The Christ of history and of experience

Front matter

Dey

experience | ee

Vi =v fbb Oe LiehS On EES TORY AN DOR ree RENCE

I

Teaching . ; : : : : : Dealt first with the basal conceptions of God and man as Father and son . : ; : A His purpose not to impart ideas, but to Boia character His teaching, therefore, suggestive and germinal, not didactic, but more ‘ authoritative’ on that account

. Miracles

That Jesus clazmed to work them quite certain Miracles not to be judged zz vacuo

Jesus’ sinlessness and the argument from the uniformity of nature ; A ; , : :

The miracles as expressions of His character and mission .

Have a place only in a azsor- ee Ss

The miraculous in Christianity more credible if found in the Dhyszcal as well as the moral sphere .

XI PAGE

83 86 gI

104 108 108

109 IIO ris 114

114, 116

119 122

X11 Contents

3. The Influence of His Personal Presence Its subtle power in shaping character

B. The existence of a Special Circle on whom these three factors in His self-manifestation continuously operated The Apostolate a necessity : : 4 The Twelve, a school ; but a school zz the world The Crisis—the acknowledgment by Jesus of His Messiahship: the effect on His subsequent intercourse with the disciples

The potency of His Method lay in its indirectness

LECTURE IV.

THE TRANSITION FROM THE HISTORICAL TO THE SPIRTT CAL CARIST,

The Resurrection of Christ: belongs to a different category from the resurrection of Lazarus

The Appearances of the Risen Christ— I. Their Objectivity ; : Failure of the Vision Hypothesis .

Value of St. Paul’s testimony ; The witness of the first Apostles, thowett reson to an exceptional experience of their own, capable of refutation, if untrue

II. Their Unique Character, as uniting the Earthly and the Spiritual ; ; : Weizsacker on the different layers of ener ; ; The two contradictory aspects are of the essence of the problem which the Appearances were meant to solve :—the revelation of the spiritual in a world of sense-perception

This union of opposite attributes merely temporary, for a specific purpose

III, Why the Appearances were vouchsafed only to Believers

PAGE

129 130

Their design not the creation of a new faith, but the reinstatement and transfiguration of the old one 4 ;

The validity of the Resurrection depended on two chee Sie factors—the outward event and the inward susceptibility

Wholly different in character from the miracles of Christ’s ministry

Its place in eee

The Ritschlian disparagement of the Resurrection Herrmann’s view of the ‘inner life’ of Jesus Misreads the growth of the Apostolic faith : The Risen life of Christ not merely an z7ference from His antes! ness, but part of the same odjectzve divine manifestation in humanity ‘ : : : The self-contradictions of Herrmann’s theory

LECTURE V.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST AND: HIS REVELATION OR STHE 'GODHEAD,

The problem of Christ’s Person as it presented itself to the Apostles . Their first conception of Him, as the adequate organ of God’s working in the redemptive sphere ; : : : Their /ater view simply a realisation of what this involved: Christ, if central in redemption, must be central in creation : The Pauline doctrine in Colossians: anticipated in Corinthians : The Prologue to St. John’s Gospel: his use of the term Logos The Christology of St. Paul and St. John makes the universe intelligible, by revealing its unifying principle All creation a progressive realisation wzthout the Godhead of the sonship which exists eternally wz¢hz7 Man, as a centre of free spiritual activity, expresses and reproduces the Son ; Therefore the Son can become be PDs Tetieics in humanity

Was the Incarnation a necessity apart from Sin ? Examination of the arguments for the affirmative view , The Incarnation morally more credible, if undergone for vedemptiveends . >

Xili PAGE 154 155

156 157

159 161

162 166 ie ,

XIV Contents

It makes a great difference whether we measure our guilt by Christ’s Suffering alone, or also by the Incarnation

In what light the Christological decisions of the Church Councils are to be understood ‘ Defect of the Chalcedon Fotis The Kenotic Theory as stated by Godet ; ‘ : (1) How far it helps to construe the cozsczousness of thé Tncarnate Son

(2) Is it compatible with the ayeiition of the nies given in.

Him ?

The service rendered by Kenotic Caseig

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit : how it arose . In the Pauline Epistles and in the Fourth Gospel the Spirit i is the alter ego of Christ : yet only within limits Knowledge of His personality only reached through the personality of the Son

The Trinity: a Christian, not a Jewish, conception In what sense there are adumbrations of it in the Old Tectcuvene The Speculative renderings of it The Trinity essentially a hzs¢orzcal revelation

LECTURE VI.

THE OBJECTIVE ELEMENT IN THE REDEMPTIVE

WORKSOPACT RIS.

I, The two aspects, Objective and Subjective, of the Work of Christ : danger of isolating them ‘ ‘ Their correspondence to the two inseparable Needs of the soul ; ; : : : ; : Does God’s condemnation of sin imply an actual alienation on His part, or only a severance on ours ? ; , Why the New Testament speaks of a ‘ propitiation for sins’; never of a propitiation offered to God Misleading analogies drawn from human reconciliation

PAGE

II. The Apostles regarded the Death of Christ as the Ground of

GE if

Forgiveness : : : : . ‘ Was this due to an illusion caused by their ae training ahd their specific experience ?

That it was not, is shown by— (1) The manner and character of Christ’s own references to His death : (2) The effect which its ata tion had upon Him ; (3) The significance of the Last Supper Christ’s consciousness, both individual and representative

His Death the Ground of Forgiveness only as related to— (1) His earthly life (2) His risen life ; : ; F : The order of St. Paul’s exposition in heron Justification and the New Life ; The need of appropriation on our es Aes that the eaedae of Christ is not a ‘ quantitative equivalent ’ Dr. Dale’s view that there may be saving faith in Christ ire: conscious recognition of His Death as a propitiation for sins . What is involved in this .

PoCLURE Vit

THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST AND THE CONDITIONS

ORT S KEALISATION.

The righteousness of the Law and the righteousness of God

The relation of the Law of God to His Life .

St. Paul’s philosophy of history : its Three Stages

Faith the one condition of spiritual life for man, whether fallen or unfallen :

Only, it operates differently in o two cases :

The relation of the New Life to man’s zatura/l character

Did St. Paul hold that it ought to be complete from the first ? .

The truth of the Pauline doctrine not dependent on its historical setting :

Its essential harmony na the ee of Christ

PAGE

240 241

249 251

255 257 258

265 265 266 267

Xvi Contents

Il. The Church as the Home of the New Life— (1) As the Bearer of the historic Message . (2) As its Interpreter to the individual j The Communion of the Church regarded by the spent as indispensable for Christians .

Their view of Baptism The New Testament Soncevion of the chneuee (1) Does not distinguish between the Church Visible and the Church Invisible, but between the Church in progress and the Church made perfect (2) Absence of Sacerdotalism 3 (3) No form of Ecclesiastical Polity prescribed as necessary

III. Humanity as the Sphere of its realisation . : ; P The New Life not meant to suppress the natural qualities of man: depends on them for its content .

The error of the Monastic and Puritan ideals Due in part to a false conception of Christ’s Example ‘ Adaptive and absorptive power of Christianity . Only slowly realised by the Church .

LECTURE VIII.

THE RELATION OF THE SPIRITUAL TOR fe HISTORICAL IN CHRISTIAN FAITH.

I, The Neo-Hegelian rendering of Christianity Jesus as the Embodiment of the idea of a divine humanity Neo-Hegelianism and the Synoptic Gospels sIts idealisation of Christ’s Death and Resurrection Christianity not an Idealism, but an Achievement

II. Objection to the union of the Historical with the Spiritual in Christian Faith Its invalidity :— (1) Historical belief, a constant factor in determining all our ideas of duty ‘ ‘ ; ‘ : (2) Historical belief pre-eminently necessary in the religious sphere.

PAGE

278 278

280 281

282 284 286

288 288

293 296

(3) The Historical element in Christianity capable of exceptional verification : reason of this The Gospels, the link between the historic eas a the Church’s interpretation of Him . : : Subjective affinity, the condition of insight into characters or moral forces : : . : : ‘ : The objection that the correspondence of the Incarnation with human needs casts suspicion on its historical reality ; a mere paradox . : } : Were no purpose discernible in the Incarnation, no testimony could make it credible : Themediation of the Church necessary for the individual ; yet in a sense transcended by him . : : .

The hypothesis that faith in Christ could have survived the loss of the Evangelical Records: why untenable .

St. Paul’s supposed disregard of the earthly life of Jesus

The early Churches, whether Petrine or Pauline, not destitute of the means of historic verification .

The return to the historical Christ is a return to a supreme Personality, of which Teaching was but one manifestation

St. Paul not the rival of Jesus as a teacher, but an interpreter of His complete self-revelation

The Gospels, the guarantee against the Leo of a conceptions of Christ’s purpose and work

LECTURESEX:

EN COKRIST NECHISAKILY CONSCIOUS ?

The problem raised by the existence of a high type of character in many who reject the Historic Faith .

I. We are not entirely left to a speculative treatment of the question

Christ’s Parable, Matthew xxv. 31-46: the Judgment of the Heathen b

PAGE

THE CONDITIONS OF THE FINAL JUDGMENT—IS FAITH

XVIII Contents i:

If receptive to the quickening of the Son in the sphere of duty, they are made partakers of the benefits of His redeeming life

Love as unconscious Faith

Is this principle capable of application zw2thz7 the Christian world?

Different moral connotations of the phrase, ‘ Rejection of Christ’

What Faith is in its essence :

The New Birth and the influence of Environment

Social and intellectual conditions of belief in the Apostolic age different from ours : : : :

The morally irresolute both without and z2¢hzz the Cara

The degree of receptivity to the Spirit of Christ which is needed to give a determinate cast to character: not measurable by us

The redemptive power of Christ not confined to the sphere in which the ordinary means of grace operate

This admission no disparagement of the Historic Faith

III. The doctrine of an Intermediate State

(1) As a Probation ~ If for some only, iene cae fee Pea a the problem of destiny . (2) Asa Training and Purification . : ; . The difference between this doctrine and that of the immediate entrance of the soul at death into the glory of God: not so great as often supposed Neither of them corresponds with Christ’s Parable Scripture leaves the period between Death and the Judgment in shadow : : : ; Places the emphasis of moral decision within the present life : what this implies .

Conclusion

PAGE

343 344

358 365

367 370

371 374

374 376 377 (378 378

379 379

NOU ES, 24 . Lhe Consequence of divorcing Duty from Immortality . Lhe Prayers of Christ

. The ‘ Morbidity’ of Self-examination

. Christ and Evolution

20. 71.

LECTURE. 1.

The Greek and Christian Ideals of Conduct

ECE REL.

. Dean Stanley on Christ's Self-suppression

. Lhe Authorship of the Fourth Gospel

. Harnack on the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel .

. The Baptist?’s Designation of Jesus as “The Lamb of God” . The Fatherhood of God tn the Synoptics and in St. John

EECGouURE. Tit

. The Attestation of Sonship at the Baptism and the Transfiguration .

. Lhe true Glory of Christ . mht Life

. The Limitations of our Lord’s Knowledge

. The Duration of Christ’s Intercourse with the T: ae

. Christ's Self-restraint in His Miracles

. Miracle and Natural Revelation :

. Miracle as belonging to a disorganised World

. The false View of Miracle ‘

. Dr. Martineau on Peter’s Confession of isa Mossiahshib

LECTURE IV.

Christ's Resurrection as a ‘Process’

The Ascension and the Forty Days .

xix

391 392 392 398 395

AII 412

XX

Nore 22. Harnack and Martineau on the Significance of the Christophanies for subsequent Ages ; 23. Herrmann’s Conception of the Exalted Chr ast

LECTURE V.

24, The Universalism of Christ 3 5 : ;

25. The apparent Antagonism between Nature and the Moral Life—Sin and Death ‘

26. Human Sonship grounded in the Filial rie oP 7s eternally in God , : :

27. On the expression ‘Goa’s Plan of the Wor id tah 5 : :

28. The Christological Formule of the Church Counctls negative rather than positive .

29. The Personality of God

LECTURE VI.

30. The indefinable Element in Christ's Suffering 31. ‘Justitia imputata’ and ‘ Justitia infisa’

LECTURE VII.

32. St. Paul’s Conception of the Law

33. Avolution and the Fall

34. Zhe Xapiopara zn St. Paul's E sistas: Fee , not Offices 35. Unconscious Actions as the Sustaining Power of Faith

LECTURE VIII.

36. The historical Jesus as the Symbol or Example of the Divine Life in Man

37. Fact and Ideal

38. Zhe Verification of a historical Pe rib

LECTURE IX.

389. Unconscious Faith . 40. Contrast of Christian SI as tt now 7S, Se the Life of the New Testament