Pfleiderer, Philos. of Religion, 1:272—“That the divine idea of man as ‘the son of his love’ (Col. 1:13), and of humanity as the kingdom of this Son of God, is the immanent final cause of all existence and development even in the prior world of nature, this has been the fundamental thought of the Christian Gnosis since the apostolic age, and I think that no philosophy has yet been able to shake or to surpass this thought—the corner stone of an idealistic view of the world.” But Mead, Ritschl's Place in the History of Doctrine, 10, says of Pfleiderer and Ritschl: “Both recognize Christ as morally perfect and as the head of the Christian Church. Both deny his pre-existence and his essential Deity. Both reject the traditional conception of Christ as an atoning Redeemer. Ritschl calls Christ God, though inconsistently; Pfleiderer declines to say one thing when he seems to mean another.”
The passages here alluded to abundantly confute the Docetic denial of Christ's veritable human body, and the Apollinarian denial of Christ's veritable human soul. More than this, they establish the reality and integrity of Christ's human nature, as possessed of all the elements, faculties, and powers essential to humanity.
2. The Deity of Christ.
The reality and integrity of Christ's divine nature have been sufficiently proved in a former chapter (see pages 305-315). We need only refer to the evidence there given, that, during his earthly ministry, Christ:
(a) Possessed a knowledge of his own deity.
John 3:13—“the Son of man, who is in heaven”—a passage with clearly indicates Christ's consciousness, at certain times in his earthly life at least, that he was not confined to earth but was also in heaven [here, however, Westcott and Hort, with א and B, omit ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ; for advocacy of the common reading, see Broadus, in Hovey's Com. on John 3:13]; 8:58—“Before Abraham was born, I am”—here Jesus declares that there is a respect in which the idea of birth and beginning does not apply to him, but in which he can apply to himself the name “I am” of the eternal God; 14:9, 10—“Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?”
Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 24-49, gives the following instances of Jesus' supernatural knowledge: 1. Jesus' knowledge of Peter (John 1:42); 2. his finding of Philip (1:43); 3. his recognition of Nathanael (1:47-50); 4. of the woman of Samaria (4:17-19, 39); 5. miraculous draughts of fishes (Luke 5:6-9; John 21:6); 6. death of Lazarus (John 11:14); 7. of the ass's colt (Mat. 21:2); 8. of the upper room (Mark 14:15); 9. of Peter's denial (Mat. 26:34); 10. of the manner of his own death (John 12:33; 18:32); 11. of the manner of Peter's death (John 21:19); 12. of the fall of Jerusalem (Mat. 24:2).
Jesus does not say “our Father” but “my Father” (John 20:17). Rejection of him is a greater sin than rejection of the prophets, because he is the “beloved Son” of God (Luke 20:13). He knows God's purposes better than the angels, because he is the Son of God (Mark 13:32). As Son of God, he alone knows, and he alone can reveal, the Father (Mat. [pg 682]11:27). There to clearly something more in his Sonship than in that of his disciples (John 1:14—“only begotten”; Heb. 1:6—“first begotten”). See Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 37; Denney, Studies in Theology, 33.
(b) Exercised divine powers and prerogatives.