were then consciously and expressly sealed to Him by the judgment of God. No doubt Jesus was previously conscious that He was the Son of God, and an object of the Divine complacency; but through this revelation was awakened the conciousness of a unique pre-eminence of sonship in relation to God, and of the unique significance which, in virtue of this pre-eminence, He should have for the establishment of the kingdom of God and the Messianic dispensation. Whilst, hitherto, Jesus had been conscious of no peculiar excellence which exalted Him above others in respect to His religious views, experiences, and acts, and that just because they appeared to Him so simple, normal, and self-evident, now, all at once, He recognised the import of those personal qualities. He saw in them not merely a specific advance beyond the religious standpoint of His countrymen, but also the first and supreme realisation of that ideal relationship between God and men foretold in Scripture as characteristic of the Messianic time. The consciousness, however, of His special endowment by God, and His pre-eminent position among men, must, for Him, have involved a recognition of His special duty in regard

merely to Ps. ii. 7, or merely to Isa. xlii. 1, but to both these passages (cf. Beyschlag, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 112). The expression, "Thou art my Son," taken from the psalm, serves characteristically as the substitute for the conception, servant of Jehovah, of the prophetic passage; whilst, conversely, the conception, object of the Divine complacency, taken from the latter passage, serves as a significant expansion and confirmation of the title of Son. We must not suppose that the reference of the words thus revealed to Jesus, to the words of those Old Testament passages, was unimportant. For that very reference was the reason why Jesus could regard the words of that revelation as not only a recognition of His personal religious relation to God, but as an express designation of His Messianic character and vocation.

to God, and of His special vocation. As the Son of God, who for the first time and in perfect measure embodied the promised ideal relationship between God and mankind, He must be the Messiah who was to impart to other men the knowledge and the reality of this relationship; and therefore, also, He was to be the founder of the promised kingdom of God.

3. It is perfectly conceivable that Jesus, after this sudden and miraculous impartation of the knowledge of His Messiahship, was assailed with conflicting doubts, and that He felt it an urgent duty, founded on His Messianic endowments, to bring this conflict to an immediate and decisive issue. Mark intimates this progress by relating that Jesus, immediately after His baptism, was driven by the Spirit, that is, the Spirit of God whom He had seen descending upon Himself at baptism, into the wilderness, where, severed from all human intercourse, He was for forty days tempted of the devil (Mark i. 12 f.). Had Jesus, previous to His baptism, already passed through a process of development, and had that baptism only meant for Himself the confirmation of this process, and, for others, the public acknowledgment of His Messiahship, the inner conflicts through which He would thus have attained His Messianic consciousness would have fallen within the period preceding His baptism. That the temptation followed upon the baptism is a strong confirmation of the view that Jesus for the first time suddenly received at baptism the consciousness of His Messiahship, which then required to be confirmed through an inner conflict. The source of such conflict as even threatened to obliterate His

Messianic assurance lay in certain aspects of the Messianic idea as conceived by the pious Jews, e.g. the Baptist, and hitherto even by Jesus Himself. That form of the Messianic idea, He saw, could not be realised if He proceeded on the Messianic career in the form, and under the spiritual power, which had been revealed to Him at baptism. It was no conflict against images and ideals arising out of a wicked, selfish, and ungodly disposition and inclination in Jesus Himself. The Christian Church has ever justly repudiated this idea of the temptation originating in the state of Jesus' own heart. But there were Messianic conceptions and ideals which hitherto approached Him from without, that is, from among the prevailing views and traditions of His countrymen, and which He now inwardly possessed, in the sense of their being known to Him and being imaged in His mind, without needing any external means of presentation. They presented themselves to Him with a plausible appearance of being true and scriptural, and, through such plausibility, they became veritable temptations which it cost Him a struggle to overcome. When He tried them He perceived the impious principles on which they were based, and, to that extent, regarded and treated them as temptations of Satan.

The accounts given by our first and third evangelists (Matt. iv. 1 ff.; Luke iv. 1 ff.) concerning the three temptations with which Jesus was assailed by the devil, bring so vividly and characteristically before us this inner conflict of Jesus, that we have every reason to regard this narrative, even in its significant figurative dress, as having been communicated at a

later period by Jesus to His disciples. Certainly we should misunderstand the meaning of the narrative, were we to suppose that, taking for granted the certainty that Jesus was the Messiah, the question only related to His decision as to the special character and mode of His Messianic mission, and how His miraculous Messianic powers were to be used. It was rather His Sonship itself, in a special, that is, a Messianic sense, that was in question, since He had not the powers and could not attain the ends which. were traditionally supposed to be essential to Messiahship. Did not the Messiah require to have earthly means at His disposal, not only in order to live, but to step forth with a power and a glory corresponding to His merit? If Jesus did not possess such means, and could not supply Himself with them in a magical way, if He were unable to produce even so much of earthly good things as to shield Himself from earthly want, how could He be the Messiah? Jesus met and overcame this temptation by an appeal to Scripture, which declares the life-giving and preserving will and word of God, rather than earthly goods, to be the true source of sustenance: "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Even in the lack of all earthly means, God could, by His creative word, protect and support the Messiah. But if Jesus wished to trust in Divine power for support, might He not trust in it alone to act as a charm for Him against all earthly dangers and wants? And if He could not trust so steadfastly in the miraculous help of God as

1 Cf. L. J. i. p. 210 f.

even to let Himself fall down from the pinnacle of the temple, and hope to escape unhurt because of angelic support, how could He go forth as the Messiah? This incitement to make the assurance of His Messiahship depend on proving the miraculous assistance of God, was repelled by Jesus, on the ground that man must not arbitrarily tempt God: trust in God must be accompanied by humble submission to His will, and is incompatible with the trial to bring the power of God into the service of one's own caprice. As the Messiah, He could trust in God for power and protection only in the line of His high vocation. He could not lay claim to miraculous power to carry out selfish ends or to shield Him from wantonly incurred danger. But would He then be able, if unsupplied with earthly means and without insurance against earthly dangers, to undertake His work in humble confidence in God alone, and be able really to establish the Messianic dominion? Certainly not a dominion of earthly splendour and power, and not a supremacy over worldly subjects, such as was supposed by the traditional Messianic ideas. But Jesus was now clearly conscious that every aspiration after a dominion of an earthly kind had a self-seeking tendency in entire opposition to the true homage to God. What the fatherly will of God demanded was not to rule over others, but to render loving services (cf. Mark x. 42-45). The establishment of an earthly sovereignty did not befit the nature of the Messianic kingdom, but would rather serve the purposes of sin and Satan. And now when Jesus conceived the possibility of winning all the kingdoms of the world if He would