you, because, whom he hath sent, him ye believe not;[1] if any one will do God's will he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.'[2] This, therefore, is what Jesus said:—'I, whose message of salvation is: If a man keep my word he shall never see death![3] am sent of God; because he, who obeys my saying: Renounce thyself and follow me![4] shall feel that he truly lives, and that he is following, therefore, Israel's God of whom it is said: Thou wilt show vie the path of life.'[5]
The doctrine therefore is double:—Renounce thyself, the secret of Jesus, involving a foregoing exercise of his method; and, Follow me, who am sent from God! That is the favourite expression:—Sent from God. 'I come forth from the Father; the Father hath sent me; God hath sent me.'[6] Now this identified Jesus and his salvation with the Messiah whom, with his salvation, the Jews were expecting. For his disciples therefore, and for Christendom after them, Jesus was and is the Messiah or Christ.
Meanwhile, as with the word God, so with the word Christ. Jesus did not give any scientific definition of it,—such as, for instance, that Christ was the Logos. He took the word Christ as the Jews used it, as he took the word God as the Jews used it. And as he amended their notion of God, the Eternal who loveth righteousness, by showing what righteousness really was, so he amended their notion of the Messiah, the chosen bringer of God's salvation, by showing what salvation really was. And though his own application of terms to designate himself is not a matter where we can perfectly trust his reporters (as it is clear, for instance, that the writer of the Fourth Gospel was more metaphysical than Jesus himself),[7] yet there is no difficulty
- ↑ John, v, 38.
- ↑ John, vii, 17.
- ↑ John, viii, 51.
- ↑ Matth., xvi, 24.
- ↑ Ps. xvi, 11.
- ↑ John, xvi, 27, 28, 30; vi, 57; vii, 29; viii, 42; xviii, 8.
- ↑ It is to be remembered, too, that whereas Jesus spoke in Aramaic, the most concrete and unmetaphysical of languages, he is reported in Greek, the most metaphysical. What, in the mouth of Jesus, was the word which comes to us as μονογενής (only begotten)? Probably the simple Aramaic word for unique, only. And yet, in the Greek record, even the word μονογενής is not, like only begotten in our translation, reserved for Christ; see Luke, vii, 12; viii, 42; ix, 38.
