The Person of Jesus Christ [pp. 434-437]

THE LADIES' REPOSITOR r.
significance. By this he places himself over
against all the rest of mankind, and raises himself far above an equality with us, appears in
front of the whole world with divine absolute
power and authority, especially when he speaks
of his future. In the most forcible words one
can conceive he speaks of this.
When he was judged as a criminal, and saw
before him the shameful death of the cross, he
repeated to his judges the word which he had
before spoken to his disciples; that he would
be elevated to the right hand of the Divine
Majesty, surrounded by the angels of God,
ready to execute his commands; that he would
call all the nations of the earth before his
judgment-seat, and judge them according as
they had conducted themselves toward him.
Thus he spoke; it is a matter of fact, for it
forms the basis of his judgment, and has been
the universal belief, the firmest hope of first
Christianity. It is an unprecedented word. In
the mouth of any other man it would be madness. Even the insane pride of the Roman
emperors, who claimed religious veneration for
their statues, has not strayed to such an unheard-of thought.
Here the humblest among all men utters it
with the greatest composure, not in a moment
of agitation which, perhaps, made him irrational,
but repeats it for the instruction of his disciples,
for a warning to his enemies, in all quietness
and moderation, in a moment when he, indeed,
outwardly yielding to power, but inwardly trampling over his foes, elevates himself above the
malice and meanness of men through the loftiness of his moral being, and celebrates the
grandest moral triumph-then he designates
himself as the ruler and judge of the world
equal with God.
This word must be truth. There is here no
medium ground between truth and madnress.
No rationalistic ideal of virtue avails us, no
mere pattern and exemplar of mankind suffices;
but we must leave the boundaries of humanity
and seek the roots of his existence, and the
home of his being and life in God himself in
order to understand the possibility of this word.
This word would be an unsolvable psychological
enigma if Jesus were not more than a man. It
would be an impossibility if he fell under the
same laws of finite existence as we. His nature
must be exempted from the domain of mere
finite existence, and must belong to the province
of the eternal and divine life. His absolute
relation to the world, which he attributes to
himself, demands an absolute relation to God.
The latter forms the necessary presupposition
for the former. Only from this stand-point can
his relation to the world be explained. Only
because thus related to God is he related to us,
as he says. He is the son of man, the Lord
and judge of the world, only because he is the
Son of God.
When he wishes to designate the highest,
the most inner, the most concealed, the unique
and eternal of his being, he calls himself the
Son of God. This is not possibly a thought or
invention of later times, it is the testimony of
Jesus himself. Thus it lies before us. No one
can deny it. The first Gospels contain this as
well as the fourth. Even though the first three
Gospels represent more his relation to the
world, while the fourth penetrates more deeply,
and unfolds more fully the concealed eternal
grounds of the existence and being of Jesus,
and emphasizes more his relation to God, which
forms the hidden back-ground and presupposition of his relation to the world, yet the former
contain the matter itself as well as the latter,
and declare most unequivocally that his absolute world-relation is grounded in his absolute
relation to God.
"All things are delivered unto me of my
Father," says Matthew, "and no man knoweth
the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any
man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." He stands in
an incomparable relation to the Father. As the
essence of the Father is concealed in the world,
so also is that of the Son; but as the Son is
known to the Father, so also is the Father to the
Son. Between the two there is the most lively
intimacy, while in respect to the world they
stand in the darkness of the Divine mystery,
which Christ first unvailed when he came forth
from this concealment of God into the world
of men.
Thus he separates himself from mankind,
and comprehends himself with God, as one who
belongs more intimately with him than with
men, to whom he appears chiefly to belong.
This forms the ever-recurring theme in the
Gospel of John. He calls himself the Son of
God in the absolute sense. Not as men are
called sons of God by virtue of creation or of
moral divine likeness; with Jesus it is a designation of a being and life relation. God is,
indeed, his Father, but quite otherwise than as
the Father of men. He recommends us to say,
our Father; he himself never thus names God.
His relation to God is unique. Napoleon once
compared Jesus Christ with himself, and with
the great men of antiquity, and showed how
Jesus stood above them all, and closed with
these words: "I think I understand something
of men, and I tell you, all these were men, and
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