CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: fta1 Prof. Adolf Harnack’s “What is Christianity?” fta2 It might be in order to say that this is a term applied to a theological movement which had its origins in the teachings of Ferdinand Christian Baur, of the University of Tubingen, in Germany. His distinctive and guiding principles were those of the Hegelian philosophy. It was his aim to reconstruct the history of early Christianity so that it would be seen to be in harmony with the laws which supposedly govern historical evolution. Accordingly he supposed a conflict between the teachings of Paul and of Peter. But after Paul’s death a reconciliation was effected which resulted in the establishment of the old Catholic Church.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftb1 The word in the original is Sons of Israel. ftb2 See Galatians 4:1-5, and Alford in loco . ftb3 Acts 13:26. The R.V. is in error here. The word is “sons.”

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftc1 Without attempting to limit the meaning of His saying, “the Son of Man which is in heaven” ( John 3:13), it certainly implies “whose place is in heaven” (Alford). It is a heavenly title, therefore, and a heavenly glory. ftc2 His crucifixion was the climax of a rejection that declared itself at the very beginning of His ministry. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” ftc3 Eighty times the words “Son of Man” occur as uttered by the Lord; but here, and here alone, they are anarthrous (ante ). Bishop Middleton maintains (“The Greek Article,” p. 246) that the absence of the articles makes no difference; and he accounts for it by saying that “Now, for the first time, has Christ asserted His claim to the title: in all other places He has assumed it.” But surely this would be a valid reason only if this were either the first time, or the last, of His using the words. ftc4 “Lord it is good for us to be here” ( Matthew 17:4). ftc5 The division of chapters obscures the connection between Matthew 16:28 and the record of the Transfiguration. ftc6 Here are the words of the standard textbook of the cult: “Christ…held the current Jewish notions respecting the divine authority and revelation of the Old Testament.” (Hasting’s Bible Dict ., article “Old Testament,” p. 601.) ftc7 “But,” He added, as with divine knowledge He surveyed the wide field of the prophetic Scriptures, “how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?” ( Matthew 26:53,54).

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftd1 The popular belief that men by nature know the Father is in direct opposition to these explicit words of the Lord Jesus Christ. ftd2 Luke 10:22. Here Dean Alford writes, “I am convinced that our Lord did utter, on the two separate occasions , these weighty words.”

And Alford’s proverbial intolerance of “harmonizing or escaping difficulties” lends weight to his judgment on such a point. ftd3 “This rendering somewhat obscures the exact sense of the original word…The thought in the original is centered in the personal Being of the Son, and not in His generation.” (Bishop Westcott in “The Speaker’s Com.,” John 14.) ftd4 Grimm’s Lexicon gives it “single of its kind, only”; and adds, “He is so spoken of by John, not because of generation by God, but because He is of nature, or essentially, Son of God.”

Dean Alford says: “In New Testament usage it signifies the only Son.” (“Gr. Test. Com.”) Bloomfield says, with reference to “the Beloved” in Ephesians 1:6: “It may be compared with monogenes of John 1:14,18, 3:18; John 4:9, where the full sense is ‘only and most dearly beloved.’“ (“Gr. Test . Com.”) And the crowning proof is the marginal reading of John 1:18, in the R.V., “God only begotten.” This reading, which has high MS. authority, would be in the text of the R.V. if Westcott and Hort had had their way.

Dr. Holt’s “Dissertation” on the subject, read at Cambridge in 1876, is the most thorough defense of it. But I refer to it only as a proof that monogenes does not mean “Begotten.” ftd5 “The Analogy of Religion with the Constitution and Course of Nature.” ftd6 As has been justly said, “The idea of a revelation may be said to be logically involved in the notion of a living God” (Fairburn). ftd7 It is the word used in 1 Corinthians 13:11; Galatians 4:3; Ephesians 4:14. ftd8 The subject is a delicate one; I deal with it in an Appendix note. ftd9 Quite as painful, and still more grotesque, would be the suggestion that this was the burden of Paul’s preaching in the Damascus synagogues ( Acts 9:20). ftd10 That the mother of our Lord was a virgin is stated in the Gospel narrative as plain matter of fact. But the “wise and prudent” seem to be ignorant of the strict and elaborate provisions of the Jewish law for testing the virginity of brides.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: fte1 John 1:11. Here our English idiom fails; the French is admirable: “Il est venu chez soi, et les siens ne l’ont point recu.” fte2 Mark 3:11, Luke 4:41. “Mysterious” I call it, because it cannot have been prompted by Satan, and it was rendered at a time when even His own disciples were only groping after the truth. fte3 Colossians 1:23,25. There is not another ego in the Epistle. The English reader must bear in mind that in Greek the pronoun is ordinarily implied in the verb. It is expressed only where it is emphatic. fte4 1 Corinthians 15:24. The telos in Greek is not the end in the sense of our English word. It connotes, not cessation, but result. The end of a journey is our arrival at our destination; its telos is the accomplishment of the purpose with which we set out. fte5 The author of The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah and Practical Truths from Elisha by Kregel Publications (1983). fte6 Exodus 28:20,21. Verse 22 is noteworthy; it is the Angel’s voice, but it is God who speaks. fte7 Compare the words of Stephen in Acts 7:51. fte8 The figure of God’s Fatherhood to His people is occasionally used in the Psalms and the Prophets, but “the Father” is not to be found in the Old Testament. Christ revealed the Father.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftf1 The Messianic Gospel—Matthew—also omits the Ascension because the closing words of it belong dispensationally to the time when Zechariah 14:4 shall be fulfilled (compare Acts 1:11), and Christ will send out His earthly people as His missionaries to evangelize the world. ftf2 Critics who take the Arian view urge the absence of the article in the phrase “the Word was God”; but “the writer could not have written it thus without manifest absurdity” (Bishop Middleton), for that would imply that He was God in an exclusive sense. 1 Timothy 2:5 supplies a parallel; and, following the R.V. reading of it, “one mediator…Himself Man,” we might here read, “the Word was with God, and the Word was Himself God.”

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftg1 This is so, whether the sentence be construed epexigetically or read as in our English Versions. That a Jew could bracket a fellow-man with the God of Israel in this way is quite incredible. ftg2 “Life and Times of the Messiah,” vol. 1 p. 145. ftg3 See, e .g ., verses 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, of James 5. The Greek Kurios has as wide a range of meaning as our word “Lord.” It is sometimes used as a mere title of dignity, equivalent to the English “Sir,” and at other times it denotes the Supreme Being. In the Greek Bible it is the rendering for “Jehovah.” Its force in this Epistle is not doubtful. ftg4 I here assume that the James of the Epistle was “the Lord’s brother”; for the study of many a treatise to prove the contrary has satisfied me that he held that relationship. Indeed Matthew 13:55 is conclusive.

The ordinary “man-of-the-world” Jew knew nothing of a “pre-existent divine Messiah.” The Christ he looked for was one of his own people, and therefore that he should have cousins would be regarded as a matter of course—they supposed that John the Baptist was the Christ ( Luke 3:15); but the thought of His having brothers and sisters seems to have been repugnant to him.

And a careful study of the chronological question has convinced me that they are right who hold the Epistle of James to be perhaps the earliest of the New Testament writings. It belongs to that period of the Pentecostal dispensation when the whole Church was Jewish, and when their meeting-places still bore the Jewish designation of “synagogues” ( James 2:2). ftg5 This is not a theory hastily formed for the purpose of my “argument,” but a belief which I have held for many years. A statement of the grounds on which it is based would require a lengthy excursus that would not be germane to the subject of these pages. ftg6 A belief in two Messiahs, one to suffer, and one to reign in glory, seems to have been a popular solution of the difficulties which the study of the prophecies presented.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: fth1 The Christian knows that the spirits of spiritualistic seances are not the departed dead, but demons who personate them. fth2 Acts 14:19. “They stoned him, not in the Jewish method, but tumultuously and in the streets, dragging him out of the city afterwards” (Alford). “The full sense is ‘And having prevailed on the multitude [to permit them to stone Paul], and having stoned him, they drew him out of the city.’ Suro having reference to the brutal insults offered to the dead bodies of executed malefactors, which were usually dragged by the heels out of the city gates” (Bloomfield). fth3 “Evidently,” I say, because the affliction was “given” to him lest the revelations should exalt him overmuch. The Romish exegesis of the passage, therefore, is certainly false. And the fact that Patristic authority can be cited for it does not deter me from describing it as shameful. fth4 Dean Farrar. fth5 It is very noteworthy that whenever he addressed cultured hearers, as, e .g ., his various Roman judges, the Apostle seems to have commanded great consideration and respect. His affliction would draw out the courtesy of such men, while with the vulgar it might excite derision.

And it is said that such an affliction would affect the sufferer in different degrees at different times. fth6 2 Corinthians 12. Bloomfield cites authorities for the conjecture that the trouble was “a paralytic and hypochondriac affection which occasioned a distortion of countenance and other distressing effects.”

It has been urged upon me that this supposes an imperfect, an uncompleted, miracle of healing, for which there is no precedent in Scripture. But surely the Apostle’s words indicate that he knew his experience to be peculiar. To suffer from “a thorn in the flesh” has been the lot of multitudes of the people of God, but to suffer impalement, as it were, from the after effects of injuries divinely healed—this was so unique that he twice refused to accept the answer to his prayer for relief. fth7 The word translated “thorn” means a stake for impaling, and then a thorn or splinter. Those who hold that ophthalmia was the Apostle’s affliction appeal to Numbers 33:55 (LXX). The ablest statement known to me of that view is Dean Farrar’s excursus in his “Life and Work of St. Paul.” But the Apostle’s references to his eyesight would all be accounted for if his trouble was of a kind that might be relieved by a present-day optician. fth8 I assume the correctness of the above rendering; and I am discussing the question without reference to inspiration. If the writings are inspired, there is no question left for discussion. fth9 It is worthy of note that the identical words used of redemption by Jehovah in the Greek version of Exodus 19:5 are here quoted and applied to Christ. And also that the word “Savior” occurs twice in each chapter of this Epistle, once of God and once of Christ. And though, of course, the word in itself does not connote Deity, it is incredible that the Apostle would have used it three times as a divine title, and three times in a lower sense when applied to Christ. The Christian will not doubt that it is used as a divine title in every one of its twenty-four occurrences in the New Testament, with the exception, perhaps, of Ephesians 5:23. And in fifteen of these occurrences it is used of Christ.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: fti1 See chapter 4. fti2 John 5:23. In English this might mean no more than honoring the Son in addition to honoring the Father. But the words used by the Lord imply rendering to the Son the same honor as is rendered to the Father.

He uses the word eight times in chap. 17. (verses 2, 11, 14, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23) and it always implies “even as,” “in the same way as. fti3 This appears both from the Gospel narrative and from the Lord’s express commendation of the practice: “Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well ” ( John 13:13). fti4 Luke 24:19. During His life the Jews called Him “Jesus of Nazareth” merely as a distinctive name, and thus it was that Cleopas used it. But after His death it became a name of reproach—the name of the false Messiah who had been crucified as a blasphemer. And it is with this signification, as equivalent to “the despised and rejected of men,” that it was used by the Apostles in Acts 2:22, 10:38, and 26:9, and by the Lord Himself to Paul ( Acts 22:8). fti5 The disciples never call Him “Jesus,” whereas the main narrative always names Him thus. fti6 “The use of the simple name ‘Jesus’ is rare in the Epistles.” “Wherever it occurs it will be found to be distinctive or emphatic.” “The modem familiar use of the simple name ‘Jesus’ has little authority in Apostolic usage” (Bishop Ellicott’s “New Testament Commentary for English Readers”: Ephesians 4:21.) fti7 Ephesians 4:21 ( 2 Corinthians 4:10 is a similar passage). A misreading of this verse has given rise to the popular phrase, “the truth as it is in Jesus,” meaning thereby evangelical doctrine. In scriptural language that would be called “the truth of Christ .” And it is not doctrine, but practice, that is here indicated. fti8 The passages here cited are given earlier in this chapter. I would urge that, as the name of His glory is conferred on Him because He humbled Himself , it cannot be the name of His humiliation. And if the Apostle meant thereby the name of “Jehovah,” he used the only word which the Greek language supplied to express it. Alford’s exegesis amounts to this, that because He humbled Himself to become Jesus, God gave Him that same name with a new dignity attached to it. This seems to me to fritter away the meaning of the passage, and to ignore the force of verse 10. I need not say that bowing at the name is not its teaching. fti9 “The assumption, indeed, exemplifies the want of appreciation of Jewish thought and feeling that is so characteristic of “Gentile” exegesis. fti10 Following the Revised text, I include 1 Peter 5:10 and 14, where the A.V. reads “Christ Jesus”; and 3:15, where it reads “Lord God.” fti11 I make bold to read John 8:44 literally. “When he speaks the lie, he speaks of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it.” And so also in 2 Thessalonians 2:11. For “the lie,” see Luke 4:5,6.

CHAPTER FOOTNOTE: ftj1 Mark the kinship of the words of the pagan idolaters in Acts 14:11, and of the inspired Apostle in Philippians 2:7. ftj2 Luke 18:7; 2 Peter 3:9. It is the same word in both passages. ftj3 “Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods” ( Genesis 3:5). ftj4 Exodus 32:1-6. The calf was the victim in the great burnt-offering of the covenant ( Exodus 24); and the idol was an outward symbol to represent the spiritual reality. It was worshipped at “a feast to the Lord” (verse 5) only in the sense in which altars and crosses are now worshipped. ftj5 In his famous Birmingham address on “Science and Man,” Prof. Tyndall said, “The promise is a dream marred by the experience of eighteen centuries.” And Christians here take sides with the skeptic! ftj6 See Alford’s Commentary on Matthew 12:43-45. ftj7 Revelation 11:15. Basileia , translated “kingdoms” in A.V., means dominion or sovereignty. ftj8 Such is the meaning of the word parousia , which our English Bible renders “coming.”

APPENDICES

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2: ftk1 This Appendix was not ready when the proofs were submitted to the Bishop of Durham. ftk2 I have written on this subject with hesitation, but under a pressing sense of the need of dealing with it.

The time is near when “the Christian miracles” will be accepted as facts, but explained on natural principles; for the crassly stupid infidelity of the past is dying out. (Dr. Harnack’s reference to miracles in “What is Christianity?” points to this.) I heard of a private meeting of medical men :in London last winter at which it was gravely urged that a virgin birth was possible as a natural phenomenon! The Rationalist could thus admit that the Lord was born of a virgin, without admitting that He was “conceived of the Holy Ghost.” ftk3 Matthew 1:20 does not conflict with this statement.