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God, who helps us in our need and calls us to Eternal Life, are bound up together inseparably. We know God only in Christ, we know about God only in Him. God's final aim is revealed to us in the life-aim of Christ. God's purposes are disclosed to us in the Mind of Christ. From Him we learn that God's aim is to receive human beings into His Kingdom, that His motive is Love, that He has the same aim as Christ. The latter is in the world free and supreme over it, as God is: these are the marks of His Godhead. And in all these relations that hang so closely together, He is unique among His brethren, as God is, the only Begotten of the Father in the great company of God's children. However many there be who enjoy the Christian Good and realise its Ideal of life, they are unlike Him in their dependence upon Him. And not only in this respect, but He is the unapproachable Ideal by whom the impulse is stirred in us to walk in His footsteps. This unlikeness remains to all Eternity, because Christ is unique.

Experience shows that the Good and the Ideal of Christianity suffer in their distinctiveness as soon as the connection with the historical Christ is undervalued and neglected. The character of our whole life is to-day, in every movement, conditioned by that of this Man; therefore we must realise Him as continually present. What His Will is we can learn from His historical working, and from the words recorded by the Evangelists. But the manifestations of His Spirit mediated by the word of the Gospel are certain and of universal validity. Luther was aware also of the claims to a so-called direct relation to Christ, but He condemned them as fanaticism. The Living and Risen Lord has intercourse with us only as clothed with His word: it is phantastic to speak of influences that go beyond His word. Only then are we really in contact with Him, when the movements of our own minds die away before His purpose made plain and intelligible in the word of His Gospel. The Mediator between us and God is hence the Historical Christ.

"But for us He is not to be separated from God-to separate between Him and God is unbelief. To believe in

Him means to find God in Him, my Lord and my God. All men must honour the Son of God, who, like the Father, summons into life with creative power, even as they honour the Father. He is the Perfect Revealer of God, and the Original of Humanity. What is to be brought together through Him, God and Humanity, is united in Him" (pp. 104, 105).

"Christ is then really the Mediator of the Covenant between God and man, for He belongs to both-God's perfect image and man's antitype, Jesus Christ, the historical Christ, He of whom the Gospels tell us. Does reason object? do these things appear perfectly irreconcilable? let us be assured that is due to the representations of socalled reason about God and man. If we hold by the notion of God (coming to us from heathenism) as Infinite Being in antithesis with man, who is mere finitude and limitation, we cannot indeed see how they can be reconciled. But the fact that we see in Christ the God-man should lead us to form and shape our thoughts of God and man according to Him. We seek to learn to know God and human nature nowhere else save in Jesus Christ. That is the way by which one really finds God.

"No man hath seen Him at any time: He dwells in light that no man can approach unto. Therefore one learns really to know Him only through the Revelation which we have in Christ. To know and possess God, that is, to trust in Him, and to know that we may leave ourselves with Him, that He cares for us, that we are of value in His eye, -that conflicts with what Hellenic heathendom regards as His majesty. Even learned men among Christians are afraid to confess that human beings can be of value to God. Such assertions, they think, touch too closely the sublimity of the Creator; it accords better with His Greatness to regard human beings as something He could do as easily without, had He chosen not to create them. But such thoughts are not born of Christ. The proper view of the world is not got by means of scientific proof, but is a contribution of the Christian religion. The Christian view of God is the solution of the problem of life, how we are to

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bear ourselves as Christians in relation to nature. the influence of Christianity one has learnt to view nature with new eyes. If we abandon our Christian faith in God, there is found in the many tendencies that are at work in the universe absolute aimlessness; Nature appears to be irrational alike in destroying and bringing into being the dice seem to fall without aim. We trace powerful and destructive forces as well as benevolent ones. There is retribution, but it is not nicely adjusted. Without Christ one sees not whither it all tends. The history of the Hellenic religion shows that men began with the honest intention to believe in the righteousness of their gods; but they ended with the feeling that human beings were nothing to the Immortals, and they despaired of faith in the gods. It is a mistake to wish to go back to a natural and universal knowledge of God that embraces all matters about Him and His omnipotence and retribution, adding more precise and definite information from Christianity. No, the trust in God that comes of faith, that enables us to comfort ourselves in Him, the confidence it begets that we are really of some value to Him—this is not to be got till God is seen in Christ. How often does Dr. Luther insist on this: 'To look at the majesty of God leads to terror and despair, and may take a man to Hell itself, but to cherish confidence in God is possible when one seeks Him in the face and in the walk of Jesus Christ'" (p. 107).

NOTE D, p. 254.-BECK ON "INTERCOURSE WITH THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS" (from Gedanken aus und nach der Schrift. Neue Folge).

Der Hauptmangel bei uns studirten Leuten ist allerdings der, der Ihnen klar geworden, dass alles für uns mehr Begriffsleben ist, wenn es uns auch erfasst hat, und sich immer wieder zersplittert in Reflexion. Entscheidend ist für uns wie für andere Menschen, dass die Wahrheit in persönlicher Gestalt an uns herantritt und in uns persönliche Gestalt gewinnt, und dazu ist eben der Sohn Gottes Mensch geworden, hat die uns rettende Wahrheit gerade in den

Knotenpunkten und Krisen unseres äusseren und inneren Lebens so persönlich durchgebildet und uns vor Augen gestellt, dass er täglich vor uns treten und bei uns sein kann mit den Worten: ich bin der Weg, die Wahrheit und das Leben. Er hat dabei so herzgewinnend mit Wort und That und mit den äussersten Opfern sich uns nahe gebracht, dass er eben damit als persönlichster Magnet die persönlichste Regung der Liebe in uns hervorrufen und so eine Person-Verkettung zwischen ihm und uns bewirken will. Eben desshalb muss es von Aufang bis zu Ende unsere Hauptbeschäftigung bleiben, dass wir die Evangelien lesen, und da täglich zu ihm kommen, so schlicht als möglich, ihn hören und beschauen, und so die unmittelbarsten Eindrücke seiner eigensten Person empfangen, im Gebete sie vertiefen, unter dem Tagleben erneuern, und so einen persönlichen Verkehr mit Jesu einüben. So führt er uns wie seine Jünger nach und nach dahin, dass wir nicht nur durch ihn zu Gott Kommen, um seinetwillen ihn als Vater glauben, sondern in ihm Gott als den Vater finden und haben. Diess ist eben der Mangel der menschlichen Darstellungen, dass sie Gott und Jesum Christum zu sehr ausser einander halten, dass sich Gott über dem Christus wie verliert für uns und überflüssig erscheint, oder wie ein schreckendes, immer zur Strafe bereites Wesen im Hintergrund bleibt. Dagegen der Christus der Evangelien zeigt uns von Aufang an des Vaters Güte in der Natur und seine erbarmende Liebe in der Sendung des Sohnes als das, wodurch er eben die, die ihn fürchten, aufsucht und an sich zieht, um ihnen zu helfen, damit wir dann am Ende (und so in den Episteln) nicht einen zu versöhnenden oder nur versöhnten Gott neben dem Sühnopfer haben sondern im Sohne selbst den versöhnenden und mit der Versöhnung alles Weitere nach seiner weisen Ordnung uns mittheilenden Vater (Röm. viii. 31 ff.). Werfen Sie nur das Vertrauen nicht weg, dass, wenn Sie die vom Herrn selbst uns aufgegebenen Grundfunctionen, wie Bitten, Suchen, Anklopfen, Ringen, nicht lassen, Sie auf dem von Gott versiegelten Weg zum Ziel sind.

INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS

ABBOTT, The Spirit on the Waters
quoted, 96, 229, 273, 294.
Amiel, Journal, 214.

Angels, worship of, in Jewish theology,
157; Christ's work in relation to,
165, 172, 297, 299.
Angelology of St. Paul, 296.
Antichrist in St. Paul's teaching, 137.
Apollinaris' Christology, 211.

Archetypal Man, Christ the, 50, 160.
Arnold, M., on Paul's doctrine of faith,
104.

Atonement, nature of Paul's statements
concerning, 80; theories of, 81, 84,
89 (see under Reconciliation).

BALDENSPERGER, on the Messiahship of
Jesus, 13; the angelology of the
Jews, 157; on pre-existence, 195.
Barnabas, Epistle of, its characterisa-
tion of Christians, 61.

Baruch, Book of, on Adam's sin, 288.
Baur (N. T. Theologie) on the Person
of Christ, 26.

Beck, J. T., on truth and life, 180,
303; on the Christ of the Gospels,
254, 323.

Beyschlag, on the pre-existence of Christ,

185, 193; on Phil. iii. 5-11, 191.
Biederman, view of, on pre-existence of
Christ, 198.

Biographies of Christ in modern times,
241, 246.

Bornemann on the Person of Christ,
318.

Bruce, Dr. A. B., on 2 Cor. v. 16,
267; Davidic descent of Jesus, 42;
the Kenosis of Christ, 206; the
historical Christ, 248.

CALVIN on the humanity of Christ, 49.
Candlish, Dr., on Sonship of Christ
and of believers, 44.
Catholic Church, its conception of the
God-man, 205.

Chalcedon, formula of Council of, 22,
204.

Christ the natural Head of all men,
192; the Son of God, 41; the
Spiritual Man, 35, 232; His pro-
phetic work ignored by Paul, 236;
the mystical Christ, 122; indwelling
of Christ, 123, 128, 130; His lord-
ship, 134; Vicegerent of God, 142;
the "end" of creation, 176; His
historic life and His religious signifi-
cance for us, 245; continuity of His
life in pre- and post-incarnate state,
199; Paul's idea of, before his con-
version, 266; conception of, in
Middle Ages, 239; prayer to, 144.
Christology, Greek Church, 21; uses
of study of, 208; modern view of,
242.

Church, the Body of Christ, 127; idea
of, in later Epistles, 162, 164.
Church, Dean, on the example of
Christ, 62.

Clement of Rome on Person of Christ,
217.

Colossians, Epistle to, general charac-
ter of, 152; authorship, 154; its
Christology, 156, 159, 165, 170.
Cone: The Gospel and its Interpreta-
tions, on the term "Second Adam,"
229.

DALE, Dr., on the death of Christ as a
revelation of God's love, 77; eternal
humanity of Christ, 210; the proofs
of Christ's divinity, 146, 220; the
Christ of history, 247.

Death, its causal connection with sin
the presupposition of Paul's doctrine
of the Atonement, 88.
Death of Christ, its supreme signifi-
cance with Paul, 16, 233; its connec-
tion with his life, 87; virtue of, in
relation to redemption from sin,
87, 98.

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