[431] Acts 2. 22.
[432] Acts 20. 28; 7. 59; 3. 6; 4. 10.
Next, as to the Book of Revelation. The evidence this affords is important, because nearly all critics admit that it was written by St. John. And if so, it shows conclusively that one at least of Christ's intimate followers firmly believed in His Divinity. For he not only speaks of Him as being universally worshipped both in heaven and on earth, but describes Him as the First and the Last, which is a title used by God in the Old Testament, and is plainly inapplicable to anyone else.[433] And we may ask, is it conceivable that an intimate friend of Christ should have believed Him to be the Everlasting God, unless He had claimed to be so Himself, and had supported His claim by working miracles, and rising from the dead? Is it not, rather, certain that nothing but the most overwhelming proof would ever have convinced a Jew (of all persons) that a fellow Man, with whom he had lived for years, and whom he had then seen put to death as a malefactor, was Himself the Lord Jehovah, the First and the Last?
[433] Rev. 5. 11-14; 1. 17, 18; 2. 8; 22. 13; Isa. 44. 6.
But it is urged on the other side, that the writer also calls Him the beginning of the Creation of God, as if He had been merely the first Being created.[434] But the previous passages clearly show that this was not his meaning. It was rather that Christ was the beginning of creation, because He was its Source and Agent; He by whom, as the same writer declares, all things were made. And elsewhere a similar title is given Him for this identical reason, as He is called the first-born of all creation, because all things have been created through Him.[435]
[434] Rev. 3. 14;
[435] John 1. 3; Col. 1. 15, 16.
Equally important evidence is afforded by St. Paul's Epistles. For though he is not likely to have known Christ intimately, he must have been acquainted with numbers who did, including, as he says, James the Lord's brother.[436] And his early conversion, before A.D. 35, together with the fact that he had previously persecuted the Church at Jerusalem, and afterwards visited some of the Apostles there, must have made him well acquainted with the Christian doctrines from the very first. Moreover he tells us himself that the faith which he taught was the same as that which he had previously persecuted; and that when he visited the Apostles he laid before them the Gospel he preached, evidently to make sure that it agreed with what they preached.[437]
[436] Gal. 1. 19.
[437] Gal. 1. 23; 2. 2.