The witnesses to Christ, the Saviour of the world. Lectures delivered before the Biblical department of Vanderbilt university

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

It was with great reluctance that the work of preparing and delivering these lectures was undertaken. The habits of a lifetime are not easily set aside ; and the mental characteristics fixed by long and exclusive practice in extempore preaching do not readily adjust themselves to the demand for written sermons. The desk is an insufficient substitute for the presence of the living congregation, and offers no stimulus to a sluggish brain. The pen becomes an unwieldy instrument under these conditions, and the fruit of such labor is apt to be vanity and vexation of spirit. Only the feeling that refusal would be ungracious and the hope that this first course of the "Cole Lectures " might somehow serve as a note of direction for better and abler successors in this field induced the acceptance of the call.

The purpose of this series is simple and single. It is intended to set forth the claims of our divine Lord as resting upon a basis of facts belonging to the region of eternal things and requiring for their establishment testimony from the same sphere. The evidences of Christianity on the historical and merely intellectual side have no place in the statement, not because their value is not appreciated, but for the reasons given in the lectures : that they

VI THE WITNESSES TO CHRIST.

can only touch the earthly and human side of the revelation, do not include the ultimate facts, and can never finally and fully satisfy the conscience and heart of the world.

The defects of the statement are many. They result in part from the considerations above given, in part from the necessity of keeping within prescribed limits, and partly from the unavoidable haste of the work.

Such as they are, they go forth with the hope and prayer that they may help to a better and truer faith in the Son of the living God and contribute in some small measure, however remotely, to that which was the dearest purpose and controlling aim of his incarnate life: the salvation of men.

A. W. W

SYNOPSIS.

LECTURE I.

The Inadequacy of Human Testimony. pages

Treatment of Questions Concerning His Person 3

Not Dogmatic. Facts 4

Certainty Demanded and Provided 5, 6

His Own Statement 6-8

Value and Order of It 9, 10

Testimony of John the Baptist 10-12

Valid, not Final. Facts not within Human Observation. 13, 14 Not Capable of Being Conceived by the Wisdom of this

World. Its Faiths and Philosophy J 4-i7

Insufficiency of Science 18-21

Results of Mere Human Testimony in Skepticism and

Uncertainty 21-23

Illustrations from Gospels 23, 24

Now and Then 24, 25

His Own Disciples 26-30

Practical Value of Human Testimony 31

Applied to the Historical Side of the Gospel 31, 32

Transcendent Character of the Gospel 32-34

Apostolic Appeal 35, 36

The Peril and the Need of To-day 37-40

LECTURE II.

The Conjoint Testimony of the Father and the Son.

Witness of Angels Excluded 43-46

Necessity for Divine Testimony 46-4S

Natural Ways of Divine Manifestation 48-50

Highest and Final Form of R.evelation: Father and Son. 50-52

(vii)

Vlll THE WITNESSES TO CHRIST.

Insufficiency of Deistic or Unitarian Conception of God. 52-54

God, Father. Father, Son. Trinity 54-56

Conjoint Testimony, Confirming Ancient Monotheistic

Teaching 56-58

Transcendent Statement of the Gospel 58-60

Ethnic Conceptions of God. Ethical Failure 61, 02

Philosophic and Scientific Notions; Moral and Spiritual

Degeneracy and Loss of Hope 62-65

Ground of Testimony of the Gospel; Possible Direct Intercourse between God and Man 66^ 67

Spiritual Faculty in Man 67-70

Ethical Quality Divine. Righteousness, Law, Conscience 7°-75

Love; Equally Disclosure of God in Relations of Father

and Son 75, 76

Conjunction of Righteousness and Love the Complete

Revelation of Father and Son 76-78

Special Articulate Utterance at Baptism and Transfiguration Culmination of Testimonies 78-81

Summary 82, 83

LECTURE III.

The Testimony of the Works.

Identity in Working of Father and Son 87, 88

The Works Natural Expressions of the Son 88

Work and Works ; a Single Purpose 88

Only Such as the Father Gave Him to Do 89, 90

Completion of Work of the Father 90

Purpose, Salvation of Men 91

His Work: 1. Revelation of God 9J-93

Natural and Hebraic Revelations 93, 94

Our Lord's Advance upon These 95

Knowledge of God Determined by Relation to the

SYNOPSIS. IX

PAGES

2. Revelation of Man 97

(1) Communion with God, Which Is Essential to

the Knowledge of God, Affirms Possible

Worth and Power of Human Nature 97, 98

Illustrated in Son of Man 98, 99

(2) By This the Ethical Relations of Man Are

Determined 99

By Reaffirmation of Righteous Relations between God and Man 99, ico

By Referring These Relations to Their Source

in the Godhead 100, 101

3. His Work Redemptive 101-103

(1) By Completing the Revelation of Sin 103

Use, Limitations, and Enlargement of Law... 103-106

Standard of Righteousness in Jesus Christ 106-108

(2) By Remission of Sins 108-1 10

Exclusive Authority of Jesus Christ no

Referred to His Eternal Relations with God

and Consequent Relations with the World. 110-116 His Entrance into Human History; Assertion

of His Authority and Rights 116-119

Oneness of the Race 120,121

Identification with the Body of Humanity 121

Nature of His Redemptive Work Suggested:

1. By His Relations to the World as Head 122

2. By His Relations from the Human Side to God. 123

3. By His Fulfillment of All Righteousness 123

4. By His Endurance of Human Penalty 123

5. By His Vindication in the Resurrection 123

His Works: As Signs , .. . , 124,125

As Assertions of His Authority 125, 126

Attestations of the Divinity of His Person 126, 127

Expressions of the Mind of God toward Man 127

X THE WITNESSES TO CHRIST.

LECTURE IV.

The Witness of the Scriptures. pages

Appeal to the Scriptures 131, 132

1. The Old Testament and the New Stand or Fall

Together 132

2. The Old Testament Intended for the "Ages to

3. The Scriptures Were Inspired of God 134, 135

To Be Read by the Light of Later Times 1 35, 136

The Right Reading of Them 136, 1 37

Preparatory 1 37, 138

Preparation in Gentile History 138, 139

Prophetic Element 140-142

The Promise 142-144

The Covenant „ . . . 144-146

Special Manifestations of God 146-148

Progress of Revelation 148-151

Pre-Mosaic Standard of Righteousness and Divine Discipline 151-155

Place and Function of the Law I 55~ I 57

Its Religious and Its Secular Side 157

Priesthood 157, 158

Sacrifice , 1 58, 1 59

Ceremonial System 159

Civil Polity 159,160

Insufficiency of the Law 161-163

Prophecy: Its Institution, Functions, and Growth 163-167

Its Fulfillment 168, 169

LECTURE V.

The Testimony of the Spirit.

The Comforter Christ's Final Provision for His Church. 173-174 Complement and Completion of All Antecedent Revelation 1 74-1 76

SYNOPSIS. XI

PAGES

His Place in the Life of the Son of Man 176, 177

1. His Name: "Comforter" 177, 178

2. Sent by the Son 178

3. Sent from the Father 179

4. Spirit of Truth 179, 180

5. He Testifies of Christ 180, 181

His Testimony to Chosen Disciples 181-183

By Personal Communion 184-187

With Individuals; not Body Corporate 187, 188

He " Opened Their Understanding" 1S8-192

First Outward Effect of His Coming Was upon

Speech 192

Gift of Power 192, 193

Completeness of His Operation 194

Its Typical Character; and Distinct from Outward

and Sensuous Service 195, 196

Source and Test of Character and Director of all

Christian Activities 196-199

Estimate of the Gift as Compared Avith the Incarnate Life 199-201

His Testimony to the World 201, 202

In Conviction of Sin 202-205

In Conviction of Righteousness f . 205-207

In Conviction of Judgment 207-208

He Bears Witness through Human Agency 209, 210

The Sum of It All 210, 211

LECTURE VI.

The Testimony of the Church.

Resume 1 of Facts. 215

Resume of Proofs 216

Completed Testimonj-:

Committed, on Divine Side, to the Holy Spirit. . . . 216, 217

On Human Side, to Man " Chosen before of God ". . 217, 218

Xll THE WITNESSES TO CHRIST.

PAGES

Value of Human Element 218, 219

Witnesses Must Have Immediate Knowledge 219-222

Witnesses to Be Vindicated. Demonstration of the

Gifts of Power and Its Effect 223, 224

Power of the Spirit, Its Nature and Operation 224, 225

Character of the Church 225-227

Competency of Witnesses 227-229

Form of Testimony of the Church 229

1. It Reproduces Ideal of the Lord's Life and Work 229 In Personal Experience, Conformity to the Image of the Son of God 229-234

Methods of Life and Growth 234-236

Power and Completeness of Individual Life 236, 237

2. It Secures and Conveys the Testimony. ...» 237

As Having in Custody the Oracles of God 237

As Recording the Lord's Life and Its Consequents 237, 238

As Guarding the Course and Text of Scripture. . 238-240 It Provides the Evidences, Historical and Critical, of Christianity 240, 241

3. It Bears Its Witness in the Order and Adminis-

tration of the Church 241, 242

Discipline 242

Public Worship and Sacraments 242, 243

Organized Agencies for Doing Good 244

4. Relations of Church to Secular Life 245, 246

Conclusion , 247, 248

LECTURE I.

THE INADEQUACY OF HUMAN

TESTIMONY.

I. The Inade^uact Of Human Testimony

" Ye sent unto John, and he hare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved." John v. 33, 34.

THE questions that were raised concerning himself, whatever might have been the motive that prompted them, were not treated by our Lord in a speculative way, or to satisfy the demand of the intellect. His point of view and line of statement were thoroughly and exclusively practical. According to his avowed purpose, his speech and his life were directed upon the one end of human salvation. " These things I say, that ye might be saved.' ' It was inevitable that the truths he uttered and the claims he made should provoke discussion. There is no authority so high that it will suffice to still the curious questionings of men. But it was not as matter for dialectics that he advanced his claim and declared the truth of his person. According to his view, the world needed to know him in order to be saved. "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins."

It follows that the question is not to be treated in a merely dogmatic way. It has become so much the habit of theology to treat the person of Christ as a matter of doctrinal statement and definitions that its character and value as a fact have been obscured. Who was he? what was he? not how, were the questions to which he gave answer, and in settlement of which he appealed to the appropriate testimonies. He gave no explanations and entered upon no defense of the mysteries involved in his claims. He knew, as we know, that the nearer we come to God and the truer and more distinct our consciousness of him, the more impossible it becomes to define and explain him, and the more impotent and unappreciable is any defense of his nature and claims set up before the mere human understanding. " With the heart man believeth." The fact enters into the experirience of countless multitudes who know God, while they are wholly incompetent to pursue the cold calculations of the intellect which, far as they reach and vast as is their compass, have not found out God.

In truth, the issues involved were too great both as effecting his own rightful place in the universe, and as touching the destinies of the world, to be committed to the uncertainties of doctrinal discussion. He spake as one having authority, and proposed to satisfy the demand of his Church and of the individual conscience with nothing less than the certainty of those things wherein they were instructed. Doubtful disputations concerning even minor matters are of doubtful utility; but when they touch the very substance of our gospel and reduce the person of the Son of God to the level of a thesis for intellectual discussion we feel that the sanctities of the Godhead are invaded, the temple of the Father desecrated, and the dearest and most sacred experiences of the Christian soul tossed to and fro as the sport and plaything of a profane curiosity. No dishonoring uncertainty has characterized the confession of the Church of God from the days of the apostles to the present. Through storm and tumult and change, in the face of skepticism and despite opposition, with unfaltering utterance she has reiterated the great facts : "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord." With invincible conviction she has proclaimed these facts as the only ground of hope for the world and the center of attraction for all worlds, indispensable to the order and harmony of the universe. For in him are to be gathered together under one head all things which are in heaven and which are on earth. Uncertainty and doubt are fatal to the mission of the Church.

Jesus Christ did not fail to make ample provision for the confirmation and full assurance of faith. The testimony which he adduces should be preceded by a summary account of his character and claims as given by himself and attested by the witnesses to which he appeals.

The name which was divinely given him before his birth, Jesus, includes, when searched by the light of its purpose and of his own teaching and work, all that is expressed in names and titles afterward assumed or given, and finds its only sufficient explanation in them. His name shall be called Jesus — Saviour — because " he shall save his people from their sins," for his power to do this involves his own freedom from and absolute superiority to all sin, his right to control the lives and hearts of men, and divine authority to do away with sin by forgiveness through the sacrifice of himself. He has the name, not in virtue of his work as the messenger of God's offer of forgiveness, but because of his own person and the rights and powers inseparable therefrom. The " Son of Man," his most frequent appellation, distinguishes him from all men, and asserts for him an ideal character and representative relation involving the interests of the race. The " Christ," the " Anointed," puts him in the place claimed for the Messiah of the Old Testament, while the pregnant phrase so often joined to it, "Son of the Living God," lifts him above the plane of Jewish thought of the Messiah, and refers the Messianic character to his immediate relationship in nature and being to the interior life of the invisible God. When to these are added his oft-repeated declarations concerning his relations with the Godhead, such as " The Father sent me" — not sent from any point or condition of finite life, but from God, from the inner life of the Godhead, from the " bosom of the Father" into the life of the world, or even more intensely spoken, " I proceeded forth and came from God; " " Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father;" " No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven;" "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" "I and my Father are one;" "That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father," and many other direct and incidental assertions of prerogative and power essential to his character, there is found ample vindication of the whole breadth and depth of New Testament teaching, and of the faith of the true Church of God through all its ages.

He is God "manifest in the flesh;" "the Son — the brightness of the glory of the Father, and the express image of his person, who when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high," "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature [of all creation]." The complete statement is given in the prologue, as it is called, the true beginning, the thesis of the Gospel of John, a summary of the facts concerning his person, upon which all the testimonies are brought to bear and all hope for men depends. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him ; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. . . . That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, ) full of grace and truth."

We are constrained to take these statements of himself as the starting point of our inquiry. For first the testimonies which we shall consider are to be estimated according to their appropriateness to this view. Further, his entire life of speech, work, and suffering was conformed to those statements and must find in them its sufficient account and its full explanation. Besides, the very existence, perpetuity, and success of the Church as his witness and representative in the world are conditioned upon the sufficiency and truthfulness of his own declarations ; and the whole body of New Testament teaching concerning his person and work is but the expansion of, and must be vindicated by his utterances, else your faith is vain. Here, as in its first application, is his saying true: " The word that I have spoken, that shall judge you." At the very outset we ask, as did the Jews, " Whom makest thou thyself? "

The answer which he furnishes is distinct and unequivocal. It is true that there was in his earlier ministry a measure of reserve and even reticence that contrasts strongly with his later — especially his Judean — teachings. That was to be expected. It is agreement with divine methods of dealing with men. He taught as they were able to bear it. There was no uncertainty, no ambiguity in his life and relations to the world. From the first he assumed the position of rightful superiority to, and authority over all men — Moses and the prophets

IO THE WITNESSES TO CHRIST.

included — that was without precedent or parallel. The sermon on the Mount is as significant and emphatic in the assertion of this preeminence, as the later chapters of John's Gospel. Beginning with such an assumption, by gradual disclosures in life and teaching he opened the understanding of his disciples until they were prepared for the great revelation — which at the time seemed to them final, the fullest that could be made — issuing in the great confession: " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." But " from that time," the moment of Peter's exultant acknowledgment, he taught them in other form, and out of the deepening gloom of his humiliation gave intenser and more distinct impression to his consciousness of divine sonship. As the antagonisms of the world became fiercer and its hate more malignant, his assertion of himself became more pronounced and his offer of himself to the faith and hope of men more earnest as well as more significant. He used all legitimate means for securing conviction, and in this behalf appealed to all available witnesses.

In the order of narrative John the Baptist appears as the first witness to the truth. His descent, character, and life were his credentials. Born into a priestly line, he was entitled to the place and prerogative attaching to his hereditary calling. The

THE INADEQUACY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. II

circumstances of his birth signalized him as set apart for an entraordinary mission to the chosen people. His early home training was under the direction of parents who "were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Years of solitude and meditation in the wilderness, far from the stir and passion and artificial conditions of city life, contributed to his self-discipline and the integrity of his character, attested by his complete renunciation of all things not necessary to the fulfillment of his course. With all these, his prophetic standing and his fearless utterance secured for him a commanding position among the people and gave authority to his testimony. He occupied the highest place in public estimation; and people of all classes, including scribes and Pharisees, came to his baptism. When the Jews of Jerusalem sent to him priests and Levites to inquire into his claims, he made distinct and unambiguous answer: " I am not the Christ. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esais. There standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose." As reported in the synoptic Gospels, " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." A little later he points to Jesus as " the Lamb of. God that taketh away the sin of the world," and with increasing urgency he bare record saying, " I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not; but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God." More direct and decisive testimony could have been given by no man. Nor is its force abated by the fact that in the last days of his life, when he knew that his work was done, he sent from his prison messengers to Jesus saying: 66 Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? " Such a question could have had no meaning addressed to one of whom he stood in doubt. It was, indeed, his final official act transferring his work and his disciples to the Master to whom he had testified. Conforming himself to the divine method of life and teaching, he would have them put their faith not in his testimony, but in what they should see and hear from the Lord himself.

Jesus certainly did not intend to repudiate such testimony. He certifies its validity by his own words: "Ye sent unto John and he bare witness to the truth." It had inestimable value as a prophetic announcement of his entrance upon his great work, and was in perfect agreement with the whole body of prophetic scriptures to which he afterward appealed. It was the indispensable preparation for his ministry. It is yet more evident that he did not intend to exclude such witness, seeing that in arranging for the propagation of the gospel he commissioned men whose supreme, almost exclusive function was to testify of him. The nature and value of their testimony will be considered hereafter. It is enough here to note the fact that we may put a true construction upon his words, " I receive not testimony from man." He does not intend that the validity of his claim shall finally depend upon the sufficiency of any human testimony. In the terms of St. Paul when disclaiming the right of dominion over the faith of the Church, " Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men."

The substance of the gospel — that is to say, all that is involved in the person, the power, and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ — lies beyond the possible range of human observation and investigation. It is indissolubly linked to an antecedent life — "before the foundation of the world" — quite as essential to the work he was sent to do, and to the sufficiency of the sacrificial offering of himself, as the manifested life in the flesh, and to a subsequent life of princely station and saving power in most intimate relation to the Church in its militant state and vital to its final triumph and reward. Indeed, whatever value we may attach to the life, labors, and sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth, viewed as an incident, or an episode in the course of human history, it is impossible to exalt them to the supreme place of the saving power for the world, and set him as the bearer of the sin of the world, unless we can lift him above the plane of mere human action and endurance, and concede to him command of the ultimate sources of wisdom and power. For the whole tendency of human character, and all the energies of human will in the individual and in the race, from the beginning of time — to say nothing of preternatural solicitation and influence — are expressed in the term sin ; and to take away sin the tendency must be reversed and the will controlled and directed by forces mightier than human passion and endeavor, and more subtle than the finest and most secret instincts of the race.

The conception of such a life and its entrance into our state was foreign to the wisdom of this world, whether expressed in the false faiths that have grown out of the sense of evil dominant in nature and the dread of worse to come, or out of the striving of the few better souls after the knowledge of God, or in the philosophies which exhausted the resources of intellect in the effort to find the ground of being and define the relations between God and the world. Ample proof and illustration of this may be found in the painful and futile strivings, continued to our own day, of Oriental worshipers to rid themselves of the embarrassment and oppression of sin, and find some way of bringing God and man together. Their notions of God were almost entirely void of ethical contents, and issued in blurred and confused conceptions of sin. For the most part they could not separate the idea of evil from finite existence, and hoped for release only in the ultimate absorption of all being in God. Thus the conscience of sin disappeared from among them; while, on the other hand, their view of God was resolved into polytheistic theories, and their avatars were reduced to unreal appearances. Their abstruse philosophies, as far removed from the true order and practical issues of intellectual life as their faith and worship were from the demand and hope of the ethical and spiritual life, left them without any basis in thought for the distinction between God and the world, and rendered a reconciliation between them impossible. In form or in tendency they were atheistic, agnostic, pantheistic, or polytheistic; or rather it might be said that all these forms and tendencies, driven by the irrepressible needs of human nature, issued in a gross polytheism — "gods many and lord's many." The dualism of Zoroaster and the naturalistic worship of the Egyptians, and even their "esoteric" doctrines, speculative rather than practical, form no exception. They are equally far removed from the Christian view of God and man, their real distinction and intimate relation with each other, of the sin of the world and the saving power and process set forth in the incarnation. In this view the gospel is absolutely unique. The life which was the light of men appears only in its provision. It unmeasurably transcends even the old Hebrew thought, and, appealing to the law and the prophets as witnesses to its Christ, presents him in such radiance of divine glory and fullness of divine life that even the children of the prophets are startled and amazed, while reverent prophetic souls like Isaiah abase themselves with humble confession before the throne and. worship. It is the marvel of the gospel that in the person of the God-man, the "Word

THE INADEQUACY OF HUMAN TESTIMONY. I J

made flesh," it incorporates the Godhead into the body of our humanity, without abasing one jot or tittle of the reverence due to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, or lessening the sense of sin in the conscience. Rather by the assumption of the " likeness of sinful flesh" sin is made exceeding sinful and worship more true, profound, and spiritual. It was the ethical failure of the heathen religions that made impossible to them the idea of a true union of God and man, and led, on the one side, to the view so often expressed among them of a temporary transformation, apparent rather than real, of their gods into the likeness of men, and the final extinction of the finite by absorption into the divine; and on the other, to the exaltation of man to the state of the gods, the apotheosis of our nature, yet dominated by the resistless power of fate, to which even the will of the supreme gods was subject.

Nowhere outside of Christian life and thought has the idea of the true and permanent conjunction and coexistence of God and man in one personality been considered. "The world by- wisdom knew not God;" and failing to discern him, it was hopelessly ignorant of the spiritual and ethical elements needed to mediate between God and man, and to lay the ground for redemption to righteousness in a true and complete incarnation. In all the course of its researches and efforts it has given illustration of the prophetic statement as quoted by the apostle, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." As by no method of worship and by no processes of philosophy the truth of the gospel could be attained, so neither could it be discovered by any direct personal observation or investigation* The natural man has no faculties by which he- may bridge the mighty chasm between the seen and. the unseen, or project himself beyond the boundaries of actual experience and bring within the scope of his knowledge the facts and forces belonging to the world that lies outside the region of sensible observation. The natural faculties may be mightily aided and enlarged in their sphere by the appliances and methods discovered and invented with the increase of knowledge. By these helps the area of accepted facts and conclusions has been so far extended that some minds have determined that there can be nothing which is not reducible to the terms of materialism ; or that, if there be aught beyond, it cannot be known.