Lord was condemned was that of falsely pretending to be the Messiah or Christ. But whatever the Jews may have thought of that crime, they certainly could not have found it mentioned, and death denounced against it, in the Law of Moses. It could, at any rate, have been no crime, unless proved to be a false pretension; which was not even attempted. Nor could they have brought that offence (even if proved) under the head of blasphemy; unless they had been accustomed to expect the Messiah as a divine person. Then, indeed, the claim of being the Messiah, and the claim of divine honour, would have amounted The Mes- to the same thing. But so far were they from pected by having this expectation that (not to multiply be a divine proofs) they were completely at a loss to answer our Lord's question, how David, if the Christ were to be David's son, could speak of Him as a divine Being under the title of LORD. "If David then call him LORD how is he his son," is a question which they would have answered without a moment's hesitation, if they had expected that the Christ should be, though the Son of David after the flesh and as a human Being, yet, the Son of God in such a sense as to make him a Divine Being also.

siah not ex

the Jews to

person.

Whatever good reasons then they might have found in prophecy for such expectation, it seems plain that they had it not.

And the same I believe is the case, generally speaking, with the Jews of the present day.' A learned modern Jew, who has expressly written that Jesus" falsely demanded faith in Himself as the true God of Israel," adds that "if a prophet, or even the Messiah Himself, had offered proof of his divine mission by miracles, but claimed divinity, he ought to be stoned to death;" conformably i.e. to the command in Deut. xiii. And the only Jew with whom I ever conversed on the subject appeared to hold the same doctrine; though he was at a loss when I asked him to reconcile it with the application of the title of Emmanuel.

it Pretensions

The Jewish Council then could not, appears, capitally convict our Lord, merely for professing to be the Christ, even though falsely and accordingly we may observe that they did not even seek for any proof that his pretension was false. But as soon as He acknowledged Himself to be the "Son of the living God" they immediately pronounced Him "guilty of death" for blasphemy; i. e. as seeking to lead the People (Deut. xiii.) to pay divine honour to another besides the true God. They convict Him on his own testimony (having "heard of his own mouth") of the crime which they afterwards

1

See Wilson on the New Testament, above referred to.

Jesus was

rightly un

describe to Pilate.

"We have a law,

"We have a law, and by our

law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God."

§ 7. No candid reader then can doubt, I think, derstood as that the Jews understood Him to claim by that be divine. title a divine character. And He Himself must

claiming to

Whether

have known that they so understood Him. As
little can it be doubted therefore that they must
have rightly understood Him. For if He-
condemned as He was on the evidence of His own
words-had known that those words were under-
stood differently from his real meaning, and yet
had not corrected the mistake, He would
have been Himself bearing false witness against
Himself, since no one can suppose
it makes any
difference in point of veracity, whether a man
says that which is untrue in every sense, or that
which, though in a certain sense true, yet is
false in the sense in which he knows it to be
understood. It is a mere waste of labour and
learning and ingenuity to inquire what meaning
such and such an expression is capable of bearing,
in a case where we know, as we do here, what
was the sense which was actually conveyed by it,
to the hearers, and which the speaker must have
been aware it did convey to them.

Jesus did therefore acknowledge the fact unjustly or alleged against Him; viz.: that of claiming to

Jesus was

demned de

his being

a divine

be the Son of God in such a sense as to incur the justly conpenalty (supposing that claim unwarranted) of pends on death for blaspheming, according to the law re- or not being specting those who should entice Israel to worship person. any other than the one true God. The whole question therefore of his being rightly or wrongfully condemned, turns on the justness of that claim-on his actually having or not having that divine character which the Jews understood Him to assume. For if He were not such, and yet called Himself the Son of God, knowing in what sense they understood the title, I really am at a loss to see on what ground we can find fault with the sentence they pronounced.

It does appear to me therefore I say this without presuming to judge those who think differently; but-to me it appears that the whole question of Christ's divine mission, and consequently of the truth of Christianity, turns on the claim which He so plainly appears to have made to divine honour for Himself.

sent teach

have put

claim.

I am not one of those indeed who profess to A heavenunderstand and explain why it was necessary for er could not man's salvation that God should have visited forth a false his People precisely in the way he did. On such points, as I dare not believe less, so I pretend not to understand more, than He has expressly revealed. If I had been taught in Scripture that God had thought fit to save the

Declara

world through the agency of some Angel, or some great Prophet, not possessing in himself a divine character, I could not have presumed to maintain the impossibility of that. But this does strike me as utterly impossible, that a heavensent messenger-the Saviour of the world,— should be a person who claimed a divine character that did not belong to Him; and who thus gave rise to, and permitted, and encouraged, a system of idolatry. This is an idea so revolting to all my notions of divine purity, and indeed of common morality, that I could never bring myself to receive as a divine revelation any religious system that contained it.

All the difficulties on the opposite side--and I do not deny that every religious persuasion has its difficulties are as nothing in comparison of the difficulty of believing that Jesus (supposing Him neither an impostor nor a madman) could have made the declaration He did make at his trial, if He were conscious of having no just claim to divine honour.

§ 8. And the conclusion to which we are thus Jesus at his led, arises (it should be observed) out of the mere

tions of

trial, alone

sufficient. consideration of the title "Son of God," or "only

begotten Son of God," as applied to Jesus Christ; without taking into account any of the confirmations of the same conclusion (and there are very