Part 13 (1/2)

25.)

”He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of me”

(so that the holiest of human ties are to give way to His personal demands on the human heart). (x. 37.)

”He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” (x. 39)

”No man knoweth the Son, but the Father.” (xi. 27.)

”In this place is One greater than the temple.” (xii. 6.)

”The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath Day.” (xii. 8.)

”In His (Christ's) Name shall the Gentiles trust.” (xii. 21.)

”In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,” _i.e._ the angels. (xiii. 30.)

”The Son of man shall send forth his angels.” (xiii. 41.)

”I will give unto Thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (xvi.

19.)

”Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I in the midst of them.” (xviii. 21.)

”He, [G.o.d], sent His servants--He sent other servants--Last of all He sent unto them His Son, saying, they will reverence My Son.”

(xxi. 37.)

These places a.s.sert, by implication, the highest dogma respecting the Person of Christ. Who is He Who has such power in heaven and earth that He commands the angels in heaven, and gives the keys of the kingdom of G.o.d to His servant on earth? What Son is this Whom none but the Father knoweth, and Who alone knoweth the Father, and Who reveals the Father to whomsoever He will? What Son is this compared with Whom such saints as Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel are ”servants?” Those dogmatic a.s.sertions of the first Gospel suggest the question; and the Fourth Gospel gives the full and perfect answer--that He is the Word with G.o.d, that He is G.o.d, and the Only-begotten of the Father. The Epistles a.s.sume the answer where one speaks of ”Jesus, who, being in the form of G.o.d, thought it not a thing to be tenaciously grasped to be equal with G.o.d,”

and another speaks of G.o.d's own Son, and another compares Moses the servant with Christ the Son; but the fullest revelation is reserved to the last Gospel. And herein the order of G.o.d's dealings is observed, Who gives the lesser revelation to prepare for the fuller and more perfect.

The design of the Gospel is to restore men to the image of G.o.d by revealing to them G.o.d Himself. But, before this can be done, they must be taught what goodness is, their very moral sense must be renewed.

Hence the moral discourses of the Synoptics. Till this foundation is laid, first in the world, and then in the soul, the Gospel has nothing to lay hold of and to work upon; so it was laid first in the Sermon on the Mount, which, far beyond all other teaching, stops every mouth and brings in all the world guilty before G.o.d; and then the way is prepared for fuller revelations, such as that of the Atonement by the Death of Christ as set forth in the Epistles of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the revelation culminates in the knowledge of the Father and the Son in the Fourth Gospel.

With respect to the a.s.sertion of the author of ”Supernatural Religion,”

that the discourses in this Gospel are, as compared with those in the Synoptics, _wholly_ dogmatic, as opposed to moral, the reader may judge of the truth of this by the following sayings of the Fourth Gospel:--

”Every one that doeth evil hateth the light.”

”He that doeth truth cometh to the light.”

”G.o.d is a Spirit, and they who wors.h.i.+p Him must wors.h.i.+p Him in spirit and in truth.”

”They that have done good [shall come forth] to the Resurrection of Life.”

”How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh of G.o.d only?”

”If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of G.o.d.”