In [Hos. xi. 1]; [Exod. iv. 22], the people of Israel, and in [2 Sam, vii. 14]; [Ps. ii. 7] (comp. [lxxxix. 28]), the king of that people, are called the son and the first-born of God. The kings (as also the people) of Israel had this appellation, in virtue of the love which Jehovah bore them, and the tutelary care which he exercised over them ([2 Sam. vii. 14]); and from the second psalm we gather the farther reason, that as earthly kings choose their sons to reign with or under them, so the Israelitish kings were invested by Jehovah, the supreme ruler, with the government of his favourite province. Thus the designation was originally applicable to every Israelitish king who adhered to the principle of the theocracy; but when the messianic idea was developed, it was pre-eminently assigned to the Messiah, as the best-beloved Son, and the most powerful vicegerent of God on earth.[20]
If, then, such was the original historical signification of the epithet, Son of God, as applied to the Messiah, we have to ask: is it possible that Jesus used it of himself in this signification only, or did he use it also in either of the three senses previously adduced? The narrowest, the merely physical import of the term is not put into the mouth of Jesus, but into that of the annunciating angel, [Luke i. 35]; and for this the Evangelist alone is responsible. In the intermediate, metaphysical sense, implying unity of essence [[289]]and community of existence with God, it might possibly have been understood by Jesus, supposing him to have remodelled in his own conceptions the theocratic interpretation current among his compatriots. It is true that the abundant expressions having this tendency in the Gospel of John, appear to contradict those of Jesus on an occasion recorded by the synoptical writers ([Mark x. 17 f.]; [Luke xviii. 18 f.]), when to a disciple who accosts him as Good Master, he replies: Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God. Here Jesus so tenaciously maintains the distinction between himself and God, that he renounces the predicate of (perfect) goodness, and insists on its appropriation to God alone.[21] Olshausen supposes that this rejection related solely to the particular circumstances of the disciple addressed, who, regarding Jesus as a merely human teacher, ought not from his point of view to have given him a divine epithet, and that it was not intended by Jesus as a denial that he was, according to a just estimate of his character, actually the ἀγαθὸς in whom the one good Being was reflected as in a mirror; but this is to take for granted what is first to be proved, namely, that the declarations of Jesus concerning himself in the fourth gospel are on a level as to credibility with those recorded by the synoptical writers. Two of these writers cite some words of Jesus which have an important bearing on our present subject: All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son but the Father: neither knoweth any man the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him, [Matt. xi. 27]. Taking this passage in connexion with the one before quoted, we must infer that Jesus had indeed an intimate communion of thought and will with God, but under such limitations, that the attribute of perfect goodness, as well as of absolute knowledge (e.g., of the day and hour of the last day, [Mark xiii. 32] parall.) belonged exclusively to God, and hence the boundary line between divine and human was strictly preserved. Even in the fourth gospel Jesus declares, My Father is greater than I, ὁ πατήρ μον μείζων μου ἐστὶ ([xiv. 28]), but this slight echo of the synoptical statement does not remove the difficulty of conciliating the numerous discourses of a totally different tenor in the former, with the rejection of the epithet ἀγαθὸς in the latter. It is surprising, too, that Jesus in the fourth gospel appears altogether ignorant of the theocratic sense of the expression υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, and can only vindicate his use of it in the metaphysical sense, by retreating to its vague and metaphorical application. When, namely ([John x. 34 ff.]), to justify his assumption of this title, he adduces the scriptural application of the term θεοὶ to other men, such as princes and magistrates, we are at a loss to understand why Jesus should resort to this remote and precarious argument, when close at hand lay the far more cogent one, that in the Old Testament, a theocratic king of Israel, or according to the customary interpretation of the most striking passages, the Messiah, is called the Son of Jehovah, and that therefore he, having declared himself to be the Messiah ([v. 25]), might consistently claim this appellation.
With respect to the light in which Jesus was viewed as the Son of God by others, we may remark that in the addresses of well-affected persons the title is often so associated as to be obviously a mere synonym of Χριστὸς, and this even in the fourth gospel; while on the other hand the contentious Ἰουδαῖοι of this gospel seem in their objections as ignorant as Jesus in his defence, of the theocratic, and only notice the metaphysical meaning of the expression. [[290]]It is true that, even in the synoptical gospels, when Jesus answers affirmatively the question whether he be the Christ, the Son of the living God ([Matt. xxvi. 65], parall.), the high priest taxes him with blasphemy; but he refers merely to what he considers the unwarranted arrogation of the theocratic dignity of the Messiah, whereas in the fourth gospel, when Jesus represents himself as the Son of God ([v. 17 f.], [x. 30 ff.]), the Jews seek to kill him for the express reason that he thereby makes himself ἴσον τῷ θεῷ, nay even ἑαυτὸν θεὸν. According to the synoptical writers, the high priest so unhesitatingly considers the idea of the Son of God to pertain to that of the Messiah, that he associates the two titles as if they were interchangeable, in the question he addresses to Jesus: on the contrary the Jews in the Gospel of John regard the one idea as so far transcending the other, that they listen patiently to the declaration of Jesus that he is the Messiah ([x. 25]), but as soon as he begins to claim to be the Son of God, they take up stones to stone him. In the synoptical gospels the reproach cast on Jesus is, that being a common man, he gives himself out for the Messiah; in the fourth gospel, that being a mere man, he gives himself out for a divine being. Hence Olshausen and others have justly insisted that in those passages of the latter gospel to which our remarks have reference, the υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ is not synonymous with Messiah, but is a name far transcending the ordinary idea of the Messiah;[22] they are not, however, warranted in concluding that therefore in the first three Evangelists also[23] the same expression imports more than the Messiah. For the only legitimate interpretation of the high priest’s question in Matthew makes ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ a synonym of ὁ Χριστὸς, and though in the parallel passage of Luke, the judges first ask Jesus if he be the Christ ([xxii. 67])? and when he declines a direct answer,—predicting that they will behold the Son of man seated at the right hand of God,—hastily interrupt him with the question, Art thou the Son of God? ([v. 70]); yet, after receiving what they consider an affirmative answer, they accuse him before Pilate as one who pretends to be Christ, a king ([xxiii. 2]), thus clearly showing that Son of man, Son of God, and Messiah, must have been regarded as interchangeable terms. It must therefore be conceded that there is a discrepancy on this point between the synoptical writers and John, and perhaps also an inconsistency of the latter with himself; for in several addresses to Jesus he retains the customary form, which associated Son of God with Christ or King of Israel, without being conscious of the distinction between the signification which υἱὸς τ. θ. must have in such a connexion, and that in which he used it elsewhere—a want of perception which habitual forms of expression are calculated to induce. We have before cited examples of this oversight in the fourth Evangelist ([John i. 49], [vi. 69], [xi. 27]).
The author of the Probabilia reasonably considers it suspicious that, in the fourth gospel, Jesus and his opponents should appear entirely ignorant of the theocratic sense which is elsewhere attached to the expression ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, and which must have been more familiar to the Jews than any other, unless we suppose some of them to have partaken of Alexandrian culture. To such, we grant, as well as to the fourth Evangelist, judging from his prologue, the metaphysical relation of the λόγος μονογενὴς to God would be the most cherished association. [[291]]
§ 64.
THE DIVINE MISSION AND AUTHORITY OF JESUS. HIS PRE-EXISTENCE.
The four Evangelists are in unison as to the declaration of Jesus concerning his divine mission and authority. Like every prophet, he is sent by God ([Matt. x. 40]; [John v. 23] f., [56 f.]), acts and speaks by the authority, and under the immediate guidance of God ([John v. 19 ff.]), and exclusively possesses an adequate knowledge of God, which it is his office to impart to men ([Matt xi. 27]; [John iii. 13]). To him, as the Messiah, all power is given ([Matt. xi. 27]); first, over the kingdom which he is appointed to found and to rule with all its members ([John x. 29], [xvii. 6]); next, over mankind in general ([John xvii. 2]), and even external nature ([Matt, xxviii. 18]); consequently, should the interests of the messianic kingdom demand it, power to effect a thorough revolution in the whole world. At the future commencement of his reign, Jesus, as Messiah, is authorized to awake the dead ([John v. 28]), and to sit as a judge, separating those worthy to partake of the heavenly kingdom from the unworthy ([Matt. xxv. 31 ff.]; [John v. 22], [29]); offices which Jewish opinion attributed to the Messiah,[24] and which Jesus, once convinced of his Messiahship, would necessarily transfer to himself.
The Evangelists are not equally unanimous on another point. According to the synoptical writers, Jesus claims, it is true, the highest human dignity, and the most exalted relation with God, for the present and future, but he never refers to an existence anterior to his earthly career: in the fourth gospel, on the contrary, we find several discourses of Jesus which contain the repeated assertion of such a pre-existence. We grant that when Jesus describes himself as coming down from heaven ([John iii. 13], [xvi. 28]), the expression, taken alone, may be understood as a merely figurative intimation of his superhuman origin. It is more difficult, but perhaps admissible, to interpret, with the Socinian Crell, the declaration of Jesus, Before Abraham was, I am, πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγω εἰμι ([John viii. 58]), as referring to a purely ideal existence in the pre-determination of God; but scarcely possible to consider the prayer to the Father ([John xvii. 5]) to confirm the δόξα (glory) which Jesus had with Him before the world was, πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι, as an entreaty for the communication of a glory predestined for Jesus from eternity. But the language of Jesus, [John vi. 62], where he speaks of the Son of man reascending αναβαίνειν where he was before ὅπου ἦν τὸ πρότερον, is in its intrinsic meaning, as well as in that which is reflected on it from other passages, unequivocally significative of actual, not merely ideal, pre-existence.
It has been already conjectured[25] that these expressions, or at least the adaptation of them to a real pre-existence, are derived, not from Jesus, but from the author of the fourth gospel, with whose opinions, as propounded in his introduction, they specifically agree; for if the Word was in the beginning with God (ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θέον), Jesus, in whom it was made flesh, might attribute to himself an existence before Abraham, and a participation of glory with the Father before the foundation of the world. Nevertheless, we are not warranted in adopting this view, unless it can be shown that neither was the idea of the pre-existence of the Messiah extant among the Jews of Palestine before the time of Jesus, nor is it probable that Jesus attained such a notion, independently of the ideas peculiar to his age and nation.