vital question is, is it true? Truth is never injurious, but error always is. The change from a false to a true position may involve risks and dangers. But the danger in remaining in the false position is infinitely greater. A general may discover as the battle progresses that he has occupied an improper position; to change to a better position will expose his soldiers to great dangers; but to remain where he is is to suffer entire defeat; therefore the change must be made, the risks run, in order to win the battle. The same principle applies in the treatment of moral and religious questions. The false position must be abandoned and the true one taken. It is the only way by which the cause of truth can be subserved. Seek the truth and follow it, is the only safe motto for the Christian scholar to adopt.

In conclusion I wish to say yet for myself personally that the position I have been led to take on the subject discussed in this paper has made the Bible a far more interesting, fascinating and profitable book to me than it formerly was. The book has been brought closer to me. The truth revealed has taken firmer hold of my heart. My faith in God as revealed in and through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, has been increased and strengthened. I see more of the human in the sacred Scriptures than I formerly did, but no less of the divine. I see more of the divine in the world at large, though none the less of the human. I feel myself rooted and grounded in the faith in that one almighty and everlasting God who is above all and over all and in all.

III.

THE DEATH OF JESUS: A SYNOPTIC STUDY.

BY PROF. JOHN C. BOWMAN, D.D.

The Synoptic Gospels are preeminently the source of the teaching of Jesus concerning his death, for the reason that they set forth with substantial accuracy the words of Jesus as they were spoken. The fourth Gospel, while essentially trustworthy, may not be regarded as historical in the sense in which the term is applied to the Synoptic Gospels. The differences between it and the Synoptics in regard to the narrative of events in the life of Jesus, and especially in regard to the teaching of Jesus, are so wide, both as to content and style, as to warrant the separate treatment of it as a Gospel-source. In the present discussion, its testimony, however valuable, will not therefore be cited.

The direct teaching of Jesus concerning his death, as found in the Synoptics, is confined to comparatively few statements, which belong to the last six months of his ministry, mainly to the last week.

By some these statements may be regarded as the prescribed limits of a biblico-theological discussion of the teaching of Jesus concerning his death. But there is a primary question, apart from which the sayings of Jesus concerning his death are unintelligible. That is the question concerning his Messianic consciousness, out of which his teaching concerning his sufferings and death grew.

The starting-point, therefore, must be the Messiahship of Jesus, or the character of his Messianic consciousness.

Did Jesus, when entering upon his ministry, contemplate death as a necessity of his Messiahship? Or did the prospect of death arise at a later stage of his ministry as the inevitable issue of the growing unbelief and hostility of the Jewish nation?

Here, as elsewhere, the teaching of Jesus can be rightly interpreted only in the light of his person. The choice of two conceptions confronts us. The one is that Jesus early in his boyhood (Luke II. 49), or in his childhood even, as some maintain, had a full and clear consciousness of his Messiahship; that the bap tismal vision was simply a divine call to begin his official work; that his sufferings and death were the foreordained means of redemption; and that with divine prevision he foresaw each succeeding step in his career, and accepted the terms of Messiahship, including sufferings and death, in conscious fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.

This conception has the merit of logical consistency, and serves as a convenient solution of many vexed problems, provided the ordinary laws of nature, psychology, and history be entirely left out of the account.

The other conception is, that Jesus unfolded his life and character conformably to the law of normal humanity, conditioned throughout by the historical forces common to his age. According to this latter conception, Jesus, while possessing and retaining the properties of divine sonship, authenticates himself both to faith and reason as a historical person, that is, a person historically explicable. This conception is fully in harmony with the data presented in the Gospel history.

From the Synoptic record it very evidently appears that prior to his baptism Jesus neither directly nor indirectly asserted any Messianic claims. Whether or not he knew himself to be the Messiah before that event, cannot be so certainly determined. Inferentially the argument is against such knowledge. In the Synoptics there is nothing whatever to indicate that Messianic consciousness antedated the act of baptism.

Some biblical scholars, while accepting the fact of the Messiahship of Jesus, deny that Jesus made any direct Messianic claims for himself. This is notably the case with Professor Nathaniel Schmidt,* who confesses "the wholly unexpected result" of his investigations, "that Jesus never made for himself Messianic claims, either at the baptism or at Cæsarea Philippi."

* Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. XIX., p. 23.

any

The conviction is to some extent relieved of its startling character by the added statement: "That Jesus rose above even the desire to become a righteous king, a world-conquering Messiah, can be explained only by his peculiar moral disposition and his supreme religious genius." Few christian scholars may be ready to share the conviction expressed by Professor Schmidt. At the same time it must be acknowledged that the Gospels clearly teach that so far as Jesus entertained Messianic claims, they were directly at variance with the prevalent Messianic conceptions and hopes of his age. He was not, and would not be, the Messiah of either the earlier or later prophets, much less of the Rabbis and Scribes; not even of John the Baptist. As applied to himself the name Messiah must have new content and new meaning. The political ideas of freedom and world-dominion must yield to the conception of a purely spiritual reign. The kingdom which Jesus would establish is God's kingdom, a kingdom in which men, delivered from sin, shall live as sons of God, loving God and loving one another. Jesus presents himself as the ideal of God's kingdom, in word and in deed revealing the will of the Father. According to the Synoptists the work of Jesus was primarily that of a teacher, a revealer of God. Whether he assumed the title of Messiah or not, Jesus' idea of Messiahship was to win men from a life of sin to a life of holiness and love. Primarily, therefore, by living the Messianic life of holiness and love, and thereby teaching men how to live, did Jesus seek to fulfill his mission among men. A life consecrated to God-which was the chief significance of the baptism of Jesus -apart from any sacrificial victim, is the offering most acceptable to God. Nor can it be said that the life of Jesus would have lacked full saving efficacy had his Messianic ministry been approved by the Jewish nation, and his death thereby obviated. This thought is not without value in its bearing on the general problem of human redemption. Some may be disposed to rule it out of order on the ground that as it is simply supposable it is therefore valueless. It is well to tighten the reins of speculative thought. Into that realm I have no disposition to

carry the discussion. But from the study of the Synoptics, and on the basis of their direct and implied teaching, I feel warranted in raising the questions: Was the death of Jesus necessarily involved in his Messiahship? Did Jesus contemplate his death as essential to his Messianic mission?

It is quite certain that the death of the Messiah was not needful for the setting up of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God was at hand for all who would enter and conform to the requirements of membership. The simple terms of repentance and faith carried with them the promise of full participation in Forgiveness and salvation were

the blessings of the kingdom.

is

offered and accepted without reference to the death of Jesus. It very certain that the death of Jesus did not appear as a condition of salvation to the thought of the disciples.

But did not the death of the Messiah enter into the secret counsels of God as forming part of his plan of redemption? And as Jesus shared the counsels of the Father did he not in the beginning of his ministry contemplate his death as the chief ground of salvation? While the disciples of Jesus did not anticipate the death of their Lord, was not their salvation nevertheless dependent upon the retroactive effect of the atonement? Such questions are interesting as setting forth the assumptions of doctrinal belief, but they are too far removed from the field of scien tific study to admit of serious consideration. We have to do primarily with the facts in the case as these appear in the Gospel narrative. Jesus appears among men as the proclaimer and founder of the kingdom of God. He bids men to enter the kingdom and live as children of God.

According to the Synop

tists he makes few claims for himself. His person is kept in the background. The burden of his message is the Kingdom of God. He defines its nature, the conditions of membership, and the life of righteousness and brotherly love as its chief requirement. His works conveyed the same lesson as his direct teaching. They were part of his teaching-object lessons-illustrating God's rule of love in and through his kingdom. The purpose of the miracles was not to overawe men by an exhibition of supernatural power,