The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlights Part 16

After all, the question of the style of the Fourth Gospel is not so important as that of its contents. Does it draw an essentially different picture of Jesus from that of the Synoptic writers, or does it help us to fill out and to interpret the Synoptic portrait? Two considerations of a general nature should be kept in mind. Ordinary readers of the Gospels in all ages have seen no lack of unity in the composite portrait of the four Gospels; and recent criticism has shown that even to the sharp sighted modern critic the harmony is so great that one who rejects the historical character of John's Gospel will also reject the Second Gospel, which was written from the standpoint that Jesus is the Son of G.o.d (so Bousset), and is to be distinguished from the Fourth Gospel in degree (_graduel_) rather than in essence. The aim of Mark, and there is no reason to doubt that he reaches his aim, is in fact the same as that of John, so far as concerns his desire that his readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of G.o.d (John xx. 31).

If what the Synoptic Gospels say is true as to the words and the works and the claims and the consciousness of Jesus, then we should expect some such supplement as we find in John. We should expect either more or less than we find in the Synoptic Gospels. When we read of the Divine Voice at the baptism and the transfiguration, we ask, What did Jesus Himself conceive His relation to G.o.d to be? The full answer is in John.

When we read, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. xviii. 20), we should expect fuller teaching on the relation of Jesus to the disciples. This we have in the last discourses in John. When we read in the Synoptists accounts of the teaching and the mighty works, we turn to John for the full description of the Teacher and Lord, and of the mighty Worker manifesting His glory. The Synoptic Gospels tell us of the authority of Jesus and of His office of judgment and of His founding a Church. In John we see the ground of His authority in His relation to G.o.d and in His mystical relation to the disciples. In the Synoptists we have the Last Supper and general prophecies of the future and commands for the guidance of the Church. We should expect some more intimate and personal revelation of His relation to the disciples, such as is furnished by the Johannine picture of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and in the words, "Woman, behold thy son" (John xix. 26, 27); and in the intimate discourse of John xiv.-xvi. When we read, once more, that Jesus often retired for prayer, but in the Synoptic Gospels have the record of only one or two of His pet.i.tions: "Remove this cup from me.... Thy will be done" (see Luke xxii. 42 and compare xxii. 32), we expect some such enrichment of our knowledge of the prayer-life of Jesus as is contained in John xvii.

The historical character of the Fourth Gospel is shown alike by the light which it throws upon the course of events in the public ministry and by the more subtle resemblances between John and the Synoptists, so different in emphasis and shading that John's account cannot well have been due to Synoptic tradition, and yet so much in agreement as to give confidence that the same course of events underlies both accounts. If we look at the outward course of events under the guidance of writers such as Askwith[300] or A. E. Brooks,[301] we see that John's picture of the earliest disciples in Judea may throw light upon the narrative of the call of the four (Mark i. 16 f.). The crisis in the ministry, indicated rather than explained in the Markan narrative, is more intelligible in the light of John vi. The hosannas of the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, as well as the settled determination of the rulers to put Jesus to death, can be better understood with the help of John's statements about Lazarus (see John xii. 9-11); and the accusation of the witnesses, "We heard him say I will destroy this temple" (Mark xiv. 58), and the weeping of Jesus over Jerusalem (Matt, xxiii. 37) are again more intelligible in view of the Johannine statements about the temple of His body (John ii. 20, 21), and the accounts of His frequent visits to Jerusalem.

300: "Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel," 1910. From the Synoptists, he says, we do not learn of disciples of the Baptist becoming disciples of Jesus. "But if the work of the Baptist was what the Synoptists declare it to have been, namely, to prepare the way for the Christ, it is hardly conceivable that this work, faithfully carried out, could have failed of this result--to supply disciples for Him" (p. 59).

301: "Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel," in "Cambridge Biblical Essays." The best explanation of the silence of the Synoptists upon the raising of Lazarus is still that given by Holdsworth, "Gospel Origins," p. 126: "Every missionary knows that to mention the names of converts in published accounts of their work among a people hostile to Christianity is fraught with peril to those who are mentioned.... The difficult question of the appearance in the Fourth Gospel of the raising of Lazarus finds its best explanation in an application of this rule.... Although the Synoptists record the saying of Christ that the name of the woman who broke the bottle of spikenard ... should be mentioned [or rather her deed] wherever the Gospel was proclaimed, that name was never mentioned by them." Long afterwards John mentions Mary's name.

Relations.h.i.+ps of a more subtle kind may be found when John is compared with the Synoptic Gospels. (1) The relation of Jesus to His mother is the same in both. Compare Luke ii. 49, "Knew ye not that I must be in the things of my Father"; and John ii. 4, "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" The relation with His brethren is also the same, their right to influence Him not being admitted. (2) The causes of opposition are differently described, but are the same in principle. In both Mark ii.

and John v., the charges against Him are those of blasphemy and Sabbath breaking, and in both cases are made in connection with the miracle of healing. His defense of His action in healing on the Sabbath day is the same in principle but different in detail. In both there is an _a fortiori_ argument: "How much then is a man of more value than a sheep!"

(Matt. xii. 12); "If a man receive circ.u.mcision on the Sabbath ... are ye wroth with me because I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath?"

(John vii. 23). In both cases His action is defended by reference to His unique position, in the one case in His relation to G.o.d, "My Father worketh hitherto" (John v. 17); and in the other case in His relation to men, "The Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath" (Mark ii. 28). (3) The relation of Jesus to various cla.s.ses of people as described by John is remarkably different in detail, but wonderfully similar in essence, when compared with the Synoptic record. In each with entire difference of scene and circ.u.mstance He meets with a woman that was a sinner, but the essentials of penitence and the public expression of grat.i.tude are similar in both (Luke vii. 37 f.; John iv. 7 f.). No narratives could be more independent of each other than those of the conversation with Nicodemus in John iii., and with the rich young ruler in Mark x., yet in both cases the att.i.tude of Jesus towards an influential and upright and religious man was the same. In spite of difference in language also, the words to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again" (John iii. 7), do not differ in their radical demands from the words addressed to the ruler, "One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast and come, follow me"

(Mark x. 21).

The comparison might be continued indefinitely, but only to show that the picture of Jesus and of His relation to the Father, and to His disciples, to publicans and sinners, to the Pharisees, to women, and to the human race as Saviour and Judge, is so different in John that it cannot be due merely to the influence of the Synoptic tradition, and yet so identical in substance that it cannot possibly, with any regard for literary probabilities, have been the free invention of the writer.

It is generally agreed that the writer of the Fourth Gospel took for granted in his readers an acquaintance with the narrative or the tradition of the Synoptic Gospels. He would not have written unless he had some new light to throw upon the figure of Jesus, or some deeper insight into His personality and work. The photograph and the portrait may not perhaps agree in their mechanical measurements, but to one who knows the subject the portrait may reproduce the original as faithfully, and even more adequately, than does the photograph. Each is useful for its own purpose, but both together are needed to give us the body and the soul, the exact features and the expression, the total impression of the personality.

The criticism of the Gospels has thrown the figure of Jesus into strong relief, not only against the background of His time, but against the background of humanity in general. In its recent developments, it has left us practically with the choice between the Christ of the four Gospels or a shadowy figure to be found in none of them. The true historical Jesus that criticism has brought before us is clad in the coa.r.s.e garments of Galilee, but with the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The searchlight of modern knowledge is the fierce light that beats upon the throne. As nature and the human soul and the relations.h.i.+ps of thought and the phenomena of religion and the book of revelation are more fully studied, the majesty and beauty of the central Figure in history is more clearly revealed. Each age sees a new glory in Jesus Christ. "It is one of the evidences of the moral greatness of Jesus,"

says Peabody, "that each period in Christian history, each social or political change, has brought to view some new aspect of His character and given Him a new claim to reverence." The modern age sees in Him and in His Cross of love and sacrifice the guide and inspiration of its ethical and social advance. It sees in Him and in His Cross the solution, so far as ultimate solution may be possible, of its deepest intellectual problems. It sees in Him not merely a Guide and a Revealer, but a Redeemer from sin and the Giver of Eternal Life.

Bibliography of Recent Important Works

_For Chapter I_

HARNACK, A. Das Wesen des Christentums, 1900, 2d ed., 1908; What is Christianity? 1901, 2d ed., 1910. Spruche und Reden Jesu, 1907; The Sayings of Jesus, 1908.

Aus Wissenschaft und Leben, 2 vols., 1911.

LOISY, A. L'evangile et l'eglise, 3d ed., 1904; The Church and the Gospel, 1903.

BOUSSET, W. Was wissen wir von Jesus? 1904.

Kyrios Christos; Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfangen des Christentums his Irenaeus, 1913.

SCHUMACHER, H. Die Selbstoffenbarung Jesu bei Mat 11, 27 (Luc 10, 22), 1912 (Freiburger Theologische Studien, Heft 6).

SCHWEITZER, A. Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1906; The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1910.

DREWS, A. Die Christusmythe, 4th ed., 1911; The Christ-Myth, 3d ed., 1910.

WARFIELD, B. B. The Lord of Glory, 1907; and recent articles in theological reviews.

THORBURN, T. J. Jesus the Christ: Historical or Mythical? 1912.

_For Chapter II_

Darwin and Modern Science. Edited by A. C. Seward, 1909.

Anniversary Volume by Various Authors.

Fifty Years of Darwinism, 1909. Anniversary Volume by Various Authors.

WEISMANN, A. The Evolution Theory, 2 vols., 1904.

WALLACE, A. R. The World of Life, 1911. Man's Place in the Universe, 3d ed., 1905.

MORGAN, T. H. Evolution and Adaptation, 1908.

HENDERSON, L. J. The Fitness of the Environment, 1913.

THOMSON, J. A. The Bible of Nature, 1908.

MERX, J. T. History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Vol. II, 1903.

HERBERT, S. First Principles of Evolution, 1913.

_For Chapter III_

JAMES, W. Varieties of Religious Experience, 1903. The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, 1902.

STARBUCK, E. D. The Psychology of Religion, 1900.

AMES, E. C. The Psychology of Religious Experience, 1910.

LEUBA, J. H. A Psychological Study of Religion, 1912.

PRATT, J. B. The Psychology of Religious Belief, 1907.

STEVENS, GEORGE. The Psychology of the Christian Soul, 1911.

ROYCE, J. The Sources of Religious Insight, 1912.

BEGBIE, H. Twice-Born Men, 1909.

JASTROW, JOSEPH. The Subconscious, 1906.

COE, GEORGE A. The Religion of a Mature Mind, 1902.

HALL, G. STANLEY. Adolescence, 1904.