LECTURE II. THE HISTORY OF OUR LORD Jesus chriST IN RELATION IT TO THE FACT OF THE ATONEMENT. is assumed in this series of Lectures that the Lord Jesus Christ was "God manifest in the flesh." The revelation which has come to us through Him is, therefore, different in kind from that which has come to us through the Prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles of the New. I It is said of Moses that the Lord spake to him "face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend," and that Isaiah "saw His glory." 2 St. Paul declared that the gospel preached by him was "not of man ;"-"I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ."3 And St. John describes his own function, and that of the other Apostles, when "The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested he says, But the Lord Jesus Christ was Himself the "brightness of [God's] glory, and the express image of His 1 Exod. xxxiii. 11. 2 John xii. 41. 4 1 John i. 2. 3 Gal. i. 12. person." And to one of the Apostles, who was longing for the immediate vision of God, and who said to Him, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," our Lord replied, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." When Prophets have told us their visions and Apostles their gospel, their work is done. They are weak, erring, sinful men like ourselves. They have seen the Divine glory, and they tell us what they have seen. They have been taught of God, and they tell us what they have learnt. But the revelation is over when they cease to speak. Their personal character and history, their relations to their friends and to their enemies, their occupations, their sorrows and their joys-all these have only a secondary and human interest. It is not so with our Lord Jesus Christ. Far more of God was revealed in what He was, in what He did, and in what He suffered, than in what He taught. The resources of human language had been almost exhausted, before Christ came, in the attempt to celebrate the majesty, the holiness, and the mercy of God; and although, as a Teacher of religious truth, the Lord Jesus Christ had a unique power, we misapprehend the character of the supremacy which He claims, if we suppose that it is to be illustrated and vindicated by placing His mere words side by side with the words of Prophets who preceded Him. I doubt whether He ever said anything about the Divine compassion more pathetic or more perfectly beautiful than had been said 2 John xiv. 9. 1 Heb. i. 3. |