INTRODUCTION 1 As typical instances of this mode of thought, reference may be made to Wrede’s Ueber Aufgabe und Methode der sogenannten neutestamentlichen Theologie , and G. Kruger’s Das Dogma vom Neuen Testament . 2 This, of course, does not exclude the idea that the native vigor of Christianity was shown in its power to assimilate as well as to reject extraneous matter.

CHAPTER - 1 See the writer’s Jesus and the Gospel , pp. 320-346. 2 In Luke 3:22, Codex Bezae gives the heavenly voice in this form.

Probably Jesus told the stories of His baptism and temptation often, giving more or less fully, with brief allusions to Old Testament words or fuller citation of them, such hints of His experience as His hearers could appreciate. Certainly there could be no truer index to His life than a combination of Psalm 2:7 with Isaiah 42:1 ff.— the Son of God as King, and the Servant of the Lord; and this combination, if we go upon the evidence and not upon any dogmatic conception of what is or is not historical, dates from the high hour in which Jesus entered on His public work, and is not an afterbirth of disappointing experiences. 3 Wellhausen asserts that the temptation in Mark 1:12 f. is not Messianic; the Messianic temptation in Mark does not follow the baptism, but the Messianic confession of Peter at ch. 8:29; and it is Peter, not ‘der leibhaftige Satan,’ to whom the severe rebuke of Jesus is historically addressed. This is one of his main arguments for regarding Mark as older than Q, the source to which the temptation narratives of Matthew and Luke are traced. But it surely needs no proof that however summarily he may refer to it, the temptation associated by Mark with the baptism must have had its character determined by the baptism; and on Wellhausen’s own showing the whole significance of the baptism for Mark is that it indicates the birth of the Messianic consciousness in Jesus. He entered the water an ordinary Israelite, and emerged the Messiah. A temptation in this context can have been nothing but a Messianic temptation. — Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien (2nd edition), 65 f. 4 O. Holtzmann. 5 Hier. Contra Pelag ., 3, 2. Nestle, Novi Testamenti Graeci Supplementum (77, 81), quotes in the same sense from Cyprian De Rebaptismate : ‘Confictus liber qui inscribitur Pauli predicatio in quo libro contra omnes scripturas et de peccato proprio confitentem invenies Christum, qui solus omnino nihil deliquit et ad accipiendum Joannis baptisma paene invitum a matre sua esse compulsum.’ 6 Soltau, Unsere EvangeIien , p. 58: ‘Der Zusatz ist nicht mehr naiv, sondern ganz kasuistisch.’ 7 See Garvie’s Studies in the Inner life of Jesus , ch. 4. ‘The Vocation Accepted,’ pp. 117 ff. ‘It is in His vicarious consciousness and the sacrifice which this would ultimately involve that Jesus fulfilled all righteousness. There is a higher righteousness than being justified by one’s own works, a higher even than depending on God’s forgiveness; and that belongs to Him who undertakes by His own loving sacrifice for sinners to bring God’s forgiveness to them.’ 8 Compare Kahler, Zur Lehre yon der Versohnung , 179: ‘Die Taufe im Jordan nimmt jene Taufe voraus, der er mit Bangen entgegenblickt, die letzte, schwerste Versuchung.’ 9 Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, p. 16 ff. 10 See Jesus and the Gospel, 314 ff. 11 Cf. Haupt, Die eschatol . Aussagen Jesu , p. 108; Holtzmann, Neut . TheoIogie , 1. p. 287. 12 Cf. Rev. C. F. Burney in Contentio Veritas , p. 202. ‘If, as is probable, Jonah represents the nation of Israel emerging as though by a miracle from the Exile in order to carry out its mission to the world at large, it may be noticed that the idea of the restoration from the exile as resurrection is elsewhere current in the prophetic writings (Hosea 6, Ezekiel 37) and that it is thus highly fitting that the allegory of the death and resurrection of the nation should be also the allegory of the death and resurrection of the nation’s true Representative.’ 13 It is undoubtedly disappointing that in spite of the reiterated assertion that Jesus did teach His disciples about His death, Mark does not tell us even remotely what He taught. There is no memorable word of Jesus preserved from His teaching. 14 Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, 69 ff.

Ritschl (Rechtf . u . Versohnung , 2. 67) had already described as ‘an unproved conjecture’ the idea that Isaiah 53. had any decisive influence upon the mind of Jesus. He argues that the two express words of our Lord about His death (Matthew 20:28, 26:28) have no connection with that chapter, and he discredits Luke 22:37 (which Hollmann accepts) as part of a passage (Luke 22:24-38) which he regards as ‘eine Anschwemmung von unsicheren Erinnerungen.’ 15 Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, 99 ff. 16 Lehre Jesu , 2. 509 ff. 17 Ritschl, Rechtf. u. Versohnung, 2. 69 if. Hollmann, Die Bedeuntung des Todes Jesu, 99 ff. 18 In Hastings’ Bible Dictionary , s.v. Propitiation (vol. 4. 128). 19 Compare Kahler, Zur Lehre von der Versohnung , 166: ‘We put our whole faith in reconciliation into this word, and have a right to do so.’ I do not think anything whatever is gained by trying all possible permutations and combinations of the words in the text, and deciding whether ajnti< pollw~n is to be construed with lu>tron or with dou~nai, or with the two in combination, or in some other ingenious or perverse way. It is a sentence which leaves meaning on the mind, not the bits into which it can be broken. Ritschl sums up his interpretation thus: ‘Der Sinn des Ausdrucks Jesu ist also: Ich bin gekommen anstatt derer, welche eine Werthgabe als Schutzmittel gegen das Sterben fur sich oder far Andere an Gott zu leisten vergeblich erstreben wurden, dasselbe durch die Hingebung meines Lebens im Tode an Gott zu verwirklichen, aber eben nur anstatt derer, welche dutch Glauben und selbstverleugnende Nachfolge meiner Person die Bedingung erfullen, unter der allein meine Leistung den erwarteten Schutz fur sie vermitteln kann.’ — R . u . V . 2. 86. For a criticism of Ritschl’s views on rp,Ko and rPeKi see in the last paragraph of Driver’s article on Propitiation referred to above. Feine, in his Theologie des Neuen Testaments , 127 f., mentions four points of attachment for this ransom saying in Isaiah 53, which show in combination that we are justified in using the ideas of that prophecy as a key to it. (1) The words dou~nai thqh eijv qa>naton hJ yuch< aujtou~ of Isaiah 53:12. (2) The general idea of service pervades both. The subject of Isaiah 53 is the humiliation and exaltation of the Servant of the Lord — His humiliation (as here that of Jesus) as the way to exaltation. (3) The peculiar use of ‘many’ in both: My righteous Servant shall justify ‘many,’ He bare the sin of ‘many’; to give His life a ransom for ‘many.’ (4) The correspondence in meaning between the lu>tron as that by which a forfeited life is redeemed, and the giving of the life or soul as an µv;a; or guilt-offering by which legal satisfaction was rendered for an injury or wrong (Isaiah 53:10). There is a worth or goodness in Jesus’ surrender of his life which outweighs the whole wrong which the world’s sin inflicts upon God; and He came that at this cost the sin of the world might be outweighed. 20 Spitta’s views are given in his treatise on Die urchristlichen Traditionen uber Ursprung und Sinn des Abendmahls (zur Geschichte u. Litteratur des Urchristenthums). 21 Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, 133 ff. 22 See Preuschen’s Zeitschrift , 1. 69 ff., and on the other side O.

Holtzmann, War Jesus Ekstatiker ? 110 ff. 23 Holtzmann, Neut . Theologie , 1. 302, says: ‘The figure of covenant blood, which alone retains its validity, points, indeed, to a covenant sacrifice, but not necessarily also to an expiatory sacrifice, with which last alone have been combined the later ideas of exchange and substitution.’ 24 Religion of the Semites, 219. 25 Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Propitiation, p. 132.

CHAPTER - 1 See Field, Notes on the New Testament , p. 77, where decisive proof of this is given; and Armitage Robinson, Gospel according to Peter , pp. 84, 87 (ajgwnia>w ). 2 Institutio , II. 16. 10. 3 Calvin has, in point of fact, made more adequate utterances on this subject: ‘Invisibile illud et incomprehensibile judicium quod coram Deo sustinuit’; ‘neque tamen innuimus Deum fuisse unquam illi vel adversarium vel iratum’; ‘illic personam nostram gerebat’; and especially the following: ‘Atqui haec nostra sapientia est probe sentire quanti constiterit Dei filio nostra salus.’ 4 Compare Kahler, Zur Lehre von der Versohnung , pp. 181, 401. On the other side Fairbairn, Philosophy of the Christian Religion , p. 425 ff. 5 For a fuller statement on this point see Jesus and the Gospel , 153 ff. 6 For the best examination of this see Chase’s Hulsean Lectures and Vernon Bartlet’s Acts (Century Bible). 7 Seeberg, Der Tod Christi , p. 292. 8 Compare Kahler, Zur Lehre von der Versohnung, p. 239. 9 See, for instance, Alford’s note on the passage, and the qualified support given to it in Bigg’s Commentary . 10 In his Bible Studies (E. Tr. p. 88 ff.) Deissmann argues that there is no suggestion here of the special ideas of substitution or sacrifice: all that is meant is that when Christ bears up to the cross the sins of men, then men have their sins no more: the bearing up to is a taking away . In view of the other references in the epistle and of the Old Testament parallels, this is rather a refusal to think out the apostle’s thoughts than a stricter interpretation of his words.

CHAPTER - 1 Cf. Soltau, Unsere Evangelien , S. 85: ‘The apostles and evangelists who went about two by two from church to church preaching everywhere the Word of God, must have had a fixed basis for the instruction they gave. And when Paul (1 Corinthians 11:23) declares of his account of the Supper, ‘I have received it from the Lord,’ he points in doing so to a formulation of Christian teaching once for all fixed and definite.’ In a note he adds that St. Paul’s words, ‘the Lord Jesus on the night on which He was betrayed,’ even show an affinity to the synoptic narrative. 2 Compare Kahler, p. 399. In Empfindung, Mythus, Bild, Religion und Betrachtung ist der Tod, wie wir Sunder ihn sterben, der Prediger der Verantwortlichkeit geblieben. 3 Compare Kahler, Zur Lehre von der Versohnung , 397 ff. 4 Le Peche et la Redemption, p. 258 f. 5 I have rendered pneumatikomystery, or rather of divineness, which all through this passage is connected with the Sacraments. Baptism is not a common washing, nor is the Supper common meat and drink; it is a divine cleansing, a divine nourishment, with which we have to do in these rites; there is a mysterious power of God in them, which the Corinthians were inclined to conceive as operating like a charm for their protection in situations of moral ambiguity or peril. This is so far suggested to the Greek reader by pneumatikoGod; but as it is not necessarily suggested to the English reader by ‘spiritual,’ I have ventured on the other rendering. The indefiniteness of ‘supernatural’ is rather an advantage in the context than a drawback. 6 De Icarnatione , c. xx section. 5. 7 J. S. Lidgett, The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, p. 39. 8 The way in which theologians in love with the ‘mystical union’ depreciate gratitude must be very astonishing to psychologists. See Juncker, Die Ethik des Ap . Paulus , 161, and Rothe, Dogmatik 2. 1. (a remark on this passage in 2 Corinthians 5.): ohne Ihn und seinen Tod hatten Alle sterben mussen; das Leben das sie leben verdanken sie also ganzlich Ihm, und mussen es deshalb ganz und gar Ihm widmen. 9 Kaftan holds that nothing is to be called Erlosung or Versohnung (redemption or reconciliation) unless as men are actually liberated and reconciled; Erlosung and Versohnung are to be understood, as the Reformers rightly saw (?), as Wirkungen Gottes in und an den Glaubigen .

But he overlooks the fact that whatever is to liberate or reconcile men must have qualities or virtues in it which, in view of their normal effect, whether that effect be in any given case achieved or not, can be called reconciling or liberative; and that the determination of these qualities or virtues — that is, as he calls it, an ‘objective Heilslehre ’ — is not only legitimate but essential in the interpretation of the work of Christ. See his Dogmatik , Sections 52 ff. 10 See Expositor for June 1901, p. 449 ff. 11 See Expositor , March 1901, p. 176 ff. 12 This is the view of Ritschl, who decides that everywhere in Paul the righteousness of God means the mode of procedure which is consistent with God’s having the salvation of believers as His end (Rechtf . u . Vers . 2 footnote 1, 117). In the same sense he argues that the correlative idea to the righteousness of God is always that of the righteousness of His people (ibid . 108, 110). He seems to forget here that the God of the Gospel is defined by St. Paul in terms which expressly contradict this view, as ‘He who justifies the ungodly ’ (Romans 5:5); and that a reference to sin rather than to righteousness in the people is the true correlative of the Pauline dikaiosu>nh qeou~ .

Ritschl’s treatment of the passage in Romans 3:3 ff., where God’s righteousness is spoken of in connection with the judgment of the world, and with the infliction of the final wrath upon it, and where it evidently includes something other than the gracious consistency to which Ritschl would limit it, is an amusing combination of sophistry and paradox. 13 Der Tod Christi, p. 187. 14 Ibid . p. 286. 15 Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments , Section 84 b. (English Translation, 1. p. 456 ff.). 16 Rechtf u . Versohnung , 2. pp. 338 f. 17 Neut . Theologie , 2. p. 141. 18 Ibid . 2. p. 137 ff. 19 For a fuller treatment of this point, see article in Expositor , October 1901, ‘The Righteousness of God and the New Life.’ 20 For a fuller treatment of the Spirit and the New Life, see article in Expositor , December 1901. 21 Romans 8:38 f. does not refute this, for the apostle’s exposition of his thoughts is already complete, and this is an emotional utterance in which there is no more need or possibility of defining Christ’s death by relation to angels and principalities and powers, than by relation to abstractions like height and depth. The only thought in the passage is that God’s love in Christ is the final reality from which nothing can separate the believer. 22 Neut . Theologie , 2. 265 f.

CHAPTER - 1 For a full discussion on this point, see Holtzmann, Neut . Theologie , 2. 281 ff. 2 Cf. Non mors sed voluntas placuit sponte morientis (Bernard). 3 Der Tod Christi, p. 92 f. 4 Ibid . p. 99.

CHAPTER - 1 Das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 484. 2 Le quatrieme Evangile, p. 51 ff. See also Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 589 ff. 3 lou>santi (washed ) is the reading familiar to us from the Received Text and the Vulgate. It also, as well as lu>santi , has analogies in the book: cf. 7:14 and the Text. Rec. at 22:14; and Bousset calls attention to the frequent mention of white robes without any particular reference to the blood of Christ. The sacrament of baptism made the figure of washing an obvious one to Christians, quite apart from such suggestions as are given by Psalm 1:4, Isaiah 1:16,18, and its influence is apparent in Corinthians 6:11, Titus 2:14. On the whole, lu>santi is much the better-supported reading: for the meaning which would go with lou>santi see below on 7:14. 4 Compare Moffatt ad loc . in Expositor ’s Greek Testament : ‘In opposition to the contemporary Jewish tradition (Ap. Bar. 2. 2, 14. 12; 4 Esd. 7. 77 etc.), it is not reliance on works but the consciousness of redemption which enables them to bear witness and to bear the consequences of their witness.’ 5 The use of this text which is here rejected is found e .g . in Contentio Veritatis , p. 298, where Mr. Inge writes: ‘These [the death and resurrection of Christ] are eternal acts, even as the generation of the Son of God is an eternal act. They belong to the unchangeable and everoperating counsels of God. So it is possible for the New Testament writers to say that the Lamb was slain for us from the foundation of the world, and that the rock which followed the Israelites through the wilderness was Christ. The passion of Christ was itself (as the Greek Fathers called it) a sacrament of mystery of an eternal truth: it was the supreme sacrament of human history; the outward and visible sign of a great supra-temporal fact.’ This point of view, whatever its legitimacy or illegitimacy, is certainly much more characteristic of the Greek Fathers than of the New Testament writers. To the latter Christ is the equivalent of absolute spiritual reality. They never raise the abstract question of the relation of time to eternity; and though the eternal import of the historical, in the life and death of Jesus, is the foundation of all their thinking, they never describe the Passion as the sacrament or symbol of any reality beyond itself 6 Compare St. Paul’s use of the perfect participle ejstaurwme>non , Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 2:2, Galatians 3:1. 7 Die Gottheit Christi , 447. ‘Also nicht als ein Einzelereigniss , nicht in Beziehung auf das Gesetz , nicht als Opfer in gewohnlichem Sinne hat der Tod Christi seine Bedeutung (sc. in John). Nicht um des Todes willen ist das Fleisch Christi nothig gewesen , sondern der Tod ist nothig gewesen um des Fleisches willen . 8 Neut . Theologie , 2. p. 492. 9 On this passage, see Garvie, Studies in the inner Life of Jesus , p. 125. 10 See Abaelard in Migne , vol. 178, p. 836: ‘Justior quoque, id est amplius Dominum diligens, quisque fit post passionem Christi quam ante, quia amplius in amorem accendit completum beneficium quam speratum.

Redemptio itaque nostra est illa summa in nobis per passionem Christ dilectio quae non solum a servitute peccati liberat, sed veram nobis libertatem filiorum Dei acquirit, ut amore ejus potius quam timore cuncta impleamus, qui nobis tantam exhibuit gratiam qua major inveniri ipso attestante non potest.’ He then refers to John 15:13, Luke 12:49, Romans 5:5. 11 See Westcott, The Epistles of St. John, p. 34 ff.; Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 293 ff.

CHAPTER - 1 I venture to quote two sentences in illustration of this paragraph. Dr, Dale (Life , p. 666), who read Pusey’s life ‘with a deep impression of the nobleness and massiveness of his nature, and feeling more than ever that the power of God was with him,’ had nevertheless to add: ‘The absence of joy in his religious life was only the inevitable effect of his conception of God’s method of saving men; in parting with the Lutheran truth concerning justification (it might equally well be said with the New Testament truth of Christ’s finished work) he parted with the springs of gladness.’ It is in the same line that Dr. Fairbairn has said of Pusey, that the sense of sin was ‘more a matter for himself to bear than for grace to remove’ (Philosophy of the Christian Religion , p. 333). The other sentence is from Chalmers, a great nature who had an original experience of the New Testament religion and often found original utterance for it: ‘Regaled myself with the solidity of the objective part of religion, and long to enter a field of enlargement in preaching on the essential truths of the gospel’ (Life , by Hanna, vol. 2. p. 417). 2 Aus den Tiefen der Reflexion : aus Soren Kierkegaards Tagebuchen, 1833- 1855: aus dem Danischen ubersetzt von F. Venator. 3 For a typical illustration, see Dale’s Christian Doctrine , pp. 251 ff. 4 Contentio Veritatis, p. 74. 5 The Gospel of the Atonement, p. 89.

CHAPTER - 1 Of course this does not touch the fact that the whole ‘authority’ of the Christian religion is in Jesus Himself — in His historical presence in the world, His words and works, His life and death and resurrection.