A brief examination of the Gospel narrative, even as presented by the Synoptics, makes it quite clear that Christ claimed to be True God, and that He was acknowledged as such by His Apostles. This, it may be contended, is not of itself a conclusive proof of Christ's divinity; for although it sufficiently refutes the Rationalistic assertion that for the divine sonship of Christ there is no warrant in Holy Scripture, yet how do we know that neither Christ nor His Apostles were mistaken in His personal identity? May He not have been subject to some sort of halucination, and may not His Apostles have been carried beyond the bounds of sober discretion by their enthusiastic admiration of His striking personality? Hence even if the conclusion reached in the preceding chapter be granted, we are still at sea as regards the true personality of Christ.
It is truly marvelous to what length persons will go in order to escape the necessity of admitting the plain truth. Christ subject to hallucination! Christ, admittedly the greatest sage, the most profound philosopher, that ever lived, a common fool! Is not this very suggestion, which found much favor with Rationalists a few years ago, an evident sign that the opponents of Christ's divinity are merely grasping at straws? And how utterly absurd! There may be "method in madness," but not a method that changes folly into wisdom; not a method that can transform a fool into a prophet; not a method that can "lift empires from their hinges, and change the stream of ages." And so apparent is this that the "hallucination theory" is now practically abandoned.
Nor will it do to have recourse to the enthusiasm of His biographers; for every line penned by them plainly shows that they were singularly unenthusiastic in all they recorded. They were simple, literal-minded men, who had not the gift of poetic invention. Moreover, as Rousseau well puts it, "the inventor would be more wonderful than the hero." Modern criticism goes even beyond this, and candidly admits that "the inventor is an impossibility. To invent the character of Jesus, a second Jesus would be needed."
Furthermore, it is an undeniable historic fact, that Christ during His lifetime wrought many signs and wonders, which, as even His enemies admitted, no man could work: -- He gave sight to persons born blind, He cured the most inveterate diseases by a mere word of His mouth, and even restored the dead to life. Now what bearing has this upon His claim that He was True God? Why, what other bearing can it have than that His claim was necessarily true? For He either did these works through His own power, and then He certainly was God; because He who does the work which only God can do, must needs Himself be God: or the Father did these works for Him, and then too He must be God; because in that case these very works are God's own testimony to the truth of Christ's claim that He was one with the Father. Consequently we are forced to say, that if Christ is not God there is no God in heaven. For as the miracles which Christ wrought were such that they could proceed from no one but God, and as they ultimately served no other purpose than to confirm His claim that He was a divine person, it is quite evident that if His claim were not legitimate God Himself would have testified to a falsehood. But a god who can testify to a falsehood is a self-contradiction and as such can have no objective existence.
This argument is certainly conclusive, especially as it has been solidly proved in a preceding chapter that miracles are possible and that the gospel narratives are reliable historical documents. It simply leaves no alternative except either to admit the div inity of Christ or to deny the existence of God; and if the existence of God be denied then this whole world of ours is an enigma that none can read. However as the argument from Christ's miracles is sufficiently obvious without further comment, we shall not develop it here; but in place of it we shall present one that is unwittingly supplied by the very men against whom we are arguing. It runs thus: If Christ was good, He is God if Christ is not God, He was not good.
This argument, as will be perceived, is based upon the universally admitted fact that Christ was a good, virtuous, and noble character; and upon the further fact that He cannot possibly be considered as such a character, except on the supposition that he was God as well as man. It is a short and simple argument, but very effective, as a brief development will make apparent.
Among the host of so-called advanced thinkers, who venture to call in question Christ's divinity, there is not one who does not concede that as man Christ was a model of perfection. Even the most irreligious and the most antagonistic look up with reverence to the purity, the divine self-forgetfulness, the moral beauty and perfection of this unequalled character. Nor do they at all hesitate to give expression to their admiration. "Do you love the beautiful," they say, "you must love Christ; for He is the ideal of all beauty. Do you worship moral grandeur, you must worship Christ, for beyond His grandeur there is none other." Hence even such religious sects as consider Him a mere man, still pay Him an homage that falls but little short of being divine. This universal admiration of Christ's goodness and moral grandeur has been neatly epitomized by the infidel philosopher Rousseau, in one terse sentence: "If the life and death of Socrates," he says, "were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are those of a God."{1}
Taking, therefore, the freely and universally admitted statement that Christ was a good, virtuous, and noble character, it necessarily follows that He is a divine person. Because even the most superficial examination of His life and teaching, as historically recorded by His contemporaries, brings out this remarkable and undeniable fact, that not a single one of the virtues, for the practice of which He is so highly praised, was genuine, except on the supposition that He was God as well as man. Take, for instance, His much admired charity; how boundless it seemed to be! He was so universally kind and sympathetic that the people followed Him whithersoever He went.{2} He instructed the ignorant, comforted the afflicted, fed the hungry, healed the sick, and even through sheer pity and compassion restored the dead to life. Who can read the touching Sermon on the Mount, or the pathetic discourse after the Last Supper, or call to mind the many affecting parables, in which He was wont to speak to the people, without being convinced of the genuineness of His all embracing charity? Who, with these daily proofs of Christ's charity before him, would even so much as suspect that He was not sincere when He said: "I am the good shepherd, I give my life for my sheep;"{3} "the Son of man did not come to destroy souls, but to save."{4} What charity did ever appear more consistent or more unselfish? And yet the moment you suppose that the Christ who spoke thus to his followers was a mere man, all these protestations and evidences of His unselfish charity turn out to have been but so many lies that concealed a most diabolical malice. If He was but man, if He was not also God, then, whilst He thus proposed himself to the world as the very personification of charity, He was knowingly and deliberately and of set purpose leading His disciples. and the people, and uncounted millions then still unborn, not only into the misery of temporal ruin, but into the eternal horrors of hell. For in all He said and in all He did, He had ultimately no other object in view than to induce the world to acknowledge Him as God. Throughout His public career He insisted upon His divine mission: He claimed to be one with the Father,{5} He pointed to His works as so many proofs of His divinity,{6} and on the very eve of His death, when solemnly adjured by the High Priest to tell once more, what He had told them so often, whether He was indeed the Son of the Most High God, He unhesitatingly replied: "Thou hast said it,"{7} that is, "I am in very deed." Nor did He simply state His divine relationship as a fact, but He demanded that all should recognize Him as the Son of God; He demanded that for His sake all should be ready to leave father and mother, and all else they held dear in the world. He demanded that for their faith in His divinity they should be prepared to suffer hunger and thirst, and the torments of fire and the rack, and to lay down their very lives. Nor did He demand this in theory only, but He knew and foresaw that it would be reduced to bitter practice. When He said to His Apostles, "I send you like sheep among wolves,"{8} He was fully convinced that the most dreadful tortures and certain death would be the lot of many of His followers.
Now, if we suppose that He was God as well as man, then He was justified in demanding all this; nay, then His demands were in perfect accord with the most sublime charity: because if He was God, He could make all these tortures bearable, and He could so munificently reward those who bore them for His sake that every temporal loss was but the source of eternal gain. But if He was a mere man, if He was not God, then His demands were most unjust; then so far from being kind and charitable as He pretended to be, He was the most heartless wretch that ever lived. Because in that case He knowingly and deliberately sacrificed the temporal and eternal happiness of millions to His own vain caprice and boundless ambition. If He were not God, the blood of the twelve million martyrs, who laid down their lives for their faith in His divinity, as He had demanded, would cry to heaven for vengeance, as did the blood of Abel against the fratricidal Cain. If He were not God, the whole Christian past, and the best and noblest of the human race to-day, would rise up against Him as the author of the most shameful idolatry. No, if Christ is not God, He was not good; and yet all, without exception, admit that He was good; therefore all, without exception, must admit that He is God.
The same conclusion may be drawn from a consideration of the virtue of religion. To all appearances Christ was most profoundly religious. He scrupulously observed all that was prescribed in the law of Moses concerning divine worship. He visited the temple at stated times, and evinced the greatest zeal for the house of God. He prayed much and taught His disciples to pray. He manifested in word and deed the greatest respect for God and His holy law. "I am come," He said, "not to destroy the law, but to perfect it.{9} My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, that I may perfect His work."{10} "Be ye not only hearers of the word, but doers.{11} Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its justice.{12} If thy right hand scandalize thee, cut it off; if thy eye scandalize thee, tear it out, and cast it from thee."{13} In these and similar expressions did He ever inculcate the most absolute submission to God. Now, if He was both God and man; if He was a divine person, who had assumed a human nature, His life and His teaching were perfectly consistent. Then He practiced that submission to His Father which necessarily resulted from the dependent condition of His human nature; then He enforced His precepts by the power of His own striking example. But if He were a mere man, if He were not also a divine person, then all these outward expressions of respect for God and the law of God were but a cloak intended to hide the blackest of treasons. For whilst He so zealously championed the cause of the Most High, He demanded for Himself divine homage, and made Himself deliberately for all future ages the center of divine worship. If He Himself was a divine person, if He was one with the Father, as He claimed He was, then His efforts to secure for Himself divine homage necessarily promoted the cause of God. But if He was only man, if He Himself was not God, then He was God's greatest enemy, trying His best to lead the world away from God, and thus rising above Lucifer in His titanic revolt against the God of heaven. Were He not True God of True God, He would have been justly condemned by the Sanhedrim as a blasphemer, and His death upon the cross, terrible though it was, would have been too slight a punishment for His blasphemous arrogance. Consequently as Christ was not religious, except on the supposition that His claim to divinity was legitimate, and on the other hand, as all admit that Christ was profoundly religious, it necessarily follows that all must acknowledge Him as God.
Again the same conclusion stares us in the face when we consider the virtue of humility. Christ's humility looks up to us from every page of the Gospel. He was humble in His birth in the stable, humble in His life of lowly toil at Nazareth, humble in His death upon the cross. His life was but a succession of humiliations, and He seemed to embrace them all with eagerness. He associated with sinners{14} and allowed Himself to be baptized like one of them.{15} He enjoined upon the sick, whom He healed of their infirmities, to conceal the glory of His miracles;{16} He fled into the mountains when the people wished to make Him king,{17} and He made Himself the servant of those who called Him Master.{18} Yet if He was a mere man, all this outward show of lowliness was but a most despicable hypocrisy, which had no other object than to secure more fully the glory which He affected to despise. For in that case, whilst He pretended to take the last place, He in reality aimed at the first, posing before the world as a God Who humbled Himself, and Who because of this very self-abasement must needs be the object of greater admiration. If He was a mere man, and not also a divine person, then must be applied to Him the fearful denunciation which He Himself hurled against the Pharisees, when He said: "Ye whitened sepulchres, fair indeed to the eye, but within full of dead men's bones." {19} No, if Christ is not God, He was not humble; He was the very incarnation of the spirit of pride. On the contrary, if He was humble, as all admit He was, He is God; " a God," as the Apostle puts it, "who emptied himself, taking upon himself the form of a servant, and in habit was found as a man."{20}
And so whatever other virtue you may ascribe to Christ, the moment you suppose that He was a mere man all these reputed virtues turn out to have been but so many vices. On the other hand, however, if you grant that He was, what He Himself claimed to be, the Son of God become man to redeem the world by His life and death, these same virtues are most real. Now, as the very men with whom we are arguing freely and unreservedly admit that Christ was a good, virtuous, and noble character, they are compelled by sheer force of logic to admit also that He was and is God.
The foregoing argument is partly based upon Christ's claim that He was the Son of God, one in nature with the Father, yet were we for argument's sake to concede that He never openly asserted His divine personality, the conclusion arrived at would still hold good. For His unvarying conduct was such that those with whom He came in daily contact inferred from it that He wished them to accept Him as God. It was for this reason that "the Jews took up stones to stone Him,"{21} that the Sanhedrim condemned Him to death,{22} that the Scribes and Pharisees demanded of Pilate that He should be crucified, and that Pilate himself was sorely troubled,{23} believing Him to be more than a mere man. Now if under these circumstances we suppose that He was but a human being, that He was not a divine person, then charity, not to say justice, demanded that He should have corrected the false impression to which His conduct had given rise; for there was question of grave scandal, and imminent danger of condemning an innocent man (such our adversaries suppose Him to have been) to the most shameful of deaths: yet so far was He from correcting the views of those whom His conduct had deceived, that He deliberately confirmed them in their belief; for He pointed to His works as proving that He was one with the Father,{24} He told them that His "kingdom was not of this world,"{25} and that though they were to condemn Him as a blasphemer, they should see Him "sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven."{26} Such conduct must either be considered as the grossest violation of charity, or it is a most striking proof that He was in very deed the Son of God, one in nature with the Father.
The same must be said of the virtue of religion. Whether He openly claimed that He was a divine person, or never made such a claim, the fact remains that when Peter declared Him to be God, in the memorable words, "Thou art the Son of the Living God," He rewarded that open profession of faith by making Peter His vicegerent upon earth;{27} and when Thomas made a similar profession by addressing Him as "My Lord and my God," He openly praised him for the same;{28} so that we are constrained either to acknowledge Him as God, or to despise Him as an abettor of idolatry.
So again was His humility but a sham, except on the supposition that He was God as well as man. For how can a mere man stand up before the people and say: "I am the way, the truth and the life." {29} "Which of you shall convince me of sin?" {30} "Learn of me that I am meek and humble of heart? " {31} Is it in phrases like these that a truly humble man parades his virtues before the public gaze? If so, then Lucifer was humble when he exclaimed: "Above the clouds will I place my throne; I will be even like unto the Most High."
Hence whatever way we may look at it, whether we maintain that Christ openly asserted His divinity, as He most certainly did, or whether, for argument's sake, we grant that He never made such a claim, it always remains true that He can be considered a good, virtuous and noble character only on the supposition that He was God as well as man.
{1} See beginning of preceding chapter.
{2} Mark 1, 45.
{3} John X, 11.
{4} Luke IX, 56.
{5} John X, 30.
{6} John XIV, 12.
{7} Matth. XXVI, 64.
{8} Matth. X, 16.
{9} Matth. V, 17.
{10} John IV, 34.
{11} Matth. VII, 21.
{12} Matth. VI, 33.
{13} Matth. V, 29.
{14} Matth. XI, 19.
{15} Matth. III, 6, 13.
{16} Matth. VIII, 4.
{17} John VI, 15.
{18} John XIII, 4.
{19} Matth. XXIII, 27.
{20} Philip II, 6, 7.
{21} John X, 31.
{22} Matth. XXVI, 66.
{23} XIX, 7, &
{24} John X, 30.
{25} John XVIII, 36.
{26} Matth. XXVI, 64.
{27} Matth. XVI, 16-19.
{28} John XX, 28, 29.
{29} John XIV, 6.
{30} John VIII, 46.
{31} Matth. XI, 29.