dwelt on when He is speaking of Himself, (John iii.) This is a further stage in the revelation given; for the Angel had not told Mary that He should be "the Son of God," (though it is so rendered in our version) but only "a Son of God," vids Θεοῦ. different and superior sense from that in which any other could be so called. But what was the sense, it may be asked, in which they did understand the title? Did the people of that time and country understand that God was with Him, not only in some such way as He never was with any other man, but so as to permit and require divine worship to be addressed to God in Christ? Many passages by which this tenet is supported are commonly cited from the Evangelists and Apostles; but I wish at present to confine myself to the expression "the Son of God," and to inquire in what sense that word was understood at the time. and the like, (oftener I conceive debated about with eagerness than clearly understood,) let us confine ourselves to such views as we may presume the Apostles to have laid before the converts they were instructing; who were most of them plain unlearned persons, to whom such abstruse disquisitions as I have been alluding to must have been utterly unintelligible; but who, nevertheless, where called on,-all of them, of whatever age, sex, station, and degree of intellectual education,-to receive the Gospel, and to believe, and feel, and act, as that Gospel enjoined. I need not multiply the citations of passages of which so many must be familiar to every one even tolerably well-read in the New-Testament. But there is one tha. is peculiarly worthy of attention, on account of the care which divine Providence then displayed in guarding the disciples against the mistake of supposing Jesus to be merely one-though the most eminent one-of the Prophets. In the Waiving then all abstruse disquisition transfiguration" on the Mount," three fa- on the notions conveyed by such terms voured Apostles beheld their Master sur- as "consubstantiality"" personality," rounded with that dazzling supernatural -hypostatic-union,"_" eternal filiation," light which had always been to the Israelites the sign of a divine manifestation, and which we find so often mentioned in the Old Testament as the Glory of the Lord the Shechinah;—which appeared on Mount Sinai, on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness,--in Solomon's Temple, &c.: and they beheld at the same time, in company with Him, two persons, each of whom had been seen in their lifetime accompanied by this outward mark of supernatural light; Moses, their great lawgiver, whose "face shone when he came down from Mount Sinai, so that the Israelites could not fix their eyes on it, and Elias (Elijah), their most illustrious Prophet, who was seen borne away from the earth in that Shechinah appearing as a "chariot and horses of fire :" and now, these same two persons were seen along with Jesus. It might naturally have occurred to the three disciples (perhaps some such idea was indicated by the incoherent words which dropped from them) -the thought might have occurred to them, were Moses and Elias also Emmanuels?—were all three, manifestations of "God dwelling with his People?" and was Jesus merely the greatest of the three? To correct, as it should seem, any such notion, it was solemnly announced to them that their Master was a Being of a different character from the others: there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved SON: hear Him." And on two other occasions we read of the same signs being given. § 4. No one can doubt then, that those who believed in Jesus at all, must have believed Him to be the Son of God in a far There is one great practical point clearly intelligible to all, thus far, at least, that they can understand what the question is that is under discussion, and which it is, and ever must have been, needful to bring before all Christians without exception: viz., whether there is that divine character in the Lord Jesus which entitles Him to our adoration :—whether He is the Son of God in such a sense as to authorize those who will worship none but the one God, to worship Jesus Christ; so that all men* should honour the Son even as they honour the Father." Now there is a maxim relative to the right interpretation of any passage of Scripture, so obvious when stated, that it seems strange it should be so often overlooked; viz. to consider in what sense the words were understood by the generality of the persons they were addressed to; and to keep in mind that the presumption is in favour of that, as the true sense, unless reasons to the contrary shall appear. Some are accustomed to consider what * John v. 23. sense such and such words can be them against it. Such a one would be brought to bear; or how we should be doubly bound to make such explanations most naturally inclined to understand and such disavowals as should effectually them but it is evident that the point we guard his disciples against falling into the have to consider, if we would under-error-through any thing said or done by stand aright what it is that God did design himself-of paying adoration to a Being to reveal, is, the sense (as far as we can not divine: even as the Apostle Peter ascertain it) which the very hearers of warns the Centurion Cornelius against the Christ and his Apostles did actually at- adoration which he suspected that Cornetach to their words. For we may be lius designed to offer him; saying, "stand sure that if this was, in any case, a mis- up, I myself also am a man." Jesus of taken sense, a correction of the mistake course would have taken care to give a (if it relate to any important practical like warning, if He had been conscious point) will be found in some part of the of not having a claim to be considered as Sacred Writings. divine, and had at the same time been aware that the title of Son of God would be understood as implying that claim. However strange therefore it may seem to any one that the phrase "Son of God" should have been so understood as it was at the time, and however capable of another sense it may appear to us, still, the sense which Jesus and his Apostles meant to convey, must have been that, whatever it was, in which they knew that their hearers understood them. That the title was so understood, is the point to which I am now calling the reader's attention. § 5. On one occasion, when he had healed a cripple on the Sabbath-day, and had commanded him immediately "to take up his bed" (which was a work prohibited by the Jewish law) He vindicates himself against his opponents by saying "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work;" or, as it might be rendered more clearly, according to our modern usage, * And what this meaning was, may I think be settled even by the testimony of his adversaries alone, as to the sense in which they understood Him. They charged Him, not only on his trial, but on many other occasions also, with "blas-"My father has been working up to this phemy," as "making Himself God," 66 making himself equal with God;" and threatened to "stone Him," according to the law of Moses against blasphemers; understanding blasphemy to comprehend the crime of enticing the People to worship any besides the one true God, Jehovah.* Now if they had misunderstood his words, and had supposed his language to imply a claim to such divine honour as He did not really mean to claim, we may be sure that any one-I do not say merely, any inspired messenger from heaven, but-any man of common integrity, would at once have disavowed the imputation, and explained his real meaning. If any Christian ministers, in these days, or at any time, were to have used some expression which they found was understood, either by friends or foes,—as implying a claim to divine worship, what would they not deserve, if they did not hasten to disclaim such a meaning? And much more would this be requisite in the case of a person who foresaw (as Jesus must have done) that his followers would regard Him as divine, would worship Him-if He did not expressly warn * See Deut. xiii. time;" (that is, ever since the creation, the operations of God have been going on throughout the universe, on all days alike;) and I work ;" I claim the right to perform, and to authorize others to perform, whatever and whenever I see fit. "Therefore the Jews" (says the Evangelist) "sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his [proper] Father; making himself equal with God. On another occasion (John x. 33) when He had said "I and the Father are one," the Jews were about to stone Him for blasphemy, "because (said they) thou being a man makest thyself God." He defends Himself by alleging a passage of their Scripture in which the title of "God" is applied to those, "to whom the word of God came;" implying however at the same time * Εργάζεται έως ἀρτι. Essay entitled "Thoughts on the Sabbath." Our version, it is important to observe, does not give the full force of the passage as it stands in the Original. It should be rendered, "that God was his own proper (or peculiar) Father." (aripa idcv.) This it seems was the sense in which (according to the Evangelist) He was understood by his hearers to call God his Father, and Himself "the Son of God."-See Wilson on the New Testament, referred to in the Preface. a distinction between Himself and those be supposed to have recorded any thing persons, and his own superiority to them: that did not occur. All the four, there"Say ye of Him" (He doth not say "to fore, should be compared together, in orwhom the word of God came"-but) der to obtain a clear view of the transac"whom the Father hath anointed and' tion. sent into the world, thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?" This however did not necessarily imply any thing more than superiority, and divine mission; and accordingly we find the Jews enduring it; but when He goes on to say "that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him," we find them immediately seeking again to lay hands on him; and He withdraws from them. But the most important record by far in respect of the point now before us is that which I originally proposed to notice,—the account of our Lord's trial and condemnation before the Jewish council. In order to have a clear view of this portion of the history, it is necessary to keep in mind, that when He was tried before the Roman Governor, it was (as I observed in the beginning) not for the same crime he was charged with before the Council of the Jews; but for seditious and treasonable designs against the Roman Emperor: "We found this fellow perverting the nation and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that He Himself is Christ a King." "Whosoever maketh himself a King, speaketh against Cæsar." Now I need hardly remark that this was no crime under the Law of Moses; and would in fact have been a merit in the sight of most of the Jews. But what He was charged with before them, was blasphemy, according to the Law of Moses;* and of this they pronounced Him guilty, and sentenced Him to death; but not having power to inflict capital punishment, they prevailed on Pilate, who had acquitted Him of the charge of treason, to inflict their sentence: "We have a law, and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." In order to understand clearly the trial and condemnation of our Lord before the Jewish council (which is in many respects a most important part of Sacred history) we should study, as I have said, the accounts given of it by all four of the Evangelists. Each relates such circumstances as most struck his own mind; where one is abridged, another is more diffuse; each omits some things that are noticed by another; but no one can * See Deut. xiii. 7. It seems to have been divinely appointed that Jesus should be convicted on no testimony but his own; perhaps in order to fulfil the more emphatically his declaration "No man taketh away my life, but I lay it down of myself." For the witnesses brought forward to misrepresent and distort his saying "Destroy this temple," and "I will destroy," could not make their evidence agree. The High Priest then endeavoured, by examining Jesus Himself, to draw from Him an acknowledgment of his supposed guilt He and the others appear to have asked Him two questions; which in the more abridged narrative of Matthew and Mark are compressed into one sentence; but which Luke has given distinctly as two. After having asked Him "Art thon the Christ?" they proceed to ask further " Art thou then the Son of God?"* and as soon as He had answered this last question in the affirmative (according to the Hebrew idiom "Ye say," "Thou hast said") immediately "the High Priest rent his clothes," saying, "He hath spoken blasphemy: ye have heard the blasphemy; what need we any further witnesses? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth." § 6. Some readers, I believe, from not carefully studying and comparing together the accounts of the different Evangelists, are apt to take for granted that the crime for which our Lord was condemned was that of falsely pretending to be the Messiah or Christ. But whatever the Jews may have thought of that crime, they certainly could not have found it mentioned, and death denounced against it, in the Law of Moses. It could, at any rate, have been no crime, unless proved to be a false pretension; which was not even tempted. Nor could they have brought that offence (even if proved) under the head of blasphemy; unless they had been accustomed to expect the Messiah as a divine person. Then, indeed, the claim of being the Messiah, and the claim of divine honour, would have amounted to the same thing. But so far were they from having this expectation that (not to multiply proofs) they were completely at a loss to answer our Lord's question, how Da * See John xx. 31. at vid, if the Christ were to be David's son, | ing, and yet had not corrected the mis could speak of him as a divine Being under the title of LORD. "If David then called Him Lord, how is He his son," is a question which they would have answered without a moment's hesitation, if they had expected that the Christ should be, though the Son of David after the flesh and as a human Being, yet, the Son of God in such a sense as to make him a Divine Being also. Whatever good reasons then they might have found in prophecy for such expectation, it seems plain that they had it not. And the same I believe is the case, generally speaking, with the Jews of the present day.* A learned modern Jew, who has expressly written that Jesus "falsely demanded faith in Himself as the true God of Israel," adds that "if a prophet, or even the Messiah Himself, had offered proof of his divine mission by miracles, but claimed divinity, he ought to be stoned to death;" conformably i. e. to the command in Deut. xiii. And the only Jew with whom I ever conversed on the subject appeared to hold the same doctrine; though he was at a loss when I asked him to reconcile it with the application of the title of Emmanuel. The Jewish Council then could not, it appears, capitally convict our Lord, merely for professing to be the Christ, even though falsely and accordingly we may observe that they did not even seek for any proof that his pretension was false. But as soon as He acknowledged Himself to be the "Son of the living God," they immediately pronounced him "guilty of death" for blasphemy; i. e. as seeking to lead the people (Deut. xiii.) to pay divine honour to another besides the true God. They convict him on his own testimony (having "heard of his own mouth") of the crime which they afterwards describe to Pilate. "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." take, he would have been himself bearing false witness against Himself; since no one can suppose it makes any difference in point of veracity, whether a man says that which is untrue in every sense, or that which, though in a certain sense true, yet is false in the sense in which he knows it to be understood. It is mere waste of labour and learning and ingenuity to inquire what meaning such and such an expression is capable of bearing, in a case where we know, as we do here, what was the sense which was actually conveyed by it, to the hearers, and which the speaker must have been aware it did convey to them. Jesus did therefore acknowledge the fact alleged against Him; viz.: that of claiming to be the Son of God in such a sense as to incur the penalty (supposing that claim unwarranted) of death for blaspheming, according to the law respecting those who should entice Israel to worship any other than the one true God. The whole question therefore of his being rightly or wrongfully condemned, turns on the justness of that claim:-on his actually having, or not having, that divine character which the Jews understood Him to assume. For if He were not such, and and yet called Himself the Son of God, knowing in what sense they understood the title, I really am at a loss to see on what ground we can find fault with the sentence they pronounced. It does appear to me therefore-I say this without presuming to judge those who think differently, but to me it appearsthat the whole question of Christ's divine mission, and consequently of the truth of Christianity, turns on the claim which He so plainly appears to have made to divine honour for Himself. I am not one of those indeed who profess to understand and explain why it was necessary for man's salvation that God should have visited his People precisely § 7. No candid reader then can doubt, in the way He did. On such points, as I I think, that the Jews understood him to dare not believe less, so I pretend not to claim by that title a divine character. And understand more, than He has expressly He Himself must have known that they so revealed. If I had been taught in Scripunderstood him. As little can it be doubted | ture that God had thought fit to save the therefore that they must have rightly world, through the agency of some Angel, understood him. For if he condemned as he was on the evidence of his own words-had known that those words were understood differently from his real mean or some great Prophet, not possessing in himself a divine character, I could not have presumed to maintain the impossibility of that. But this does strike me as utterly impossible; that a heaven-sent * See Wilson on the New Testament, above re- messenger—the Saviour of the world,— ferred to. should be a person who claimed a divine character that did not belong to Him; and who thus gave rise to, and permitted, and encouraged, a system of idolatry. This is an idea so revolting to all my notions of divine purity, and indeed of common morality, that I could never bring myself to receive as a divine revelation any religious system that contained it. All the difficulties on the opposite side —and I do not deny that every religious persuasion has its difficulties are as nothing in comparison of the difficulty of believing that Jesus (supposing Him neither an impostor nor a madman) could have made the declaration he did make at his trial, if He were conscious of having no just claim to divine honour. § 8. And the conclusion to which we are thus led, arises (it should be observed) out of the mere consideration of the title "Son of God," or "only-begotten Son of God," as applied to Jesus Christ; without taking into account any of the confirmations of the same conclusion (and there are very many) which may be drawn from other parts of the Sacred Writings, both of the Evangelists and Apostles-from many things that were said, and that were done, both by our Lord and by his Apostles. There is indeed no one of these their recorded actions and expressions that may not be explained away by an ingenious critic, who should set himself to do so, and who should proceed like a legal advocate, examining every possible sense in which some law or precedent, that makes against his client, may be interpreted. But again, there is hardly one of these passages which can be thus explained away without violating the maxim above laid down; viz., that we should consider, not any interpretation whatever that such and such words can bear, but what notion they conveyed, and must have been known to convey, to the hearers, at the time.* For if this were a mistaken notion,—an untrue sense, it follows inevitably that Christ and his Apostles must have been teachers of falsehood, even though their words should be capable of a different and true signification. He and his Apostles so distinctly claimed for Him; and acknowledge that God truly "was in Christ, reconciling the World unto Himself." § 9. Not less important, I conceive, are the lessons to be drawn from the second trial,—that before Pilate, to which our Lord was subjected; provided this portion also of the sacred narrative be studied on the principle already laid down; that of interpreting his declarations with reference to the meaning they were meant to convey at the time, and to the very persons He was addressing. The Jewish Council having found Jesus guilty of a capital crime, and being not permitted,* under the Roman laws, to inflict capital punishment, (for the stoning of Stephen appears to have been an irregular and tumultuous outbreak of popular fury,) immediately bring him before Pilate on a new and perfectly different charge. “The whole multitude of them arose and led Him unto Pilate: and they began to accuse Him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that He Himself is Christ, a King." For the crime of which He had been convicted before them, that of blasphemy, in seeking to draw aside the Jews to the worship of another besides the LORD Jehovah, though a capital crime under the Mosaic law, was none at all in the court of the Roman Governor; and again, the crime alleged in this latter court, treason against the Roman emperor, was no crime at all under the law of Moses. Now, in studying the circumstances of this second trial, we ought, as has been above observed, to proceed by the same rule of interpretation as in respect of the former trial; viz., to understand our Lord's expressions, not in any sense whatever they can be brought to bear, nor, necessarily, in the sense which to us may seem the most suitable, but in the sense, as far as we can ascertain it, in which He must have known that He was understood at the time. When then He was charged before Pilate with "speaking against Cæsar" Unless, therefore, we conceive them ca- and "making Himself a King," how pable of knowingly promoting idolatry, does He defend Himself? As on a unless we can consider Jesus Himself as former occasion, when his adversaries either an insane fanatic, or a deliberate im- had tried to make him commit the offence postor, we must assign to him, the "Au- with which they now charged Him, of thor and Finisher of our Faith," the "only-interfering with the secular government begotten Son of God," who is "one with of Cæsar, He, so far from "forbidding to the Father," that divine character which give tribute," drew the line between * See Sermon on the "Name Emmanuel." * οὐκ ἐξεστιν. |