yet "is in the bosom of the Father." The Father is in him, and he is in the Father. The Father dwelt in the beloved Son through every moment of his incarnate life, and withheld not from him the fullness of his Spirit. But this divine indwelling was conditioned by the facts and necessary limitations of his manifestation among men, and when he "ascended where he was before," those temporary limitations were removed. He is at home in the throne of God, and the divine purpose of the ages is to be consummated in him when all who believe on him through the word of his gospel shall behold him in his heavenly glory. The Christological conceptions of Paul and John supplement each other, and when they are fairly combined with all the other New Testament teaching on the subject they present for our meditation and worship a transcendent Personality, filled with the fullness of God. We do not presume to understand or to explain the inner mystery of his being. We deem it wise to abstain from attempting to determine the precise metaphysical relations of the divine and the human in this "only begotten Son of God." But the biblical doctrine of this adorable Personality makes it emphatic that he is of the same nature (homoousian), and not, as the Arians held, of a similar nature (homoiousian), much less of a different nature from that of the everlasting God.

11. The Mystery of God. When we endeavor to combine all the facts involved, and with them to inquire after the premundane relations of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, we soon find ourselves overwhelmed with the sense of our human limitations. We may with Paul speak of this whole subject as "the mystery

of God," and "the mystery of Christ." "God is in Christ," and "Christ is God's." As a theological term, the Logos, or Word, is not altogether synonymous with the Christ. Christ Jesus is a name that always points us to the historical Christ of the gospel; the Logos suggests more directly the supernatural and premundane Being in whom abides the mystery of the ages, but who voluntarily took upon himself the human, fleshly manifestation of Jesus Christ our Lord. But we should not forget that this doctrine of the Person of Christ has been the fruitful subject of controversy through all the Christian centuries, and never was the question, "What think ye of Christ?" more commanding than at the present hour. Such a question cannot be finally settled by any one man or by any council of the churches. Every age will make its own answer, or, rather may we say, Christ himself has his own specific and unmistakable answer for every age. But the answer for ever resolves itself into "the mystery of God," and all they whose lives become hidden with Christ in God may rest in blessed assurance that they shall hereafter behold him in the glory of his Father, and then only shall they "see him even as he is."