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11 - Jesus of History by Terrot R. Glover · Jesus of History

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Speaker 1: Chapter ten of The Jesus of History by T. R. Glover.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter ten
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Speaker 1: Jesus in Christian Thought. Jesus Christ came to men as
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Speaker 1: a great new experience. He took them far outside all
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Speaker 1: they had known of God and of man. He led
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Speaker 1: them historically into what was in truth a new world,
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Speaker 1: into a new understanding of life in all its relations.
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Speaker 1: What they had never noticed before he brought their knowledge.
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Speaker 1: He made interesting to them and intelligible. In short, as
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Speaker 1: Paul put it, if any man being Christ, he is
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Speaker 1: a new creation. The aspects of things were different, the
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Speaker 1: values were changed, and a new perspective made clear relations
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Speaker 1: that were obscure and tangled before. Why should it have
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Speaker 1: been so? Why should it be that when a man
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Speaker 1: comes into contact, into some kind of sympathy with Jesus Christ,
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Speaker 1: some living union with him, everything becomes new, and he,
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Speaker 1: by and by begins to feel with Saint Paul, to
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Speaker 1: meet to live his Christ. Why has Jesus meant so much?
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Speaker 1: Why should all this be associated with him? Plato, in
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Speaker 1: this sentence already quoted, tells us that the unexamined life
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Speaker 1: is unlivable for a human being for a real man.
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Speaker 1: Here then came into man's life a new experience altogether
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Speaker 1: like nothing known before, altering everything, giving new sympathies, new passions,
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Speaker 1: new enthusiasms, a new attitude to God, and a new
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Speaker 1: atom to man. It was inevitable that thought must work
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Speaker 1: upon it. Who was this Jesus, that he should produce
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Speaker 1: this result. Men asked themselves that very early, and if
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Speaker 1: they were slow to do so, the criticism of the
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Speaker 1: outsider drove them into it. The result has been nineteen
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Speaker 1: centuries of endless question and speculation as to Jesus Christ,
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Speaker 1: the rise of dogma, creed and formula, as slowly all
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Speaker 1: the philosophy of mankind has been rethought in the light
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Speaker 1: of the central experience of Jesus Christ. In spite of
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Speaker 1: all that we may regret in the war of Creeds,
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Speaker 1: it was inevitable. It was part of the disturbance that
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Speaker 1: Jesus foresaw he must make. Men could do no other.
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Speaker 1: They had to determine for themselves the significance of Jesus
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Speaker 1: in the real world, the whole cosmos of God, and
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Speaker 1: it meant fruitful conflict of opinion, the growth of the
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Speaker 1: human mind, and an ever heightened emphasis on Jesus. An
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Speaker 1: analogy may illustrate in some way the story before us.
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Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating chapters of geography is the
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Speaker 1: early exploration of America. Chesapeake Bay was missed by one explorer.
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Speaker 1: Fog or darkness may have been the cause of his
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Speaker 1: missing the place, but he missed it, and though it
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Speaker 1: is undoubtedly there, he made his map without it. Now
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Speaker 1: let us suppose a similar case, for it must often
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Speaker 1: have happened in early days, And this time we will
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Speaker 1: say it was the Hudson, or some river of that magnitude.
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Speaker 1: A later explorer came and where the map showed a
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Speaker 1: shore without a break, he found a huge inlet to routlet.
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Speaker 1: Was it the arm of the sea, a vast bay,
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Speaker 1: or was it a great river? A very great deal
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Speaker 1: depended on which it was. And the first thing was
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Speaker 1: to determine that. There were several ways of doing it.
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Speaker 1: One was to sail up and map the course. A
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Speaker 1: quicker way was to drop a bucket over the side
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Speaker 1: of the ship. The bucket, we may be sure, went down,
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Speaker 1: and it came up with fresh water, And the water
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Speaker 1: was an instant revelation of several new and important facts
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Speaker 1: they had discovered. First of all, that where there was
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Speaker 1: an unbroken coastline on the map, there was nothing of
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Speaker 1: the kind. In reality, there was a broad waterway up
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Speaker 1: into the country. And this was not a bay, but
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Speaker 1: the mouth of a river, and a very great river, indeed,
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Speaker 1: and this implied yet another discovery that men had to
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Speaker 1: reckon with no mere island or narrow peninsula, but an
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Speaker 1: immense continent where it remained to explore. Jesus Christ was
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Speaker 1: in himself a very great discovery for those to whom
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Speaker 1: he gave himself, and the exploration of him shows a
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Speaker 1: somewhat similar story. Men have often said that they see
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Speaker 1: nothing in him very different from the rest of us,
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Speaker 1: while others have found in him in the phrase of
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Speaker 1: the Apocalypse, the water of life and the positive announcement
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Speaker 1: is here as in the other case, the more important
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Speaker 1: of the two, the discovery of the volume of life,
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Speaker 1: which comes from Jesus Christ, is one of the greatest
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Speaker 1: that men have made. Merely to have dipped his bucket,
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Speaker 1: as it were, in that great stream of life has
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Speaker 1: again and again meant everything to a man. Think what
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Speaker 1: the new found river of the new world meant to
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Speaker 1: some of those early explorers, after weeks at sea, water
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Speaker 1: water everywhere, nor any draw to drink, and they reach
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Speaker 1: an immense flood of river water. It was new life
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Speaker 1: at once, but it did not necessarily mean the immediate
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Speaker 1: exploration of everything, the instant completion of geographical discovery. It
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Speaker 1: was life and the promise of more to follow. The
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Speaker 1: history of the Church is a record. We may put
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Speaker 1: it both of the discovery of the river of Life,
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Speaker 1: and of the exploration of its course and its sources
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Speaker 1: and what lies beyond it. But the discovery and the
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Speaker 1: exploration are different things, and the first is quicker and
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Speaker 1: more certain than the second. Most of us will admit
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Speaker 1: that we have not gone very far up into that continent.
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Speaker 1: The object of this chapter is not to attempt to
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Speaker 1: survey or compendiurize Christian exploration of Jesus, but to try
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Speaker 1: to find for ourselves a new approach to an estimate
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Speaker 1: of the historical figure who has been and remains the
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Speaker 1: center of everything. We may classify the records of the
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Speaker 1: Christian exploration roughly in three groups. In the early Christian centuries,
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Speaker 1: we find endless thoughts given to the philosophical study of
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Speaker 1: the relation of Christ and God, it fills the library
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Speaker 1: of the early Church, and practically all the early controversies
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Speaker 1: turn upon it. The weak spot in all this was
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Speaker 1: the use of the a priori method. Men started with
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Speaker 1: preconceptions about God, not unnaturally, for we all have some
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Speaker 1: theories about God which we are apt to regard as knowledge.
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Speaker 1: But knowledge is a difficult thing to reach in any
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Speaker 1: sphere of study, and men assumed too quickly that they
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Speaker 1: had attained a sound philosophical account of God. They overestimated
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Speaker 1: their actual knowledge of God, and did not recognize to
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Speaker 1: the full the importance of the new expertise. This may
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Speaker 1: seem ungenerous to men who gave life and everything for
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, and to whose devotion, to whose love of
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Speaker 1: Jesus we owe it that we know him, an ungenerous
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Speaker 1: criticism of their brave thinking and their independent in a
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Speaker 1: hundred ways of old tradition. Still, it is true that
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Speaker 1: the weakness of much of their Christology and of ours,
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Speaker 1: is that it starts with a borrowed notion of God,
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Speaker 1: which really has very little to do with the Christian religion.
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Speaker 1: To this we shall return. But in the meantime we
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Speaker 1: may note that here is elsewhere preconceptions have to be
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Speaker 1: lightly held by the serious student. Huxley once wrote to
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Speaker 1: Charles Kingsley, science seems to be to teach, in the
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Speaker 1: highest and strongest manner, the great truth that is embodied
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Speaker 1: in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will
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Speaker 1: of God. Sit down before the fact as a little child,
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Speaker 1: be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly
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Speaker 1: wherever and to whatever end nature leads, or you shall
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Speaker 1: learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and
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Speaker 1: peace of mind, since I have resolved, at all risks
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Speaker 1: to do this. So Huxley wrote about the study of
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Speaker 1: natural science. In this great inquiry of ours, we have
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Speaker 1: to learn to be patient enough, that we might say
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Speaker 1: ignorant enough to do the same. The early Church had
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Speaker 1: a faith in Greek philosophy, which stood in its way
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Speaker 1: brave and splendid as its thinkers were. Our second group
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Speaker 1: is represented roughly by the hymn book. The evidential value
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Speaker 1: of a good hymn book will stand investigation. Of course,
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Speaker 1: a great many hymns mere copies and poor copies. But
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Speaker 1: the hymn book at its best is a collection of
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Speaker 1: first hand records of experience, In the story of the
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Speaker 1: Christian Church, doxology comes before dogma, when the writer of
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Speaker 1: the Apocalypse breaks out at the very beginning, unto him
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Speaker 1: that loved us and washed us from our sins in
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Speaker 1: his own blood be glory and dominion forever and ever.
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Speaker 1: He is recording a great experience, and his doxology leads
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Speaker 1: him on to an explanation of what he has felt
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Speaker 1: and known, to an intellectual judgment and an appreciation of Christ.
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Speaker 1: The order is experience, happiness and song, and then reflection.
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Speaker 1: The love and the cleansing and the joy supply the
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Speaker 1: materials on which thought has to work. We always have
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Speaker 1: to remember that thought does not strictly supply its own material,
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Speaker 1: however much which it may help us to find it.
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Speaker 1: Philosophy and theology do not give us our facts. Their
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Speaker 1: function is to group and interpret them. Our third group
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Speaker 1: of records is given to us by the men of
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Speaker 1: the Reformation. We have their two great movements side by side.
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Speaker 1: There is Bible translation, which means, in plain language, a
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Speaker 1: decision or conviction on the part of scholars and thinkers
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Speaker 1: that the knowledge of the historical Jesus and of men's
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Speaker 1: first experiences of him is of the highest importance in
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Speaker 1: the Christian life. The whole Reformation follows or runt parallel
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Speaker 1: with that movement. It is essentially a new exploration of
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Speaker 1: what Jesus Christ can do and of what he can be.
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Speaker 1: In dealing with all these three groups of records, we
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Speaker 1: have to note the seriousness of the men who made
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Speaker 1: the expect germs, their energy of mind, their determination to
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Speaker 1: reach real facts, and in Cromwell's great phrase, to speak
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Speaker 1: things they will have the truth of the matter intricate
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Speaker 1: and entangled as the history, for instance, of the Aryan controversy,
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Speaker 1: that controversy which turned under Diphthong, As Carlyle said in
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Speaker 1: his younger days, it represented more than mere logomachy. As
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Speaker 1: Carlyle saw later on, it followed on from a determination
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Speaker 1: to get at the real fact of who and what
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ is. And the two words that differed by
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Speaker 1: a Diphthong embodied diametrically opposite conceptions of him. With all
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Speaker 1: the super subtlety that sometimes characterizes theologians, these men had
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Speaker 1: a passion for truth. It led them into paths where
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Speaker 1: our minds find a difficulty in following. But the motive
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Speaker 1: was the imperative sense that thinking men must examine and
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Speaker 1: understand their supreme experience, a motive that must weigh with
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Speaker 1: men who are in earnest about life. The great hymns
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Speaker 1: of the Church, such as the diez Eira of Thomas
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Speaker 1: of Salado, or Burnard's Jesu dultus Memoria or Topoldy's Rock
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Speaker 1: of Ages, are transcripts from life made by deep going
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Speaker 1: and serious minds. The writers are recording, with deep conviction
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Speaker 1: of its worth, what they have discovered in experience. A
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Speaker 1: man who takes Christ seriously and will examine life will
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Speaker 1: often find in these great hymns. It may be some
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Speaker 1: surprise an anticipation of his own experience, as Bunyan did
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Speaker 1: in Luther's commentary Ungulations. Livingstone had Jesu dultus memoria, the
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Speaker 1: Latin of it ringing in his head as he traveled
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Speaker 1: in unexplored Africa. Men who did such work work at lasts,
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Speaker 1: and is recognized again and again to be genuine by
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Speaker 1: others busy in the same field cannot have been random,
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Speaker 1: light hearted creatures. They were, in fact, men tested in life,
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Speaker 1: men of experience, of wide and deep experience, men with
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Speaker 1: a gift for living developed in heart, as well as
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Speaker 1: in brain. The finest of Greek critics, Longiness, said that
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Speaker 1: the great style is an echo of a great soul.
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Speaker 1: Neander said, and it is again and again true that
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Speaker 1: it is the heart that makes the theologian. Where we
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Speaker 1: find a great hymn or a great theology, we may
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Speaker 1: be sure of finding a great nature and a great
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Speaker 1: experience behind it. Let us sum up our general results
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Speaker 1: so far. First of all, whatever be the worth of
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Speaker 1: the consensus of Christian opinion? And we have to decide
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Speaker 1: how much it is worth, bearing in mind the type
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Speaker 1: of man who has worked and suffered to make it
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Speaker 1: in every age, and I think it runs high as
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Speaker 1: the work of serious and explorative minds. The consensus of
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Speaker 1: Christian opinion gives the very highest name to Jesus. Christ
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Speaker 1: Men who did not begin with any preconception in his favor,
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Speaker 1: and who have often had a great deal of difficulty
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Speaker 1: in explaining to others and perhaps to themselves, the course
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Speaker 1: by which they have reached their conclusions, claimed the utmost
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Speaker 1: for Jesus. And this in spite of the most desperate
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Speaker 1: philosophical difficulties about monotheism. With a strong sense of fact,
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Speaker 1: with a deepening feeling for reality, with the growing value
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Speaker 1: for experience, and with bolder ventures upon experience, men have
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Speaker 1: found that their conception of Jesus deepens and grows. He
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Speaker 1: means more to them the more they are, And as
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Speaker 1: was noted in the first chapter, in a rational universe
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Speaker 1: where truth counts and error fails, the Church has risen
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Speaker 1: in power with every real emphasis laid on Jesus Christ.
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Speaker 1: What does this involve so far our records today? We
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Speaker 1: are living in an era when great scientific discoveries are
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Speaker 1: made and more are promised. Geology once unsettled people about genesis,
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Speaker 1: but closer study of the Bible and of science has
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Speaker 1: given truer views of both, and thinking people are as
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Speaker 1: little troubled about geology now as about Copernican astronomy. At present,
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Speaker 1: heredity and psychology had dominating our minds, or rather theories
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Speaker 1: as to both. For though beginnings have been made, the
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Speaker 1: state has not yet been reached a very wide or
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Speaker 1: certain discovery. There is still a great deal of the
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Speaker 1: soul unexplored and unmapped. No reasonable person would wish to
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Speaker 1: be little the study either of evolution or of psychology,
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Speaker 1: but the real men of science would probably urge that
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Speaker 1: lay people should take more pains to know the exact
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Speaker 1: meaning and scope of scientific terms, and to have some
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Speaker 1: more or less clear idea in their minds when they
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Speaker 1: use them. However, all these modern discoveries and theories are,
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Speaker 1: to many men's minds a challenge to the right of
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Speaker 1: Christians to speak of Jesus Christ as they have spoken
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Speaker 1: of him, a challenge to our right to represent the
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Speaker 1: facts of Christian life as we have represented them. In
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Speaker 1: other words, they are a challenge to us to return
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Speaker 1: to experience and to see what we really mean. If
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Speaker 1: our study of Jesus in the preceding chapters has been
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Speaker 1: on sound lines, we shall feel that the challenge to
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Speaker 1: face facts is in his vein. It was what he
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Speaker 1: urged upon men throughout the old problem returned upon us.
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Speaker 1: Who and what is this Jesus Christ. We are involved
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Speaker 1: in the recurrent need to re examine him and re
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Speaker 1: explore him. There are several ways of doing so. Like
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Speaker 1: every other historical character, Jesus is to be known by
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Speaker 1: what he does, rather than by a priori speculation as
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Speaker 1: to what he might be. In the study of history,
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Speaker 1: the first thing is to know our original documents. There
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Speaker 1: are gospels, and like other historical records. They must be
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Speaker 1: studied in earnest on scientific lines, without preconception, and there
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Speaker 1: are later records which tell us as plainly and truthfully
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Speaker 1: of what he has done in the world's history. We
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Speaker 1: can begin, then with the serious study of the actual
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Speaker 1: historical Jesus, whom people met in the road and with
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Speaker 1: whom they at their meals, whom the soldiers nailed to
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Speaker 1: the cross, and whom his disciples took to worshiping, and
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Speaker 1: who has historically re created the world. The second line
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Speaker 1: of approach is rather more difficult, but with care we
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Speaker 1: can use christological theories to recover the facts which those
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Speaker 1: who framed the theories intended to explain. We must remember
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Speaker 1: here once more the three historical cannons laid down at
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Speaker 1: the beginning. We must, above all things, give the man's
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Speaker 1: term his meaning, and ask what was the experience behind
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Speaker 1: his thought. When we come upon such descriptions of Jesus
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Speaker 1: as Christ our passover, or find him called the Messiah,
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Speaker 1: we must not let our own preconceptions as to the
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Speaker 1: value of the theories implied by these of such language, nor
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Speaker 1: again our existing views of what is orthodox determine our conclusions.
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Speaker 1: But we must ask what those who so explained Jesus
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Speaker 1: really meant to say, and what they had experienced which
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Speaker 1: they thought worth expressing. These people, as we see, were
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Speaker 1: face to face with a very great new experience, and
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Speaker 1: they cast about for some means of describing and explaining it.
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Speaker 1: A slight illustration may suggest the natural law in accordance
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Speaker 1: with which they set about their task of explanation. A
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Speaker 1: child of between two and three years old was watching
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Speaker 1: his first snow storm, gazing very intently at the flying snowflake,
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Speaker 1: and evidently trying to think out what they were. At
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Speaker 1: last he hit it, they were little birds. It is
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Speaker 1: so that the mind infant or adult is apt to
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Speaker 1: work explaining the new and unknown by reference to the familiar.
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Speaker 1: Snowflakes are not little birds. There is something quite different,
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Speaker 1: and yet there is a common element. They both go
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Speaker 1: flying through the air. And it was that fact that
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Speaker 1: the child's brain noticed and used to explain Jesus. His
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Speaker 1: friends and contemporaries spoke of him as the logos, the sacrifice, Christ,
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Speaker 1: our passover, the Messiah, and so forth. Of those terms,
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Speaker 1: not one is intelligible to us to day. Without a commentary.
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Speaker 1: To ordinary people, Jesus is at want intelligible, far more
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Speaker 1: so than the explanations of him. Historically, it is he
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Speaker 1: himself who has antiquated every one of those conceptions, and
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Speaker 1: so far as they have survived, it has been in
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Speaker 1: virtue of association with him. They are the familiar language
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Speaker 1: of another day. No one, said doctor Rendal Harris, can
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Speaker 1: sing how sweet the name of Logos sounds. Synesius Sireni
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Speaker 1: did try to sing it, but most human beings prefer
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Speaker 1: Saint Bernard or John Newton. The inner significance of each
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Speaker 1: term will point to the real experience of the man
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Speaker 1: using it. He employs a metaphor a similar or a
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Speaker 1: technical term to explain something. Can we penetrate the analogy
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Speaker 1: which he finds between the Jesus of the new experience
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Speaker 1: and the old term which he uses. Can we, when
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Speaker 1: we see what he has experienced, grasp the substance and
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Speaker 1: build on that to the neglect of the term. When
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Speaker 1: we look at the terms, we find that the essence
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Speaker 1: of sacrifice was reconciliation between God and man we shall
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Speaker 1: return to this little later, and that the Messiah was
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Speaker 1: understood to be destined to achieve God's purpose and God's
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Speaker 1: meaning for mankind, and for each man. We find again
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Speaker 1: that the inner meaning of the logos is that through
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Speaker 1: it and in it, God and Man come in touch
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Speaker 1: with each other and become mutually intelligible. Reconciliation, the victory
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Speaker 1: of God, the mutual intelligibility of God and Man. All
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Speaker 1: three terms center into one great thought, a new union
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Speaker 1: between God and Man, that, so far as I can see,
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Speaker 1: is the common element, and that is, as men have
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Speaker 1: conceived it, the very heart of the Christian experience. In
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Speaker 1: the third place, we can utilize the new experiments made
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Speaker 1: upon Jesus Christ in the Reformation and in other revivals.
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Speaker 1: They come nearer to us, for the men who report
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Speaker 1: are more practical and more scholarly in the modern way.
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Speaker 1: They are more akin to us, both in blood and
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Speaker 1: in ideas. Luther, for example, is a great spirit of
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Speaker 1: the explorer type. He went to scholarship and learnt the
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Speaker 1: true meaning of metanoia, that it was rethinking and not penance,
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Speaker 1: and he grasped a new view of God. There. From
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Speaker 1: scholarship he gained a truer view of Church history than
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Speaker 1: he had been taught, and this too helped to clear
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Speaker 1: his mind. Above all, as a great son of fact,
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Speaker 1: Carlyle's name for him. His chief interest was the exploration
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Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. Would Christ stand all the weight that
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Speaker 1: a man could throw upon him without assistance? And Luther
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Speaker 1: found that Christ could, and he at once turned his
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Speaker 1: knowledge into action, as the world knows. Justification by faith
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Speaker 1: was his phrase, and he meant that we may trust
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ with all that we are, all that we
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Speaker 1: have been, and all that we hope to be, that
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Speaker 1: Jesus himself will carry all that Jesus himself is, all
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Speaker 1: that Jesus is at once Luther's eternal salvation and his
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Speaker 1: sure help in the next day's difficulty, his savior forever
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Speaker 1: from sin, and his great standby. In translating the Bible
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Speaker 1: for the German people, and in writing hymns for boys
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Speaker 1: and girls Nos nihilsumus, he wrote Christus solus et omnia.
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Speaker 1: In the case of every great revival, the Wesleyan revival
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Speaker 1: and the smaller ones in the United States, in the
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Speaker 1: North of Ireland, in Wales, in every one we find
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Speaker 1: that where anything is really achieved, it is done by
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Speaker 1: a new and thoroughgoing emphasis on Jesus Christ. It may
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Speaker 1: be put in language which to some years is repulsive
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Speaker 1: in metaphors strange or uncouth. But whatever the language, the
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Speaker 1: fact that underlies it is this. Men are brought back
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Speaker 1: to the reality, the presence, the power, and the friendship
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Speaker 1: of Jesus Christ. They are called to a fresh venture
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Speaker 1: on Jesus Christ, a fresh exploration. And again and again
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Speaker 1: the experienceance of a lifetime has justified the venture. This
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Speaker 1: brings us to the most effective and fundamental method in
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Speaker 1: the exploration of Jesus, in some ways the most difficult
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Speaker 1: of all, or else the very simplest. The Church has
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Speaker 1: been clear that there is nothing like personal experiment, the
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Speaker 1: personal venture. It is the only clue to the experience.
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Speaker 1: The saying of sent Augustine immo credo ut intelligas is
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Speaker 1: to many of our minds offensive, I think, because we
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Speaker 1: do not give quite the right meaning to his credo.
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Speaker 1: But if the illustrations are not too simple, swimming and
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Speaker 1: bicycling offer parallels. A man will never understand how water
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Speaker 1: holds up a human body as long as he stays
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Speaker 1: on dry land. In practical things, the venture comes first,
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Speaker 1: and it is hard to see how a man is
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Speaker 1: to understand Christ without a personal experience of him. All
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Speaker 1: parents know how much better bachelors and maiden sisters understand
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Speaker 1: children than they do. But as soon as these great
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Speaker 1: authorities have children of their own, the position is altered
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Speaker 1: a little. The change is that Jesus definitely operates in men.
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Speaker 1: They have described in various ways rebirth, salvation, a new heart,
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Speaker 1: and so forth. What they have always emphasized in Jesus
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Speaker 1: Christ is that they find he changes their outlook and
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Speaker 1: develops new instincts in them, and that in one way
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Speaker 1: and another he saves from sin. And they have been
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Speaker 1: men who have learnt and adopted Jesus's own estimate of sin.
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Speaker 1: When then we remember that with his serious view of sin,
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Speaker 1: he undertook men's redemption from it. When we add to
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Speaker 1: this some real reflection upon how much He already has done,
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Speaker 1: as plain matter of history, to take away the sin
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Speaker 1: of the world, we surely have something to go upon
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Speaker 1: in our attempt to determine who he is. The question
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Speaker 1: will rise. Have Christians overstated their experience or even misunderstood it.
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Speaker 1: Has forgiveness been in fact achieved or salvation from sin?
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Speaker 1: Can sin be put away at all? What will the
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Speaker 1: evidence for this be? I do not know what the
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Speaker 1: evidence could be except the new life of peace with
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Speaker 1: God and all the sunshine and blessing that go with it.
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Speaker 1: This new life is at all events all the evidence available,
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Speaker 1: and how much it means is very difficult to estimate
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Speaker 1: without some personal experience. Here again, the great theories of
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Speaker 1: redemption will help us to recover the experience. They are
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Speaker 1: to explain, and once more we may note that they
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Speaker 1: are not the work of small minds or trivial natures,
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Speaker 1: however badly they have been echoed. Substitution implies, at any rate,
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Speaker 1: some serious confession of guilt before God, some strong sense
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Speaker 1: of a great indebtedness to Christ. The theory of sacrifice
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Speaker 1: implies the need of reunion with God. Robertson Smith, in
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Speaker 1: his Early Religion of the Semites, brings out that the
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Speaker 1: essence of ancient sacrifice was that the tribe, the sacrificial beast,
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Speaker 1: and the God were all of one blood. The God
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Speaker 1: was supposed to be alienated. The sacrifice was offered by
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Speaker 1: the party to the quarrel who was seeking reconciliation, namely
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Speaker 1: the tribe. When we look at the New Testament, we
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Speaker 1: find that the emphasis always lies on God seeking reconciliation
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Speaker 1: with man. The theory of ransom, a most moving term
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Speaker 1: in the world of slavery, implies the need of new
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Speaker 1: freedom for the mind, for the heart, and for the
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Speaker 1: whole nature from the tyranny of sin. All these are sybiles,
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Speaker 1: and tremendous structures of theory have been built on every
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Speaker 1: one of them. And for some of these structures, simile
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Speaker 1: or in pladar language, analogy is not a sufficient foundation.
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Speaker 1: It is probably true that all our current explanations of
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Speaker 1: the work of Christ in redemption have in them too
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Speaker 1: large an element of metaphor and simile. Yet Christian people
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Speaker 1: are reluctant to discard any one of them, and their
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Speaker 1: reluctance is intelligible. There is a value in the old
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Speaker 1: association which is found by new experience. Every one of
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Speaker 1: these old symiles whill contribute to our realization of the
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Speaker 1: work of Christ. In so far as it is a
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Speaker 1: record of experience of Christ, verified in one generation after another,
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Speaker 1: we shall make the best use of them. When we
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Speaker 1: are no longer intimidated by the terminology, but go at
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Speaker 1: once to what is meant to the facts, We come
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Speaker 1: still closer to the facts in the less metaphorical terms
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Speaker 1: of the New Testament. For example, there is the New Covenant.
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Speaker 1: The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews went back
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Speaker 1: to a great phrase in Jeremiah, and by his emphasis
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Speaker 1: on it, he helped to give its name to the
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Speaker 1: whole New Testament. I will make a new covenant with
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Speaker 1: the House of Israel and the House of Judah. Using
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Speaker 1: this passage, he brings out that there is a new relation,
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Speaker 1: a new union between God and man in Jesus. He
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Speaker 1: speaks of Jesus as a mediator, bringing man and God together,
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Speaker 1: language far plainer to us than the terminology of sacrifice,
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Speaker 1: which he employed, rather to bring home the work of
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Speaker 1: Jesus with feeling and passion to those who had no
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Speaker 1: other vocavalry, than to impose upon Christian thinkers a scheme
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Speaker 1: of things which he clearly sought to be exhausted. Then
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Speaker 1: there is Paul's great conception of reconciliation. Half the difficulties
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Speaker 1: connected with the word atonement disappear when we grasp that
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Speaker 1: the word in Greek means primarily reconciliation. As Paul uses
33:28
Speaker 1: the noun and the verb, it is very plain what
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Speaker 1: he means. God is in Christ trying to reconcile the
33:35
Speaker 1: world to himself. These attempt to express Christ's work in
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Speaker 1: plain words take us back to the great central Christian experience,
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Speaker 1: to the great initial discovery that the discord of man's
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Speaker 1: making between God and man has been removed by God's
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Speaker 1: overtures in Christ, that the obstacles which man has felt
33:56
Speaker 1: in his approach to God, in the unclean hands and
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Speaker 1: the other clean lips, have been taken away, and that
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Speaker 1: with a heart such as the human heart is, a
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Speaker 1: man may yet come to God in Jesus. Because of Jesus.
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Speaker 1: Through Jesus, the historical character of Christian life and thought
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Speaker 1: is surely evidence that Jesus Christ has accomplished something real,
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Speaker 1: and when we get a better hold of that, the
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Speaker 1: problem of his person should be more within our reach.
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Speaker 1: The splendid phrase of Paul, therefore, being justified by faith,
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Speaker 1: we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
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Speaker 1: or that of one Peter, in whom you rejoice with
34:43
Speaker 1: joy and speakable and full of glory, gives us the keynote.
34:48
Speaker 1: The gaiety of the early Church, in its union with
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, rings through the New Testament and the Christian Fathers,
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Speaker 1: from Hermas to Augustine. The Church has come singing down
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Speaker 1: the ages. The victory over sin no easy thing at
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Speaker 1: any time, is another permanent feature of Christian experience. The
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Speaker 1: psychological value of what Dr Chalmers called the expulsive power
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Speaker 1: of a new affectation is not enough studied by us.
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Speaker 1: Look at the freedom, the growth, the power of the
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Speaker 1: Christian life. Where do they all come from? We cannot
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Speaker 1: leave God out of this at any rate. There they
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Speaker 1: are in the Christian experience. And where does anything that
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Speaker 1: matters flow from but from God. There is again the
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Speaker 1: evidence of Christian achievement. And it should be remarked that
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Speaker 1: the Christian always tells us that he himself has not
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Speaker 1: the power, that it comes from God, that he asks
35:53
Speaker 1: for it and God gives it. Has for the easy
35:57
Speaker 1: explanation of all religious life by all to suggestion, we
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Speaker 1: may note that it involves a loose and unscientific use
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Speaker 1: of a more or less scientific theory, never a very
36:10
Speaker 1: safe way to knowledge. In any case, it has been
36:14
Speaker 1: pointed out the word adds nothing to the number of
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Speaker 1: our facts. Nor is it quite clear yet that it
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Speaker 1: eliminates God from the story, any more than the term
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Speaker 1: digestion makes it inappropriate to say grace before a meal.
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Speaker 1: All these things, peace, joy, victory, and the rest follow
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Speaker 1: from the taking away of sin, and imply that it
36:38
Speaker 1: no longer stands between God and man. All this is
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Speaker 1: the work of the historical Jesus. It is he who
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Speaker 1: has changed the attitude of man to God, and by
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Speaker 1: changing it has made it possible for God to do
36:54
Speaker 1: what he has done. If God, in Paul's phrase, hath
36:59
Speaker 1: shined in our hearts, it was Jesus who induced men
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Speaker 1: to take down the shutters and open the windows. It
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Speaker 1: is all associated historically with the ever living Jesus Christ
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Speaker 1: and with God in him. This brings us to the
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Speaker 1: central question, the relation of Jesus with God, the problem
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Speaker 1: of incarnation. After all that has been said, we shall
37:27
Speaker 1: not approach it a priori. We are too apt to
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Speaker 1: put the incarnation more or less in an algebraic form
37:35
Speaker 1: X plus Y equals A, where A stands for the
37:38
Speaker 1: historical Jesus Christ, and X and Y respectively for God
37:42
Speaker 1: and Man. But what do we mean by X and
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Speaker 1: why let us face our facts? What do we know
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Speaker 1: of man apart from Jesus Christ. Surely it is only
37:56
Speaker 1: in him that we realize man, only in him that
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Speaker 1: we grasp what human depravity really is the real meaning
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Speaker 1: and implications of human sin. It is those who have
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Speaker 1: lived with Jesus Christ who are most conscious of sin.
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Speaker 1: And this is no mere morbid imagination or fancy. It
38:18
Speaker 1: rests on a much deeper exploration of human nature than
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Speaker 1: men in general attempt. Not until we know what he
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Speaker 1: is do we see how very little we are and
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Speaker 1: how far we have gone wrong. It is his power
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Speaker 1: of help and sympathy that teaches us the hardness of
38:37
Speaker 1: our own hearts our own fundamental want of sympathy. Again,
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Speaker 1: until a man knows Jesus Christ, he has little chance
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Speaker 1: of even getting the grandeur of which he himself is capable.
38:52
Speaker 1: A man has, as he says, done his best for years.
38:56
Speaker 1: It might be a strenuous endeavor. And then comes the
38:59
Speaker 1: new expl sperience of Jesus Christ, and he is lifted
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Speaker 1: high above his record. He gains a new power, a
39:07
Speaker 1: new tenderness, and he does things incredible. We do not
39:13
Speaker 1: know the wrong or the right of which man is
39:15
Speaker 1: capable till we know Jesus Christ. The why of our
39:20
Speaker 1: equation then, does not tell us very much when it
39:26
Speaker 1: comes to the ex is it not very often a
39:29
Speaker 1: mixture an ill adjusted mixture of the Father of Jesus
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Speaker 1: with the rather negative beyond all being of later Greek
39:37
Speaker 1: speculation and perhaps the judge of Roman law. The exact
39:42
Speaker 1: proportions in the mixture will vary with the thinker. But
39:45
Speaker 1: in fact is it not true now that we only
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Speaker 1: really know God through Jesus. For it is only in
39:52
Speaker 1: and through Jesus that we take the trouble and have
39:56
Speaker 1: the faith to explore and test God, to try experiments
40:01
Speaker 1: upon God, to know what he can do and what
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Speaker 1: he will do. It is only in Jesus that the
40:09
Speaker 1: love of God in the New Testament sense is tenable
40:13
Speaker 1: at all. It is evanescent apart from Jesus. It rests
40:18
Speaker 1: on the assurance of his words, his work, his personality,
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Speaker 1: a vague, diffused love of God for everything in general
40:27
Speaker 1: and nothing in particular. We sought to be a quite
40:30
Speaker 1: different thing from the personal attachment with which, according to Jesus,
40:36
Speaker 1: God loves the individual man that is the center of
40:40
Speaker 1: the Gospel. It is belief in that which has done
40:44
Speaker 1: everything in a rational world, as we sow at the beginning,
40:48
Speaker 1: and it is a most impossible belief, never long or
40:52
Speaker 1: very actively held apart from Jesus. Only in him can
40:57
Speaker 1: we believe it. Only in him too, is the new
41:00
Speaker 1: experience of God's forgiveness and redemption possible in all its
41:03
Speaker 1: fullness and sourness and power. Due me, Pardoneer, said heine,
41:10
Speaker 1: say mon Mithier, But he had not the Christian sense
41:14
Speaker 1: of what it was that God was to forgive. It
41:18
Speaker 1: is only in Jesus that we can live the real
41:21
Speaker 1: life of prayer in the intimate way of Jesus. All
41:26
Speaker 1: this means is that we have to solve our ex
41:29
Speaker 1: from Jesus, not to discover him through it. The plain
41:34
Speaker 1: fact is that we actually know Jesus a great deal
41:37
Speaker 1: better than we know our ex and we know our
41:39
Speaker 1: why the elements which we hope to reconstruct him. What
41:43
Speaker 1: does this mean? It means, bluntly that we have to
41:49
Speaker 1: rethink our theories of incarnation on a posteriori lines, to
41:54
Speaker 1: begin on facts that we know, and to base ourselves
41:58
Speaker 1: on a continuous exploration and experience of Jesus Christ. First,
42:04
Speaker 1: the simple homey rule of knowing things before we talk
42:08
Speaker 1: about them holds in every other sphere of study, and
42:12
Speaker 1: it is the rule which Jesus himself inculcated. We begin
42:17
Speaker 1: then with Jesus Christ, and set out to see how
42:20
Speaker 1: far he will take us. Experience comes first follow me,
42:26
Speaker 1: he said. He chose the twelve men that they might
42:30
Speaker 1: be with him, and he let them find out in
42:33
Speaker 1: that great intercourse what he had for them, and from
42:38
Speaker 1: what he could give and did give. They drew their
42:40
Speaker 1: conclusions as to who and what he is. There can
42:44
Speaker 1: be no other way of knowing him. Luther's Reformation doctrines,
42:49
Speaker 1: says Herman in his fine book, The Communion of the
42:52
Speaker 1: Christian with God, only countenance such a confession with the
42:57
Speaker 1: deity of Christ as springs naturally to the lips of
43:01
Speaker 1: the man whom Jesus has already made blessed. Melanthon said
43:07
Speaker 1: the same thing this, it is to know Christ, to
43:11
Speaker 1: receive his benefits, not to contemplate his natures. All the
43:16
Speaker 1: modes of his incarnation come unto me. All ye that
43:21
Speaker 1: labor and are heavy laden, And I will give you rest.
43:29
Speaker 1: End of Chapter ten, end of The Jesus of History.
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Speaker 1: My t. R. Glover