hrt nd hrtnt - reformational publishing projectreformationalpublishingproject.com/pdf_books/... ·...

46cAuiack, "Ckr- i-\ aria nivi,3

(1c110 i 'c219- g36. 41' -The- Z■101icaA

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITYBy HERMAN BAviNcx, Theol. D., Professor of Dogmatics and Apologetics,

Free University, Amsterdam(Translated by Rev. A. A. Pfanstiehl)

As HAS often been remarked, there is between Chris-tianity and all other religions one prominent charac-teristic and real difference. We can notice this in theminor religions; for, although they recognize a HighestBeing called the Great Spirit, the Exalted Father, theMighty Lord, yet this is generally a dead belief, espe-cially among the common people. All these religionsdrift in practice into animism and fetichism, intosuperstition and sorcery. But all the higher religionsdifferentiate themselves from Christianity in one chiefpoint. They without doubt have various noble charac-teristics, so that they do not stand in exclusiveantithesis to Christianity, but afford the missionarymany points of contact, and in all these grades ofaffinity must not be repelled but won and strengthener'Yet they have a distinctive and entirely different char-acter than the Christian religion and indicate thismainly in the place and significance which they assignto their founders. Zoroaster in the Persian, Confuciusin the Chinese, Gautama in the Buddhist, andMohammed in the Islam religion are indeed greatlytalented and were later also honored as more or lessdeified persons who had marked out a definite way ofsalvation, but each individual must after all travel thatway for himself and is finally his own saviour. Allthese religions are, according to the characterizationof Ed. von Hartmann, auto-soteric.

However, in the Christian religion, Christ is, as itwere, Christianity. He once lived upon earth not only

214

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY C5

to leave behind His precepts and example so that Hereturning could be fully satisfied if Christianity simplyruled in the heart, even though He Himself might beentirely forgotten (J. G. Fichte), but He is the livingLord who now sitteth at the right hand of God andcontinues the work of redemption through His Wordand Spirit. In this particular all the articles of faithin the above named religions contain a different mean-ing, as well about God and the world as about man,his sin, his redemption, and his destiny. The Chinesereligion is deistic, the Buddhist atheistic, the Persiandualistic, the Mohammedan fatalistic.

In none of these is there a true conception of God'sholiness and of the nature of sin, of the work ofredemption, and of the development and completionof God's kingdom. The love of the Father, the graceof His Son, and the communion of the Holy Spiritare unknown to them all. And that we are able tojudge all these religions in this manner from a higherpoint of view—acknowledging the good in them andpointing out that which is erroneous and weak in them—we have to thank Christianity, which also provesitself thereby to be the true religion, the correctionand completion of all religions.

From the very beginning, therefore, the confessionthat Jesus was the Son of God formed the foundationof the church (Matt. 16:13-18). The answer to thequestion: "What think ye of Christ?" marked adifference between the friends and the enemies ofJesus (Matt. 22:42), and from the confession thatJesus of Nazareth was the Son of God and the Saviourof the world did the church and the history of dogmatake their rise. Just as the disciples of Jesus alreadyat Antioch received the name of Christians (Acts

216 THE BIBLICAL REVIEW

11:26) and in public gave the impression that theyrevered Him as God (Pliny) were they themselvesalso clearly conscious that they thought of Christ asof God, as the Judge of the quick and the dead(Clemens). But at the formulation of this confessionall manner of difficulties arose, and the reef of Ebion-ism (Judaism)• on the one side and of Gnosticism(ethnicism) on the other had to be avoided; since,according to the former belief, Jesus was simply—especially at His baptism—entrusted with rich talents,a glorified and deified person; according to the latter,He was a temporary, heavenly, deified being appear-ing in human flesh.

Under the leadership of men such as Irenwus,Tertullian, Origen, and others the church sailed safelybetween these two reefs and gradually came to thesettled confessions of the councils, viz., that the Christ,as the eternal and only begotten Son of God, had, inthe fulness of time, taken the nature of man, fromthe Virgin Mary, in a unity of Persons. This confes-sion became the central article of faith of the Christianchurches, the common foundation upon which they tothe present time are all built and acknowledge andesteem each other as Christian churches.

This was not a matter of indifference, much lessof an abstract formula, but of the real existence ofChristianity itself, of its absolute character, of itsspecific distinction from Judaism and heathenism, ofthe reality and finality of the Christ-given divine reve-lation, and hence also of the independent existenceand individual life of the church. This conception ofChristianity found its expression in the doctrine ofthe two natures. Although in this doctrine humanfrailty need not be denied, yet it teaches much better

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY 217

than the view of Christ as being from below and fromabove, according to the flesh and the Spirit the historicreality and the idea, what Jesus really was and whatthe church possessed in Him. Justice was thereforedone only when the Incarnation was in reality distin-guished from and highly exalted above inspiration andinhabitation and when also Jesus as born from thefathers as to the flesh was confessed as God over all.

Around this Christological dogma there centeredas a matter of course, as it were, a world-embracingand humanity-ruling confession. For this Christ wastruly the Son of God who in the beginning createdthe world and had fashioned man in His own image.He was the mediator of redemption who had in Hisperson and work reconciled and united the sin-cursedworld with God, and after His ascension poured outHis Spirit, so that through Word and sacrament Hemight gather a church and renew man and the worldinto a Kingdom of God.

Viewed from the subjective and anthropologicalside Christianity is thus, indeed, one among manyreligions, a confession of man. But that confessionimplies that God as Father, Son, and Spirit estab-lishes a great work in the world. Christianity standsbefore the soul in its truth and holiness only when weview it from the objective theological side, and thereinglorify that Godlike work wherein the Father recon-ciles His created but fallen world through the deathof His Son, and recreates it by His Spirit into aKingdom of God.

After that, in the unfolding of the ages, greatlyvarying ideas were formed concerning the essence ofChristianity, particularly since the formal search for


that character was instituted after the eighteenth cen-tury. Up to that time no necessity for this was felt,because men rejoiced in the possession of Christianityand felt entirely at home in the characteristic concep-tion which the church to which they belonged expressedin its confession. Christianity was for every oneidentical with that dogma, that cult, and that churchgovernment which he found in his own religious fel-lowship; whatever deviated from it was impure andmixed with more or less error.

But when, during and after the Reformation, thevarious confessions, churches, and sects constantlyincreased, another conception of Christianity graduallybegan to make a way for itself. The Reformed andLutheran orthodoxy soon made a distinction betweenfundamental and non-fundamental articles of faith;the theologians of Helmstadt, with Calixtus as leader,returned to the apostolic creed; the so-caned Bibletheologians declared the New Testament doctrines,which they derived, as they thought, from an exegesisindependent of the church's teaching, to be true Chris-tianity; and the Deists and Rationalists were of opinionthat Christianity consisted alone in those Scripturetruths which agreed with reason and were discoveredthrough reason, or at least could have been so found.

Since that time the conceptions concerning thenature of Christianity have endlessly increased.Because, first, the churches, sects, and religious societieshave alarmingly multiplied in the nineteenth centuryand each one of them holds a particular view ofChristianity and of the Person of Christ. And furtherthere have been added various representations concern-ing religion proposed by the theologians and philoso-phers, historians and socialists, which have exercised


an influence in narrower or wider circles. We havebut to recall Kant and Hegel, Schleiermacher andRitschl, Gunkel and Troeltsch, Kautsky and Mauren-brecher, Green, John Caird, Josiah Royce—and onecan fill out this list according to his own will. Mostdivergent answers are to-day given to the question asto the nature of Christianity. There are as manyChrists preached as there are scholars or quasi-scholars.The condition seems to be so confusing and hopelessthat not a few have become skeptics and declare truthto be undiscoverable.

Still in the struggles of the various opinions thereare certain encouraging signs of agreement.

1. There is no church or trend of thought thatidentifies its conceptions of Christianity with the origi-nal Christianity itself. True, each party holds its owninterpretation as the correct one, and defends it againstall others, but nevertheless each church and each schoolof thought makes a distinction between the truth asit is in Jesus, and the view which it has received andwhich it has expressed in a faulty, fallible mannerin its confession of faith. The Roman Catholic Churchis an exception to this in so far as it attributes infalli-bility to the Pope and pronounces its doctrine as theonly true and absolutely correct interpretation of theGospel. And yet even it makes a distinction betweenChrist and the Pope as His representative, betweenthe inspiration of the apostles and the assistance of theHoly Spirit which the head of the church enjoys.There is no one who, in principle, disputes the distinc-tion between the truth of Scripture and the dogmaof the church.

This remark is not without weight against thosewho call their private personal interpretation of the


Gospel the historical in distinction from the dogmatic,which they ascribe to the churches. The churcheshave also, indeed, justly and earnestly endeavored togive in their confessions as pure a description of theGospel as was possible; and men, such as Harnack,e. g., who reject these conceptions and present anindividual explanation, never advance any further thanto give a representation of the original Gospel whichin their own opinion deserves preference over the others.They do not, therefore, set the Gospel in the place ofthe ecclesiastical dogma, but never advance any furtherthan to offer a different conception of the Gospel thanthat which is honored in the churches. The conflictis not, therefore, between dogmatic or historical inter-pretation, but involves only the question as to what wasthe original Christianity.

2. There exists in this also, furthermore, a strongagreement, viz., that the question as to the essence ofChristianity becomes identical with that which concernsthe original, genuine, and true Christianity, and thatin order to learn to know this latter we must returnto the Scriptures, particularly to the New Testament.There are really no other sources. The testimony ofJosephus concerning Jesus is critically suspicious andcontains nothing new; the slanders which the Jewssince the middle of the second century brought forthto combat Christianity may have found acceptancewith Celsus, Porphyrius, and in recent date withHaeckel, but they do not come into consideration inan earnest search after the original Christianity. Theshort utterances about Jesus and the Christians byTacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny are in themselves, it istrue, important and place the historical existence ofJesus beyond reasonable doubt; but they do not


increase our knowledge of original Christianity. Andthe many apocryphal gospels which arose in Ebioniteand Gnostic circles betray a too prejudiced characterto be considered as being of trustworthy source.Among the recently discovered precepts of Jesus thereare but a few which perhaps did flow from His lipsand were preserved pure in tradition. But with thesefew exceptions we have no other sources of knowledgeof the life of Jesus than the books of the New Testa-ment, and more particularly speaking the four Gospels.For that which is mentioned of that life in the otherbooks of the New Testament is comparatively littleand is substantially contained in these Gospels.

3. To this it is to be added that the long conflictover the genuineness and trustworthiness of the booksof the New Testament and especially the Gospels hasnot at all led to a generally accepted result but yethas come to a certain point of rest. No one thinksfor a moment to explain Christianity as it is acceptedby the churches, and fundamentally expressed in theirChristology, as having originated through Hellenisticor other foreign influences in the second century. TheNew Testament books, particularly the four mainepistles of Paul, remain a protest against this, andcould not have originated in or after that time. Con-sequently it is now quite universally acknowledgedthat the ecclesiastical Christology dates in substancefrom the first century and precedes the alleged Hellen-istic influences on original Christianity. The reasonfor assigning to the second century the various NewTestament books, herewith, at the same time, dropsaway. They have pretty nearly all been brought backsuccessively by critics of note to the first century. In1897 Harnack said that there was a time when the

ne THE BIBLICAL REVIEW

oldest Christian literature was considered a tissue ofdeception and falsification, but that time is past; weare returning to the traditions. The chronologicalorder in which tradition has arranged the documentsof Christianity from the epistles of Paul to the writ-ings of Irenmus is to be considered in all essentialscorrect. And this opinion of the Berlin professor hassince that time been agreed to by the many.

Herewith naturally the center of gravity of thescientific research was shifted from literary criticism toReligions-Geschichte. For although the oldest churches,so far as we can trace their origin from sources athand, confessed Jesus as the Christ, there still remainedthe possibility of these two interpretations, viz., thatChrist was the product of the church, or the churchthe product of Christ. In the former case we mustimagine something like this : That for a long time agroup of religious persons existed, or perhaps hadorganized themselves under the influence of social cir-cumstances, who united the various characteristics ofthe Christ image found in the New Testament withthose from Jewish, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, orIndian sources, and applied these to a certain Jesuswhose historical existence is questionable. Althoughthis attempted explanation made progress for a while,it soon, however, proved to be vain. The Christ mythhas already had its day, and firmer than ever does thehistorical existence of Christ stand among the circleof scholars.

But this existence alone is as little satisfactory toscience as it is to the faith of the church. It is not amatter of concern only that Jesus was, but still morewhat He was. And research has certainly led to someresult.


Indeed, just as little as the Gospels enabled aformer generation to write a Life of Jesus whichsatisfied mind and heart, do they offer the critics ofour day opportunity to return from the Christ ofScriptures to the so-called historical Christ. Theattempt to remove all layers of soil so deeply that wecome to stand upon the rock-bottom of reality hasbeen a complete fiasco. The cry: From Paul andJohn back to Christ, back to the Jesus of the Synop-tics, or particularly of the Sermon on the Mount, hasproved to be a hollow sound because the Christ imagein all the New Testament books is in substance thesame. How could Paul in that case have arrived athis doctrine of Christ? How could he have foundacceptance among the congregations with his so-called"falsification" of the original Gospels? And howcould he have received the right hand of fellowshipfrom the apostles in Jerusalem after he had explainedhis Gospel to them (Gal. 2:2-9) if in this funda-mental article of belief he had cherished an entirelydifferent thought, and thus had preached anotherChrist?

There was, it is true, a difference between Pauland certain brethren among the Jews, but this differ-ence applied chiefly to consequences which flowed forthfrom the Gospel as concerning the Old Testament law.But concerning the Person of Christ, His life, death,resurrection, and second coming, there was no ques-tion. All apostles were in agreement on this point;of a Christological controversy there was no thoughtamong them. The first three Gospels are derived fromdisciples of Jesus, i. e., of believers just as much asare the Gospel of John and the epistles of Paul. Theywere at least also written in a time when already a


number of congregations existed and for a publicwhich had been instructed concerning the Person andwork of Christ by apostles, and they did not proclaimany other Jesus as the Christ than was preached byall the apostles and was confessed by all believers ofthat day. It is one harmonious Christ image whichthe New Testament in all its books presents to us.

At the close of the fifteenth year of the reign ofEmperor Tiberius (779 after the founding of Romeand 26-27 A.D.), when Herod Antipas was king ofGalilee and Peraa and Pontius Pilate was procuratorof Judea, there was a remarkable religious revivalamong the Jews. Suddenly there appeared a manout of the desert of Judea whose countenance bore themarks of an abstemious life, who wore no other clothesthan a rough mantle of camel's hair fastened with aleathern girdle around his loins and who called allwho would listen to him to repentance because theKingdom of Heaven was at hand. With this preach-ing did John, later called the Baptist, tread in thefootsteps of the old prophets who also had constantlyurged their people to repent. But he enforced hisexhortation With the prophecy that the long expectedKingdom of Heaven was at hand. The Old Testa-ment had indeed taught that God is King of all theearth (Psalms 24; 29; Jer. 10:7, etc.), and that,since the establishment of His covenant at Sinai, Hewas in a special sense King of His people Israel(Isa. 33:22), but that kingship of God had beensteadily less acknowledged on the part of the people,and was continually more earnestly withstood. If thatkingship of God was ever to be realized, it could notbe along the line of regular development, but it hadto descend suddenly from above by a special gracious


and mighty deed of God, and hence it became moreand more the prayer and at the same time the expecta-tion of pious Israelites that God would open theheavens, and by His own descent reveal His righteous-ness and grace (Isa. 64:1, etc.).

Daniel especially worked out this idea: After theworld kingdom will the Kingdom of God descend fromabove. The four world kingdoms which preceded itwere like four beasts coming out of the sea, out of theworld beneath, but after that would come a Kingdomrepresented as a stone hewn out of the mountain with-out hands, growing itself into a mountain, and that isthe Kingdom which the God of Heaven will develop,which will not be hindered (Dan. 2:34, 35, 44, 45),and which will be given to the holy people (Dan.7:18, 27) by the mediation of One who will come uponthe clouds of the heavens in the likeness of a Son ofMan (Dan. 7:13). Therefore did this Kingdom laterreceive the name of the Kingdom of Heaven, for wasit not to come from above and descend out of Heavenupon earth? (Compare John 18:36.)

John the Baptist announced the imminence of thatKingdom and added that not the seed of Abraham, notcircumcision, not righteousness according to the law,but conversion alone, change of mind, a religious-ethical renewal of heart opens entrance to that King-dom. And he confirmed this by baptism which headministered to all who came to him with confession,as a sign and seal of their conversion and great graceof forgiveness which was both condition and meaningof the Kingdom of Heaven. John made a tremendousimpression by this preaching. True, the Pharisees andSadducees assumed a critical attitude toward him.They were, therefore, spoken to with strong language


and were threatened with judgment (Matt. 3:7-12),but the people streamed from all quarters to him, fromJerusalem and all Judea and the land around theJordan, and were baptized by him, confessing theirsins (Matt. 3:5, 6; 21:32).

Many from Galilee also came to him (Matt. 11:7-9),and among these was Jesus, the Son of Joseph andMary, who was born in Bethlehem but brought up inNazareth (Mark 1:9) and who came to John for theexpress purpose of being baptized by him (Matt.3:13). This baptism had great significance not onlyfor Jesus, but also for John. For up to this time hehad declared as firmly as possible that he himself wasnot the Messiah, but that One stronger than he wasto come after him, the latchet of whose shoes he wasnot worthy to unloose, and who would baptize withthe Holy Ghost and with fire (Matt. 3:13) ; but nowat the baptism of Jesus he received the revelation thatthis was the Messiah. This general witness, whichthus far was given by John and is to be found in theSynoptics, now received a special character and becamea sign that Jesus was the Son of God and the Lambof God which taketh away the sin of the world, asthe Fourth Gospel particularly speaks of Him.

But this baptism also brought a turning point inthe life of Jesus. Of His childhood and youth littleis known. It is recorded only that He was conceivedby the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, wascircumcised the eighth day, and a few weeks later waspresented to the Lord in the temple. Later He wentannually with His parents to attend the feasts atJerusalem, and as a lad of twelve years of age alreadytestified that He must be about His Father's business(or in His Father's house).

o CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY 227

However, soon after His baptism, which was theconfirmation of His Sonship, the anointing with God'sSpirit, and the qualification for His official work, Heappeared in public among His own people. The wordwhich He brought sounded the same as that of John:The fulness of time has come and the Kingdom ofGod is nigh at hand; repent and believe the Gospel,viz., of that Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). Thatwas the theme of His teaching, but He worked it outbroader and deeper than had been possible with Johnor any of the prophets before him. The Kingdom ofGod is above all things a gift which came from above,and is given according to God's will to those for whomit was prepared from the foundation of the world, sothat it can be received only in a childlike faith. How-ever, it must at the same time be sought by man (notestablished by a moral life) and must be appreciatedas a treasure or pearl above all price. In so far asit can thus be received here on earth, and the richesof that Kingdom, truth, righteousness, forgiveness ofsins, peace, life, can be enjoyed, is it even now present.It realizes itself here on earth in proportion as Satan'spower is destroyed. The Kingdom of God is, there-fore, likened unto a seed and leaven which graduallydevelop. Yet it will be fully realized only in the futurewhen the heirs receive eternal life in Heaven, partakingof the reward of their struggles and labor and shall allsit together at the feast prepared by the Father.

The only way which leads to and into that King-dom for the continuous enjoyment of its blessings isthat of faith and conversion, rebirth and self-surrender,cross bearing and following of Jesus. One must sac-rifice all for that Kingdom, houses and lands, parentsand children—even pluck out an eye and cut off


hand and foot if they become hindrances; It becomesthe possession only of the pure in heart, the peace-makers, the merciful, etc. And these citizens of theKingdom are but children, children of the Father whois in Heaven, and mutually brethren. Doing the willof God forms them into a new family, into a com-munity separated from the world, who have but oneMaster and are led and ruled by the apostles in Hisname.

The most remarkable feature of the teaching ofJesus is, however, the place which He assigns to Him-self in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is perfect and realman, who calls Himself mild and meek, who is depend-ent in all things on, and subject to, the Father, whoagain and again retires in solitude to seek strength inprayer. Day and hour of the future of God's Kingdomare not known by Him; places in that Kingdom arenot under His but the Father's appointment; HeHimself has come to serve and to suffer. At the sametime there is as foundation in all His appearance andundertakings, in all His words and deeds, such amighty and exalted self-consciousness that every onereceives the impression that He stands far above allmankind. And this self-consciousness manifests itselfin a self-witness which in any other person wouldsuggest self-conceit. But this is noticeable, that Hecalls Himself meek and lowly of heart, without anyonedaring to be offended by it. Although in all respectsman He realizes Himself to be at all times more thanman. Even as a lad of twelve years He is consciousof an inner fellowship with the Father and declaresthat He must be about His Father's business. Andthat fellowship is never interfered with or broken.Of falling and rising again, of stumbling and standing

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY 415?9

again, there is with Him no thought. His prayerseven in His deepest and heaviest suffering never con-tain a confession of sin, or any suing for forgiveness.He is greater than Jonah or Solomon, greater thanthe angels, and the temple. Blessed are the eyes thatsee what the disciples behold; the least in the Kingdomof Heaven is greater than John the Baptist, who yetwas the greatest among those born of woman. He isLord of the Sabbath and sets His "I say unto you"over against all scribes. He dispenses the riches ofthe Kingdom and has power to forgive sins, althoughthis, according to the convictions of the Jews, belongsonly to God. He goes about doing good, healingthe sick and all ills among the people, and by thesheer power of His word raises the dead. In distinc-tion from all servants He is the Father's Son, to whomis surrendered all that pertains to the realization ofthe Kingdom of God, and who only can lead to theFather and can receive into His fellowship. He isnot only a prophet who testifies to the Kingdom ofGod, but He is its King who causes it to come throughHis works which He accomplishes by the Spirit ofGod, and who dispenses it to others even as it wasgiven to Him by the Father. On the attitude whichmen assume toward Him depends their destruction ortheir salvation. Whosoever confesses Him before menwill He confess before His Father in Heaven. Who-soever will be ashamed of Him and for His and theGospel's sake does not leave all, cannot be His discipleand is not worthy of Him. He pronounces woes overCapernaum, Bethsaida, and Jerusalem, because theywould not receive Him. After He had run Hisearthly course He is seated at the right hand of God,Ind will return upon the clouds of glory as Judge


of all the earth, to judge all, and to reward each oneaccording to the deeds done in the body.

Further, this mighty self-consciousness that impliesnothing less than that He stands in an entirely uniquerelation to the Father, and is His Son in a specialsense, constitutes the basis of His Messiahship. Ithas, indeed, been argued in these latter days thatJesus did not announce Himself as being the Messiah,but that the church came to ascribe this title to Himonly after its belief in His resurrection. But thisopinion is contradicted by the facts in the case. Wehave but to bear in mind the entry into Jerusalem,the avowal of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and beforePilate, the mockery of the soldiers, the inscriptionabove the cross, that certainly are not to be assignedby any criticism to the realm of fables. And not onlylater, at the end of His life or after the days ofCesaraa Philippi, did He become conscious of HisMessiahship, but we meet with it on His part evenwhen a lad of twelve years in the temple. He receivedthe sign and seal of it at the baptism by John; inthe temptation in the wilderness He resisted all seduc-tions to misuse it; in the synagogue of Nazareth Heapplied to Himself the prophecy of the Servant of theLord; and from the very beginning of His publicappearance He referred to Himself as being the Sonof Man.

It is now quite universally accepted that Hederived the name, Son of Man, from Dan. 7:13, andthis proves, in the first place, that Jesus consideredHimself as being the Messiah promised in the OldTestament. But, in the second place, the fact that Hetook just this particular name, avoiding even the nameof Messiah, King, indicates that He was and wanted


to be such in a different sense from that in which theJews then in general expected their Messiah. Heindeed did not come to establish an earthly kingdom,to take the place of commander in Israel, to destroyHis enemies and exalt Himself to be the head of thenation. On the contrary He came to minister andgive His soul a ransom for many, to seek and to savethe lost, to be betrayed and crucified, and to establisha new covenant between God and man through Hisblood. Therefore He constantly calls Himself Sonof Man whenever He speaks of His humiliation. Inthis humiliation He recognizes a divine "must"—awork appointed to Him by the Father, a way whichHe must tread in order to arrive at His glory.

An effort has often been made to banish from theoriginal Gospel this divine necessity for suffering anddeath and hereby also remove the High-priestly andpropitiatory significance of His death. But againwithout result. Not only does Jesus often speak ofthis at the end of His life, and at the Last Supper,but the facts afford still stronger evidence. He wascondemned by the Sanhedrin, by the people, and byPilate, because He claimed to be the Son of God andIsrael's Messiah. The entire life and work of Christlead to His death upon the cross, according to His ownword and the record of the four Gospels; and thisdeath is the deepest depth of His humiliation, theevidence of His full obedience to God's will, the estab-lishment of a new covenant in His blood, the highestrevelation of His and the Father's love for a sinfulworld, which thereby He reconciles and saves. There-fore even death had no power over Him; the third dayHe rose from the dead and entered into His glory.Often in those instances where He speaks of His


future glory He calls Himself Son of Man. He couldbe the Messiah, the Son of Man, who entered into Hisglory through suffering because He was the Son ofGod who stood in an entirely unique relation to theFather and remained true to His will even in thedeath upon the Cross.

This teaching of the Person and work of Christ,which purposely was taken only from the third Synop-tic Gospel, comprehends in germ what was laterpreached and written by the apostles concerning them.True, before the Resurrection the disciples had notyet a correct conception of His Being and work; theGospels constantly declare this. For this reason didJesus in His teaching take into account the capacityof His children, gradually leading them to a knowledgeof His Sonship and Messiahship, and left much tothe teaching of the Spirit. But the Resurrection causeda wonderful light to arise upon their souls. Andwhen the exalted Christ had fulfilled His promise ofthe Spirit at Pentecost they not only temporarilyreceived extraordinary gifts of tongues and of miracleworking, but they received through that Spirit, whowas indeed the Spirit of Christ, a powerful strength-ening of faith, a comfort and joy, such as they hadnever before known—a fellowship of love which boundthem together as brethren and gave them an extraor-dinary liberty to preach the Word.

And the substance of this Word was Christ. Itconcerned the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, whowas anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power,who was manifested to the Jews by power and miracles,who went about doing good, healing all who werepossessed of the devil. And this holy and just Onedid the Jews despise and kill. But this was according

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY ess

to the purpose of God, so that God might exalt Himto be Lord and Christ, a Prince and Saviour who willcome again to judge the quick and the dead, thatrepentance and forgiveness of sins may be preachedin His name because there is no other salvation.

This was the teaching according to the testimonyof Luke in the Acts and, after Pentecost, was heardparticularly from the lips of Peter, to which all theapostles practically agree. It is true, an effort hasoften been made to point out a great difference, anda sharp contradiction, between the Synoptic Christ andthe Christ of Paul and of John, between the Gospelof the Kingdom of God which Jesus Himself pro-claimed and the Gospel which the Apostle preachedconcerning Christ. And some have at times gone sofar as to call Paul the founder of (ecclesiastical)Christianity, the falsifier of the original Gospel, yes,even the anti-christ. But in these latter years therehas most clearly come to light the impossibility offinding according to the Christ of Scriptures a Jesuswho did not claim to be the Messiah, who performedno miracles and who did not rise from the dead.

The historical Jesus and the apostolic Christ cannotbe separated—they are one and the self-same Person.That the historical Person, Jesus, was the Messiahpromised of God in the Old Testament to His peopleis the kernel of the Christian confession, that distin-guishes it from Judaism and heathenism. For thisreason there is a difference in the portraiture of Jesusby the various apostles. There is a variation inlanguage and style, in presentation and expression;there is also development and broadening. The pre-existence of Jesus, His cosmic significance, Hisdivinity, also the substance and fruit of His work and

Q34 THE BIBLICAL REVIEW

the mystical union between Him and the church appearmuch more clearly in the epistles of Paul and thewritings of John than in the first three Gospels. Butof contradiction there is no thought. The SynopticGospels are just as valid witnesses to the faith as areall the other books of the New Testament. Mark,whose Gospel is often spoken of as being the oldest,begins with the significant words: "The beginning ofthe gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." A.11 threewere written in a time when Paul had for a long periodpreached his Gospel in wide circles, and upon whichhe had founded many congregations, and nothing inthis early period is noticed of a controversy concerningthe Person of Christ and His work. In this Paulagreed fully with all the apostles; all apostolic con-gregations were one in the confession of faith thatJesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour ofthe World, the Lord of the church, the Judge of thequick and the dead. They all had one Lord, one faith,one baptism, one God and Father of us all, above alland in them all, and one Spirit through whom theywere all built upon one foundation, through apostlesand prophets, into the building of God.

With this preaching of Jesus as the Christ, theNew Testament still confronts us. All writings con-tained in it are faith-witnesses and as such expect tobe listened to and understood. Together they formthe apostolic Gospel teaching as they are perpetuatedand made for the general good of mankind in theScriptures, just as they are repeated to the peopleevery Sabbath from the pulpits and are spread amongthe heathen through the missionaries. It is of funda-mental concern to look upon the writings of the NewTestament in this manner as apostolic witnesses to

CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY CM5

grace and truth as they are in Jesus. Neither theOld nor the New Testament comes to us as a bookon history to teach us concerning lives of persons ornations, nor as the result of scientific labor whereingreat thinkers have given us their systems; nor evenas a product of culture or a phase of literature whichwas to increase the treasures of "fine arts and bellelettres." The Holy Scriptures are not to be placed inthe same category, not even to be compared with thehistorical, philosophical, or literary works of the Greek-Roman world. They occupy their own peculiar placeand bear an independent character. They are Gospel-preaching, faith-witnessing, expressed in the commondaily language of that day, and designed for thechurch and its members. This is recognized more inour day than formerly, since treasures of inscriptionsand papyri have enabled us to compare language andstyle, narration and letter form of the New Testamentwith those writings of old.

This is the particular method whereby all canreceive and accept the witness of the apostles whichcomes to us through the Scriptures of the New Testa-ment. In that sense it does not commend itself to ourintellect, so as to submit itself to its criticism and tomake its truth depend upon our research. It does notaddress itself to the wise and prudent or to the scribesand scholars of the age, because it knows beforehandthat its existence does not depend upon their judgment;it is to the Greeks foolishness, to the Jews a stumblingblock and not according to the wish or desire of thenatural man (Matt. 11:25; 16:17; 1 Cor. 1:23; Gal.1:11) . But the Gospel of Christ addresses itself inthe first instance to the heart and conscience, to manas a sinner who needs redemption and who everywhere


and always remains the same, even at the highest pointof culture, with the same needs and the same aspira-tions. There is, therefore, no other way in which toreceive the Gospel than by regeneration, faith, andconversion, the same way that the prophets andapostles and the entire church of the Old and NewTestaments have trodden, that was pointed out to Nico-demus by Christ Himself : "Except a man be bornagain he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3;compare 7:17; 1 Cor. 12:3).

But he who thus hears and accepts the Gospelreceives it not as the word of man, but, as it trulyis, the Word of God, and he beholds in the Wordwhich became flesh a glory as of the Only Begottenof the Father. Both go indissolubly together. Who-ever believes in Christ also accepts His witness throughthe mouths of the apostles; and he who is not only ahearer but also a doer of the Word presses forwardthrough the apostolic witness to the Christ Himself.And a new light arises upon all things for such; Christ,God, the world, man, nature, history, culture, all thingsin Heaven and on earth, receive, as to their origin,being, and object, another meaning and value; andChristianity, with Christ as center, becomes to him anew, beautiful, glorified world, and life-view, becausethe Mediator between God and man assures him of theextension and completion of the eternal Kingdom ofGod.

hrt nd hrtnt - reformational publishing projectreformationalpublishingproject.com/pdf_books/... ·...

Documents