of worship, and even before the temple was rebuilt, of the regular sacrifices. This was followed by immediate preparations for the building of the temple, which was formally begun amid solemn ceremonies a few months later. But the Samaritans, offended by their repulse, succeeded in stopping their work. This is in itself an additional evidence for the weakness of the returned exiles, whose strength and zeal were probably not sufficient to carry the whole community with them in the face of such odds. At all events, the work stopped and was not resumed until fifteen years later, when the prophets Haggai and Zechariah succeeded in stirring up the zeal of the people sufficiently to induce them to go on with the building of the temple. It is not at all improbable that in the meantime they may have been encouraged by the arrival of others of their fellow-exiles from Babylon. Zechariah plainly states that some came during the building of the temple, and it is fair to assume that others came whose names are not mentioned. The work of building was now continued without interruption until the temple was completed and dedicated. And with this event the first epoch in the history of the restoration was brought to a close.

ARTICLE III.

STUDIES IN CHRISTOLOGY.1

BY PROFESSOR FRANK HUGH FOSTER, D. D.

IX.

THE BIBLICAL FACTS.

WE now approach in these studies the center of the problem. It has been remarked that "It is only when men are firmly convinced that Christ is God that the problem suggested by his human nature will press upon their minds and demand consideration." But such is the immemorial conviction of the church. And yet it is conceivable, improbable as it may be, that the church was all along mistaken in this belief, and that Christ is not really God; and, hence, that the christological problem has no real foundation in facts for which a reconciliation is required. We must revert, therefore, to the beginning of our subject ere we can enter upon the dogmatic discussion of the union of the two natures in Christ, and ask the question anew for ourselves, Whether we are to believe, in this nineteenth century, and with all the light upon the Scriptures and upon every other appropriate source of information which we possess, in the proper deity of Jesus Christ. Let us begin with the Scripture teaching.

The earliest source of biblical teaching which is afforded us in the New Testament, according to the divisions of "biblical theology" so-called, are the discourses of Jesus. Even the three synoptic Gospels furnish evidence of some reflection by their writers upon the story they have to tell, objective as 1 Continued from July, 1895, p. 548.

they are in most of their representations. The evidences of the wonder which Jesus excited, and of the display in him of a something which was more than ordinary humanity, with the innocent art by which it is sought to produce like impressions on the reader, are examples of this element contributed by the writers of the synoptics to the simple narrative they have to give. But the discourses of Jesus are not thus. modified. They are an objective report. And they are the primary, as they are the highest, source we possess. It is the merit of the recent writers in biblical theology, of Wendt and Beyschlag, as well as of the more conservative Nösgen, to have shown that in their teachings the discourses of the Fourth Gospel harmonize entirely with those of the first three. The picture of Jesus Christ given by himself according to these four witnesses is one.

Neither the designation of himself by Jesus as Son of man nor as Son of God was intended to indicate directly his deity. The former was a somewhat indirect, but an unequivocal, expression of his claim to be the Messiah of the Old Testament; the latter expressed the peculiarly intimate relation of love and communion in which he stood with the Father. The expression "Son of David" pointed still further. It implied the expectation of royal dignity; but this, when connected with his definite prophecies of a violent death (Mark viii. 31; ix. 31; x. 34) and of his resurrection from the dead, pointed forward to another realm, beyond this world, in which he was to possess the glory which truly belonged to him. More distinctly yet was this brought out when, in Mark xii. 36, he appropriated to himself Psalm cx. i.: "The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool"; and thus designated himself as the one who was to share the divine throne, and so as a divine person. He was then to enter upon his true glory, and as possessing this he was God, for he who partakes in the administration of the world is no mere creature. The administration of the world

is the biblical argument for the divinity of God himself (Isa. xl. 12-26).

The result at which we thus arrive by the consideration of the group of discourses found in the synoptics is that the full dignity of Christ was only intimated in his earthly career, and that we are to judge of what he truly is, even while upon earth, by the revelation made of himself in his resurrection and exaltation to the throne of the majesty on high. With this view harmonizes entirely that given in the Fourth Gospel, though the subject is approached from a different point of departure. Jesus represents himself as having been in the most intimate relations with the Father "before the world was," as having "come forth from God," as speaking that which he "heard" and "saw" with the Father. Repeatedly is the phrase that he was "sent into the world" employed, with which another is associated, that he "came," both of these denoting his conscious and remembered preëxistence before he was in the world. Thus he is the perfect organ of revelation and the perfect representation of the Father, so that he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (xiv. 9). Repeatedly are his expressions as to himself so bold that the Jews cry out that he is making himself equal with God; and his replies, while they blunt the point of the definite accusation made, leave its substance untouched.

The book of Acts, which begins with the account of the ascension of the Lord, views him always in the light of the fact that he occupies the mediatorial throne. It is from this that he sends forth the Spirit. Since he occupies this, it is proper that he should be designated as “Lord” (kúpios); and to the Lord upon the throne any Old Testament text which speaks of judgment or salvation (Acts ii. 20, 21) can be immediately applied, however explicit in its original application to Jehovah himself (comp. vii. 59, 60).

There would be greater possibility of doubt as to the correctness of this last statement, did not the next group of New

Testament writings, the earlier Pauline Epistles, furnish numerous and indisputable examples of the same usage. Paul's preaching was summed up in one phrase, that Jesus is Lord. Hence he applies to him directly passages from the Old Testament employed there of Jehovah (1 Cor. ii. 16 from Isa. xl. 13; x. 22 from Deut. xxxii. 21; Rom. x. 13). In one passage (Rom. xiv. 8, 9) he applies the term "Lord" to Christ when in the immediate context it has been applied, in the same sense, to Jehovah (ver. 3 and 4). It is as "Lord" that Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of God (Rom. viii. 34) and is the Ruler of the world (x. 12). When this exalted Christ returns to judgment, it is with divine predicates, such as omniscience (1 Cor. iv. 5). He is therefore the object of divine honors (2 Cor. xii. 8, 9; Rom. x. 12, 13) and Paul also once calls him explicitly God (Rom. ix. 5). Thus again, it is the glorified state of Christ which in Paul's mind exhibits him in his true nature and reveals those attributes of his being which must be presupposed to make his Messianic work a possibility. But Paul goes further. His thought rises in sublimity and reaches into the ages of the past eternity as well as forward into the future. In his later epistles Paul teaches that the Son of God, who was the object of peculiar love (Col. i. 13), existed before the creation, and was sent into the world. "When the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son" (Gal. iv. 4) upon the errand of redemption. This was itself a divine work (Rom. viii. 3), but the Son had already wrought divine works, since he was the medium of creation (1 Cor. viii. 6; Col. i. 15, 16), and of the administration of grace under the ancient economy (1 Cor. x. 4). The eternal election. of the individual Christian was made "in [by] him" (Eph. iii. 11; i. 3, 4). He was also the goal towards which the world in its onward sweep was moving, since all things were not only created through him, but also "unto him . . . that in all things he might have the preeminence" (Col. i. 16–18). But the goal of the world-process must be God (Rom. xi. 36).

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