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would treat it as the Father's house.

The rabbis who

claimed the authority that came from professing to sit in Moses' seat knew well enough that when the Messiah appeared their proud prerogative must be surrendered. And the Pharisees, whose sweet sense of self-righteousness was fostered by emphasis of every jot and tittle of the law, looked forward to a king who should be the new lawgiver. There was no need to wait for further preparation-except, indeed, the preparation of repentance which the Baptist preached -before Jesus should proclaim his Messiahship to the Judeans.

The work in Judea began with the cleansing of the temple-an act that called immediate attention to the claims of Jesus, and challenged the authorities to do their duty as leaders of the people by passing upon those claims. And at every subsequent visit to the home of the Sanhedrin there was a fresh challenge, in the form of further Messianic work or teachings. Very probably Jesus, from the beginning, had little hope that the Sanhedrin would accept him; but they must not be left in ignorance of what he was and what he sought from them. When they at last, in the name of the nation, should pronounce him an impostor worthy of death, their act must be without the excuse that he had not clearly set before them his credentials. The difference, then, between his self-revelation, here and elsewhere, is natural.

Here,

And yet there are various indications in this same Gospel of John that the revelation was not as unmistakable as at first we might suppose. For example, Nicodemus, despite the cleansing of the temple, sees in Jesus only a teacher come from God. And far along in the ministry, as we have noted, the Jews (by which term John designates the leaders at Jerusalem) come round about him with the question, "How long dost thou hold us in suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly" (John 10:24). again, we must recognize that the Fourth Gospel is not a biography, but an interpretation. John sets forth the inner meaning which lies beneath the outward act. He shows us Jesus, not as the Jews actually saw him, but as they might have seen, had they in spirit been prepared to see. For example, when the Baptist, pointing out Jesus, says "Behold the Lamb of God," -a term taken from Isaiah 53:7-John puts into that term its fulness of meaning by adding "that taketh away the sin of the world" (1:29). Or, again, in the enigmatical words of Jesus, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (2:19)— whose surface meaning seems to have been the one indicated by Mark (14:57)—John finds a deeper meaning revealed by meditation upon his death and resurrection. The conversation with Nicodemus illustrates clearly the way in which, when John reports the teachings of Jesus, "reminiscence deepens uncon

sciously into reflection," till we can hardly tell where he ceases to be the reporter and becomes the expositor. With such treatment of the ministry of Jesus there can be little progress in his self-revelation, because the attempt is to show, not the development of faith in his disciples, but the grounds for their faith; and these existed unchanged from the beginning.

Such are the lines along which those who accept the Fourth Gospel as trustworthy arrive at a solution of the Johannine problem. To many critics the solution seems unsatisfactory; and in their opinion the difference between the picture of Jesus in John and in the synoptics arises from the fact that John is almost wholly unhistorical—a product of theological speculation at the close of the first century. It is well to notice, however, that usually the factor most influential in shaping this opinion is the conclusion, reached in advance, that the main thesis of John-the divinity of Jesus-cannot be accepted. Certainly many of the arguments used by hostile critics have little weight apart from such a decision. Illingworth points this out forcibly in one instance: "An eminent critic [Holtzmann, 'Life of Jesus,' 40; see also Jülicher, 'Introduction to New Testament,' 421], after contrasting the Sermon on the Mount with a passage in one of the Johannine discourses, says, 'It is a psychological impossibility that these two things should have proceeded from the same person.' This has all the air

of a scientific statement; but mark what the assertion involves the adequate capacity of the critic to judge what was or was not possible in another person's mode of thought and speech. Now we should hardly be disposed to concede such a degree of insight to the ablest of critics in a case where the person criticised was a man of supreme genius like Plato or Shakespeare or St. Paul; for it is the characteristic of such men to baffle ordinary expectation, and scatter the prosaic tests of weight and measure to the winds. But would any man, with the faintest reputation for sanity to maintain, claim this insight if he believed the person in question to be God incarnate, or even possibly to be God incarnate? Obviously not. It is plain, therefore, that the incarnation had been ruled out of court before the assertion in question was made" ("Doctrine of the Trinity," 25).

After all, the strongest proof that the Jesus of the synoptics is the same as the Jesus of John, lies in the fact that the Christian Church has never been conscious of any real difference. Knowing him by personal experience, and convinced of his divinity by proofs far stronger than any fragmentary record of what he did and said almost nineteen hundred years ago, it has studied that record in the first three gospels and again in John, and found throughout them all, the same elder brother, Saviour and Son of God, whom to know is life everlasting.

CHAPTER X

CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH GOSPEL

THE Four Gospels give four different pictures of Jesus. The early church recognized this and symbolized the four by the four living creatures standing around the throne of God in the apocalyptic vision (Rev. 4:7; cf. Ezek. 1 : 10), viz., the man, the lion, the ox, the eagle. There was some disagreement about the assignment of these symbols, though usually Matthew was the man because it pictures Jesus as the Son of David, the Messiah; Mark was the lion because it pictures him as the mighty miracle-worker; Luke was the ox because it shows him as the patient, self-sacrificing Saviour; and John was the eagle because in it he is most plainly revealed as the sublime Son of God.

Unless the gospels differ entirely from all other biographies, they must have each its own characteristics which might properly be symbolized. Even when two authors have equal opportunity to gain a knowledge of their subject, and equal ability to state it, there will be a difference in their books arising from temperament. Things that appeal to the one and are put in the foreground, may be almost ignored by the other

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