CHRIST'S TESTIMONY TO HIMSELF.
By Samuel T. Spear
THE Jews—some of them from motives of hostility, and others with a desire to know the truth—several times during the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, raised the question, as they had previously done in respect to John the Baptist, whether he was the Messiah, the Christ so often mentioned by the prophets, and so long expected by the Jewish people. His general answer to this question, in the affirmative, we have in these words: "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." There is no doubt that by the term "Scriptures," here used, Jesus meant comprehensively the sacred writings, then existing among the Jews, which had so existed for centuries, and which were by them regarded as of divine origin and authority, and now known among Christians as the Old Testament. He frequently quoted these Scriptures, often used them to confirm his own teaching, always distinguished them from the traditions and commandments of men, sometimes expounded them, and never rejected or denied any part of them. He said expressly: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." His position in regard to these ancient writings is a great help to Christian thought in reference to the question of their credibility and divine authority. Those who believe in him feel it quite safe to accept what he so fully accepted and indorsed. The woman of Samaria with whom Jesus talked, being greatly impressed with his words, said to him, "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet." After further conference with him, perhaps in her own mind raising the question whether he was not the Messiah, she said to him: "I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ; when he is come, he will tell us all things." Jesus at once replied to her, "I that speak unto thee am he," thus in express words affirming his own Messiahship. When John the Baptist was in prison and there heard of the works of this Jesus, he sent two of his disciples, directing them to ask him this question: "Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?" Jesus, though not directly answering this question, virtually said that he was the Christ that was to come; and this he did by telling these disciples to call John's attention to his works, which were naturally adapted to lead him to this conclusion. Standing before the Sanhedrim on the charge of blasphemy, he was asked by the high priest whether he was "the Christ, the Son of God," and he replied, "I am." Jesus, in his interview after his resurrection, with the two disciples who were on their way to the village of Emmaus, was told by them of the things which had recently occurred at Jerusalem, relating to "Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him." They further said that they "trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel," and then referred to some reports that this very Jesus had already risen from the dead. He then spake to them as follows: "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." He here identifies his own history, as these disciples knew it to be, with the history assigned by the prophets to the Messiah, and, in so doing, affirms himself to be this Messiah.196 In the evening of the day on which he rose from the dead, Jesus met ten of his disciples in Jerusalem, and after identifying himself to them as the real person who had been put to death on the cross, he said to them: "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things." Here also Jesus identifies his own history with that of the Christ of whom the prophets had spoken. There is no doubt that when on earth, he claimed both before and after his death, to be the Messiah of prophetic promise. He was so understood by the Jews and by his disciples. This is one part of his testimony concerning himself. So, also, Jesus, according to his own statement, though a man born of the Virgin Mary, had, nevertheless, come down from Heaven, and from God the Father, to be the Saviour of sinners, and to suffer and die in their behalf. To Nicodemus he said: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whatsoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." He also said that "the Son of man is come to save that which was lost," and that "the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and to "give his life a ransom for many." He further said: "I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment [appointment] have I received of my Father." The Lord's Supper, as instituted and explained by him, is a memorial of his death—of his body broken for sinners, and his blood "shed for the remission of sins." The doctrine of salvation for this lost and guilty world through him, and as the result of his atoning work in human behalf, by his own death on the cross, shines out all through the ministry of Jesus. It is one of the most prominent thoughts of that ministry. He invited all classes to come to him for this boon of God's grace, assuring them that if they did so they would be saved from the wrath to come, and that if they failed to do so they would die in their sins, and under the curse of God. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." Such is the testimony of Jesus concerning himself, considered as the Saviour of sinners. Equally evident is it that Jesus so spoke and acted as to convey the impression that he was divine as well as human, and thus invested himself with the attributes of the Godhead. As human, he could and did say, "My Father is greater than I;" but as divine, he could and did say, "I and my Father are one," and also say that "as the Father knoweth me even so know I the Father," thus assuming for himself infinite knowledge, and also say: "Before Abraham was, I am," and still further say that "all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." He appropriated to himself the title "Son of God," in a sense which, as he knew, implied the assertion of his own divinity. He did so when standing before the Sanhedrim on the charge of blasphemy. He wrought miracles without appealing to any power higher than his own; and on one occasion he performed a miracle in the healing of a paralytic, to prove, as he expressly said, that "the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." In his intercessory prayer, as stated in the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of John, he said: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." The Jews on several occasions understood Jesus to make himself "equal with God," and took up stones to stone him as a blasphemer in arrogating to himself divine powers and attributes; and he interposed no disclaimer to correct their understanding of his language. The apostles did not invent the doctrine of his divinity, but rather received it from him who spoke of himself in their hearing as no one less than divine can truly speak. To deny this doctrine is to impeach him as a teacher. The doctrine belongs essentially to the testimony which he gave concerning himself, and is a vital part of that testimony. When Paul said that "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily," he said no more than Jesus had previously said in regard to himself. Great as may be the mystery, the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus is a doctrine which he taught, and which his apostles taught after he had ascended into Heaven. This same Jesus announced himself to the Jews and to his disciples, and through the record of his public ministry, now announces himself to mankind, as the person who, in the final day, will raise the dead, judge the world in righteousness, and appoint men to their eternal destiny. In respect to the resurrection of the dead by his power, he said: "The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." He declared himself to be "the resurrection and the life." He taught not only that there would be a resurrection, but also that it would be by his power. Speaking of himself as "the Son of man," Jesus also said: "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." The "sheep" represent the righteous, and the "goats" represent the wicked. To the former Jesus will say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." To the latter he will say: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." The latter, as he declares, "shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." Paul, when he "stood in the midst of Mars Hill," and spoke to the Athenians, said to them that God "hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." The same apostle in his second epistle to the Corinthians, also says: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." Where did Paul get these ideas of Jesus as the judge of the world, and the arbiter of human destiny? They are a part of the gospel which, as he expressly says in his epistle to the Galatians, was communicated to him "by the revelation of Jesus Christ." That is to say, Christ, after he had ascended into Heaven, and after he had called Saul of Tarsus to be an apostle, taught him by "revelation" just what he himself had taught when on earth. We have, then, in Jesus of Nazareth, a person who, upon his own testimony concerning himself, is the Messiah or Christ of Scripture promise, who is the Saviour of sinners, and was to die and did die for them, who, though in his human nature bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, nevertheless, claimed for himself and exercised the powers of the Godhead, and who, in the great day of final account, will raise the dead, judge the world in righteousness, and assign everyone to his eternal destiny. Such is the Jesus of the gospel narrative. He has no parallel in the history of this world. He spoke as man never spoke, and as no mere man can speak, and yet speak the truth. He is a divine Saviour, and as such, his offices and friendship are worth more than all the world beside. No one can do so wise a thing as to put himself in alliance with this Jesus, and consecrate to him the best affections of his heart, and the best service of his life.—Samuel T. Spear, D. D., in Independent.