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DIVINITY SCHOOL
TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY

HEa

GIFT OF
The Heverend Frank E. Luckejf

THE SHORT COURSE SERIES

THE SON OF MAN

Volumes Already Published
A Cry for Justice : A Study in Amos.
By Prof. John E. McFadyen, D.D.
The Beatitudes. By Rev. Robert H. Fisher, D.D.
The Lenten Psalms.
By the Editor.
The Psalm of Psalms.
By Prof. James Stalker, D.D.
The Song and the Soil.
By Prof. W. G. Jordan, D.D.
The Higher Powers of the Soul.
By Rev. George M'Hardy, D.D.
Jehovah-Jesus. By Rev. Thomas Whitelaw, D.D.
The Sevenfold J Am
By Rev. Thomas Marjoribanks, B.D.
The Man Among the Myrtles.
By the Editor.
The Story of Joseph.
By Rev. Adam C. Welch, B.D., Th.D.
The Divine Drama of Job.
By Rev. Charles F. Aked, D.D.
A Mirror of the Soul : Studies in the Psalter.
By Rev. Canon Vat/ghan, M.A.
In the Upper Room.
By Rev. D. J. Burrill, D.D., LL.D.
The Son of Man.
By Andrew C. Zenos, D.D., LL.D.
The Joy of Finding.
By Rev. Alfred E. Garvte.
The Prayers of St. Paul.
By Rev. W. H. Griffith Thomas, D.D.

Price 60 cents net per Volume

TOe Sbort Ccmrge Secies
EDITED BY
Rev. JOHN ADAMS, B.D.

THE SON OF MAN
STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL OF MARK

BY
ANDREW C. ZENOS, D.D., LL.D.

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1914

TO
THE MEMORY OF
RUTH ELSIE and WALTER ANDREW

CONTENTS

FAGB
I. The Son of Man Foreshadowed . . 3
Mark xiv. 21.
II. The Son of Man in a Sinful World . 21
Mark ii. 10, n.
III. The Son of Man and Human Institu
tions  37
Mark ii. 27, 28.
IV. The Son of Man : Redemptive Ministry 55
Mark x. 45.
V. The Son of Man a Victim ... 77
Mark ix. 31, x. 33, xiv. 21, 41.
VI. The Son of Man Triumphant. . . 95
Mark ix. 9, viii. 38.
VII. The Son of Man in the World's Future 115
Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62.
Appendix  133
Index  . . »37

But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign, Seer of Time,
But Thee, O Poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue,
But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,
O perfect life in perfect labor writ,
O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, —
What if or yet, what mote, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumor tattled by an enemy,
Of inference loose, what lack of grace
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, —
Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ ?
Sidney Lanier.

I
THE SON OF MAN FORESHADOWED

THE SON OF MAN FORE
SHADOWED
Mark xiv. 21 ; Dan. vii. 13 (John iii. 13, xii. 34;
Matt. xxvi. 24 ; Luke xviii. 31, xxii. 22).
Some phrases, like living beings, have inter
esting histories. They are born, they develop
to fullness and power, they serve high ends,
and perhaps pass away. The title Son of
Man, which Jesus used to designate Himself,
is one of these. It was not invented by
Him. Yet He used it constantly as if some
thing in its make up or history had made
Him fond of it. He identified Himself with
it, and it with Himself in a way which has
suggested to some the notion that He used
it simply as a substitute for the pronoun I.
This is certainly not the case. And yet the
way in which He separated it from all other
3

The Son of Man
uses and made it the vehicle of His own
thought is more than interesting — it is
significant. Quite as significant is the strangeness of
the phrase to other New Testament writers,
and even to the immediate disciples of Jesus.
If it is not true that they never used it, it
is true that they used it because they could
not avoid it — not because they found it
ready to hand to do service as a vehicle of
their thought. Outside of the circle of His
followers it is still less familiar. It perplexes
the multitude. In attempting to familiarise
them with its purport, in solving the per
plexity of the multitude as to its meaning,
His first care was to impress it on them that
though the source of His power was divine,
its nature and exercise were to be in the
highest sense human — humane, it would be
better to say, were it not that even that
beautiful word is scarcely full enough of the
meaning infused into humanity by Jesus. It
suggests —

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
I. Humanity in Contrast with
Brutality.
Humanity is distinguished from brutality
by intelligence, compassion, and aspiration.
Intelligence changes the stubborn ignorance
of the brute to courage. Compassion
utilises power in the service of love.
Aspiration links all resources with the
highest ends.
"Who is this Son of Man?" The
question was asked by those who should
have known the answer. They did not,
because they had allowed themselves to be
led by their thoughts of who the Messiah
ought to be. How often we allow our
prejudgments to shut our eyes to the very
plain things that enter into our lives. The
figure of the Son of Man stood very clearly
on the pages of Daniel.
It is true, before the days of Daniel to
speak of a " son of man " was to indicate
human frailty and liability to failure. It had
been said, "God is not man that he should
lie, neither the son of man that he should
5

The Son of Man
repent "(Num. xxiii. 19) ; and when Ezekiel
was addressed as " Son of man," it was in
order that he might be made conscious of
his dependence on divine help and grace for
his work. But human weakness receded
into the background and dignity and value
into the foreground, as the Psalmist took up
the phrase, and after placing before his eye
the humble and meaningless side of human
nature, he set over against it the great and noble
as an endowment from on high. " What is
man that thou art mindful of him, and the
son of man that thou visitest him ? " Yes,
" Thou hast made him but lower than God,
and crownedst him with glory and honour.
Thou makest him to have dominion over
the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all
things under his feet." Man was to be
looked at not merely against the background
of God's infinite greatness and holiness, but
also against that of the lower creation. If,
as placed in the foreground of the picture
in which God is the background, man
appears puny and feeble and unworthy,
placed on the canvas with the inanimate and
6

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
brute world behind him he looms large, he
is seen to possess excellences and merits
that make him unique and supreme.
The occasion which furnished the revelation
of this view of man was the struggle of the
Jewish nation with the great forces of the
Gentile world during the Exile and after.
The Jews never aspired to rule more than
their own well-defined corner of the world.
But they came in touch with the races
successively dominant to the east of them
in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris,
and they were enabled to realise that the lust
for world dominion could take the central
place among the motives of national life.
Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Macedonia
had actually come near reaching this goal.
But each of them, as it successively climbed
up to the place of power, had undergone a
process of moral decline. The last of these
world-powers had shown a special tendency
toward inward disintegration. It was felt that
the end was near, and with it the whole series
of non-moral, and hence sub-human, powers
must pass away. To the Jewish mind, with
7

The Son of Man
its firm grasp on the truth that the heart
and essence of the universe is the righteous
will of a personal God, the breaking up of
the purely natural era of brute force must
necessarily bring into view the moral order.
And this order was not a new creation, but
the real and inner life of the universe. It
was not to be brought into existence, only
revealed as already maturing within the
decrepit and decadent succession of world-
powers. But when revealed, this inner and
divine principle would manifest itself as in
utter contradiction and contrast to all its
predecessors. Since brute force had been
their characteristic, human intelligence and
humane feeling would be its characteristic.
It would command indeed, and in this
respect it might be arrayed with them as
another, and the last in the succession of
powers — but the note and the distinctive
sign of its dominion would be humanness
just where those that had preceded had
shown brutality.
Was it not to express the will and the
nature of God ? But if man is made in
8

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
the image of God, the rule of God on earth
must be godlike, that is to say, human. It
is this that the apocalyptist-prophet was
endeavouring to put before his sorely perse
cuted and oppressed fellow-believers. The
dominion of the brute force was destined to
pass away, and its place on the throne was
to be occupied by a figure the very opposite
of brutal — that of the Son of Man. Nay,
the real throne was already occupied by this
Figure. While the world was witnessing
the rule of an outward and visible monarch
on a throne of earthly splendour, the heavenly
throne was neither vacant nor filled by a
potentate of brutal nature. The Ancient
of Days had as an assessor the Son of Man.
Thus, the Son of Man was at the same
time a future and a present power to be
reckoned with. While the genius of
Hebrew prophecy seized upon the future
of this figure and evolved the idea of the
Messiah, the essence of the thought shows
a deeper and more abiding importance in
the present significance of it.
The Son of Man " which is in heaven "
9

The Son of Man
and a present Sovereign, has ever been also
a future ruler. To-day He is sovereign in
a fuller sense, because He once manifested
Himself upon earth. From the right hand
of the Ancient of Days He came to take
" dominion and glory and a kingdom, that
all the people and nations and languages
should serve him. His dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away, and his kingdom shall not be de
stroyed." And His reign, as in the ancient
vision, is still the reign of the human as
contrasted with the brutal in the world.
The question whether in the vision of
Daniel the Son of Man is an individual
king or a racial kingdom is of secondary
importance. The essential idea in it is that
the reign of sheer force is to be supplanted
by the predominance of intelligence and
goodwill. But the world has not altogether discarded
sheer force. The brutal principle still
struggles for ascendancy. The lust for
conquest, greed for territory, the subjuga
tion of weaker peoples by stronger, the
10

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
cruel exactions of the hard earnings of the
subject race by some autocratic monarch —
all these, in spite of change of method, still
continue. But they continue no longer
unchallenged, no longer recognised as the
normal and ideal for all mankind. Side by
side with them has arisen the kingdom of
the Son of Man, — the reign of the Humane
One, — who desires and aims that all shall
have equity and justice dealt out to them.
The old regime of force is still carrying on
its administration. But beside it there
stands the new one. There are two ideals
challenging comparison. "Look on this
picture, and on this." And the Son of Man
is content to let the case rest upon this
appeal. The more earnestly and persist
ently the contrast is insisted on, the more
rapidly international and social brutality will
be rebuked, shamed, and forced to hide its
ugliness ; and the more hopefully we may
look to the disappearance of brutality and
the triumph of humanity.
Perhaps no single character in modern
history more signally typifies the dominance
n

The Son of Man
of force which, according to the vision of
Daniel, the Son of Man was to supersede,
than Napoleon the Great. He bled half
Europe white with slaughter ; he deserted
his early principles for a crown ; he broke
every pledge ; he ruined the land that had
trusted and exalted him, but he was the
most forceful individual who walked on
the earth in his own day, or for that matter
in any day ; and mankind had not quite out
grown its worship of force while he lived,
nor has it as yet. He murdered prominent
men in cold blood, but he led armies across
continents and over mountains. He over
threw the First Republic, but he made
kings dance to his piping. He ploughed
Europe with the iron plough of his ambition,
and a hundred years have not levelled the
furrows. Yet he himself on his death-bed
confessed Jesus Christ mightier than himself.
The Son of Man had, according to his con
fession, established a more lasting kingdom.
But brutality as a ruling principle does
not necessarily work through the forms of
empire or monarchy. Overcome and
12

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
expelled as the rule of kings and potentates,
it re-enters through social injustice and
industrial inequality. The spirit of greed,
the demon of selfishness, seizes upon the
new conditions and leads men to the same
pitilessness, the same cruelty (only exercised
in subtler and more indirect forms), as those
shown by the Assyrian and Babylonian mon-
archs. What matters it that the crushing,
manglingjdehumanising work is done by social
and industrial machinery instead of by armed
hosts and uniformed officials ? Nevertheless,
this order too must pass away and give place
to the just and humane reign of the Son of
Man. 2. Humanity as Saving and Divine.
The Son of Man who is in heaven was
to be the means of salvation to the whole
creation. The figure in the cloud seen by
Daniel was to rescue not Israel only, but
the whole world from the dominion of the
brute. In the very act of establishing His
own kingdom as extensive and world-wide
as the kingdom He was to displace and
*3

The Son of Man
supplant, He would bring His wholesome
and beneficent rule over all mankind. It is
at this point that Jesus affiliates Himself with
the foreshadowed Son of Man. "And as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder
ness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up : that whosoever believeth may in him
have eternal life."
And this is the prerogative of humanity
as distinguished from brutality in all ages,
that it rescues that which has value from
waste and destruction, and gives it its birth
right in the fair creation of God. It is
only as humanity has asserted itself in the
world that forces running wild in nature
have been tamed and harnessed and com
pelled to do useful, edifying work. It is
only as man has taken the reins of control
over them that winds and waves, light and
heat, magnetism and electricity have been
glorified by being placed in subjection to
higher and more abundant life and health-
giving services. Left to themselves, storms
and tides wear and tear and pull down.
Captured and put to service by man, they
14

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
are transformed into means of building up
and furthering onward the ends of life.
No doubt there still remains much brutal
ity in the great and terrible elemental forces
of nature. Flood and earthquake still break
up and carry away the creations of reason
and love. Icebergs and hidden shoals, fever
and pestilence, still in many and unforeseen
ways work havoc and ruin, lamentation and
distress ; but man is from generation to
generation getting the upper hand in this
terrific conflict. Nature, "red in tooth and
claw," is being taught to respect and, though
unconsciously, to do the works of righteous
ness and goodwill.
The work of the Saviour of mankind is
but the highest manifestation of this universal
law. It is the man in Jesus Christ that saves
His brethren from the ravages of the brute
force of sin. The ancient theologians under
stood this principle very well when they
declined to accept or sanction any doctrine
of the person of Christ which assumed that
the Saviour was not possessed of a complete
humanity. The faith of Christians would
15

The Son of Man
never consent to a Christ with a mere phan
tom physical nature or a mutilated psycho
logical constitution ; it would have none of
a humanity from which the full power of
manhood was strained out. It was as man
that the Saviour must save. It was the
" Son of Man " alone who could " seek and
save that which was lost."
The hope of the seer, and with it the hope
of all the ages, would be a vain one indeed
if the Son of Man in whom they trusted
were nothing more than human, if His
humanity sprang from the earth and were
burdened by the earthly heritage of infirmity
and failure. This it is not. He is the Son
of Man " which is in heaven." In the vision
He stands beside the Ancient of Days. If
there is anything wholesome in man's nature,
it is because he has been patterned after a
divine ideal. If he was given "dominion
over " the brute creation, if he was declared
" better than the fowls," if it was said of him,
" how much is a man better than a sheep,"
it is because there is that in him which links
him with God Himself. 16

The Son of Man Foreshadowed
He who is the Son of Man is also the
Son of God. It is no mere accident that
these two titles have become fixed on the
same person. He is the Son of Man because
he is the Son of God. Theology has worked
at the problem of the person of Christ for
nineteen centuries, but it has scarcely ad
vanced beyond the fundamental facts of the
earliest Christian experience which kindles at
the touch of the Spirit of God, enabling
devout souls to recognise in Jesus the
perfect man and the perfect God. He is
perfect man because He is the perfect image
of a certain nature and aspect of God.
The heart of the message of Christianity
is that God and man are somehow kin. It
was possible for God to become man, because
in man there was that which could be affiliated
and linked with God, and in God there was
that which could adapt itself to man and live
in association with man. God did become
man in the Son of Man, because there was in
His heart the yearning for the responsive
love of the creature He had made in His own
image, His child. 17

The Son of Man
The painter creates his masterpiece, and
every lover of beauty is caught by its charm
and won by its grace to higher purposes and
pure motives ; the musician pours his soul
into his composition, and those who drink
in its soothing or inspiring strains go into
the world to achieve or endure what would
have been impossible before. It is not
because the painting consisted of colours and
canvas of a certain kind, or the music of a
given number of vibrations in the air, but
because the spirit of the artist imparted
itself through the materials to spirits needing
help. Thus the Son of Man saves because
his humanity is the humanity of God.
Nietzsche looked for the solution of the pro
blem of human life in the coming of a being
of transcendent power, the Superman ; but if
Power be force only, the world has known
enough of its dominion, and it has known it
to its grief and disappointment. The rise of
a superman of mere Power would be a rever
sion to brutality. The hope of the world
must be fixed in something better, the reign
of love, which is the reign of the Son of Man.
18

II
THE SON OF MAN IN A SINFUL WORLD

II

THE SON OF MAN IN A SINFUL
WORLD
Mark ii. 10, ii (Matt. ix. 6; Luke v. 24).
There is an explanation of the phrase Son
of Man which makes it equivalent to mere
man. In support of this explanation the
appeal is made to the Aramaic, which Jesus
must have used. Since in that language it
was customary to call any man son of man,
Jesus, it is said, used the expression in this its
ordinary sense. What He attributes to the
Son of Man may be said of every man as
man. This explanation, however, fails to
explain the very first appearance of the
phrase upon the lips of Jesus, which, if we
take the Gospel of Mark as a basis, occurs
in connection with the healing of the para
lytic. "Thy sins be forgiven thee," He
21

The Son of Man
says to the sufferer, and to the mystified
bystanders : " The Son of Man has power
to forgive sins." What could He have meant
by the assertion that " any man " had power
to forgive sin, when to demonstrate His own
right to do so He thought it necessary im
mediately afterwards to perform a miracle ?
Whatever may be the usage of this phrase
from the linguistic point of view, when Jesus
undertook to declare the sin of the paralytic
forgiven, He was doing more than any man
had any authority to do as a man. The
astonishment of the scribes, who regarded His
words as blasphemous, was justified if Jesus
claimed to be nothing more than man ; and
this precisely He aims to meet when He takes
up the challenge and shows by a superhuman
deed that He had a right to the more than
human declaration He had just made. It was
not necessary that He should have claimed a
divine nature, but it was necessary that He
should establish His right to a special authority
because of a special relation to the seat of all
authority. All sin is against God, and God
alone, if any one, can annul the transgression
22

Son of Man in a Sinful World
of His own law. Whoever would proclaim
that God has done this in any individual
instance, must have some secret or manifest
connection with God, enabling him to speak
for God and in the place of God.
But the controversy as to the right of
Jesus to forgive sins is of intensely practical
significance, in that it shows Him at the very
first glance in His attitude and relation towards
human sin. His first impact with human
life brings it into view. How could it be
otherwise ? If life is pervaded by the baleful
and subtle presence of sin, wherever the sin
less and ideal man comes into touch with life
he must see its work and effect. What did
He think of it ? What did He see in it ?
First He recognised it as a reality ; and a
reality with no right to exist. The ideal
man, the man as he came at the first creation
from the hands of God, must in the nature
of the case look upon sin as something alien
to himself. He cannot close his eyes to it.
In himself or in others it cannot but be
contrary to the normal order of things. Sin
is what ought not to be. 23

The Son of Man
i. The Recognition of Sin.
No matter how eagerly then the ideal man,
no matter how eagerly Jesus in the case of
the paralytic, may have desired the happiness
of all the sons of men, He could never have
said to them : " Do not think of your sins,
sin is an unreality, a figment of the diseased
mind ; eliminate it from your thought."
"The modern man," says Sir Oliver Lodge,
" does not concern himself about his sins."
Of course he means that, unlike the mediasval
man, the modern man does not allow himself
to be morbidly weighed down by the dread
of failure to work out his own salvation.
The modern man knows that failure to
obtain salvation is not so much the conse
quence of neglect of arduous duties and
painful labours as the refusal to accept the
free gift of God. He has learned the lesson
of his Heavenly Father's abundant grace.
He does not worry himself about his sins,
because he has been assured that they need
not stand between him and his Maker.
Nevertheless, in the sense in which the say-
24

Son of Man in a Sinful World
ing of Sir Oliver has been frequently mis
understood, it does represent a thought
diametrically opposed to the thought of Jesus.
Neither did Jesus detach it from the
personality of the sinner. It was the sin of
the sinner, thy sin.1 It need not necessarily
be assumed that the disease of the man was
the direct result of his sin. But sin of some
kind he had, and it was standing in the way
of his welfare. It was some sin known to
him, sin that had distressed and harassed
him, sin whose presence in his life had
darkened that life and cast the pale hue of
sadness into its incidents.
Moreover, Jesus did not cut the relation
between the man's sin and his responsibility.
There is an easy way of absolving evil-doers
in our days by representing them as rather
the victims than offenders. The blame is
laid to circumstances, to heredity, to environ
ment, to evil companionships, to anything
else but the choice of the offender himself.
We are tempted to sum up our judgment in
1 The surest fact about sin in my life is just that my
sin is my sin " (P. Carnegie Simpson).
25

The Son of Man
the compassionate expression, " Poor fellow,
he couldn't help it." Not so Jesus. He
fixes the responsibility on the sinner. " Thy
sin." Never did he extenuate the evil deed,
or excuse the evil-doer. "Doth no one
condemn thee ? " he said to the one above all
others who might have been viewed as the
victim of others. "Neither do I condemn
thee : go, and sin no more." She had sinned.
She was responsible for her sin. She must
abandon her sin. These are the fundamentals
of His outlook on the matter. These are
the essentials of His attitude on sin always.
His impact with human life brings it into
view, and He recognises it with all its ends.
Again, Jesus sees sin as working out
destruction and death in the world of human
life. It lies at the root of disease and
suffering. Humanity instinctively joins the
suffering of the world with the sin of the
world. In doing so, it does, of course, allow
itself to be misled into confusion of thought.
It is true that sin and disease of body are
inextricably associated, but it is not true that
every disorder in the body is due to a special
26

Son of Man in a Sinful World
sin of the individual who is afflicted. It is
true that all illness is somehow due to the
transgression of divine law ; but it is not
true that in getting rid of disease one always
gets rid of the sin that caused it. It is not
true that when the root of the disease in sin
is found and plucked out, that the diseased
condition is always and at once removed.
The chain of results that sin has started into
motion becomes somehow independent. It
is easy to break the dam and start the flow
of the water in a reservoir. It is easy to
begin the process of ruin and devastation.
And it may be easy enough to repair the
breach, to stop the torrent from flowing.
But it is certainly not easy to restore the
crop that has been washed out by its roots,
to rebuild the bridges that have been under
mined and tumbled together into unshapely
masses in the river-beds, to clean up the
streets and replace the furniture into the
houses from which it was floated out into
the fields. It is a moment's work to break
the physical constitution by . disregarding or
violating one of God's wise provisions for its
27

The Son of Man
welfare and completeness. But it takes years
to give back to the complicated organism its
primitive ease in functioning and producing
the living forces of a living, unified activity.
To eliminate sin is a divine work ; and to
God all things are possible. To regain what
has been lost by sin is man's part, and it
may take years to cleanse the system of the
brood of germs which have rushed in with
the weakening of the body, to give elasticity
and resiliency to the tissues that have been
devitalised and stiffened, or to knit together
those that have been torn and left with
ragged edges, incapable of knitting them
selves together.
The connections between sin and disease
are not on the surface, and each of these two
evils must be treated by itself. Nevertheless
disease is a consequence of sin, and to see
disease is to the healthy minded, ideal man,
to see sin behind it.
2. The Son of Man Condemns Sin.
But Jesus, when He first touched human
life, did more than recognise sin. He began
38

Son of Man in a Sinful World
a warfare on it. He fought it. He assumed
from the very first that it ought not to be,
that it must be negatived and cancelled, that
its power must be broken, its effects de
stroyed, its hold loosened, its sting removed.
He knew it would be a long and hard
struggle. He knew it would cost many a
pang, many a sigh ; that it would require
the sacrifice of self. He realised that he
must go on the painful search for the lost,
that he must entreat and beseech, persuade
and intercede ; but he knew also that in a
universe created and controlled by his
heavenly Father, there is no permanent
place for sin. He knew that it is not the
natural man, but the denatured man who is
sinful. Whenever the first impulses towards
a return show themselves, the victims of sin
are to see the certain pledge of its exter
mination. The Pharisees, accustomed to measure all
things by rigid standards of holiness, wondered
at His associating with sinners. They were
certainly right in their efforts to keep their
own lives free from contamination. They
29

The Son of Man
must have seen that He no less than them
selves was eager for a stainless life. But
they could not imagine that, even though
unsullied as yet by His touch with sinners,
He could always remain so. And then, why
should He care for sinners ? Why work in
such a hopelessly barren field ? These
publicans and harlots, were they not beyond
the reach of all redeeming influences ?
Reasoning after this manner they were con
tent to leave sin alone if it would leave them
alone. Their attitude toward it amounted
to a pact of armed but inactive hostility.
To Jesus, hostility against sin meant an
aggressive warfare at any cost to Himself.
The ravages which it worked in the physical
and social lives of men must serve to arouse
in them some reaction against it, even though
crude and low as far as its motive was con
cerned. They must be made to feel the
need of something better than the husks on
which sin was starving them. Then would
Jesus seize upon this element in their lives
and build it into the foundation of their
salvation. "The Son of Man is come to
30

Son of Man in a Sinful World
seek and to save that which was lost." Thus
Jesus never ceased destroying "the works
of Satan."
There is much to hearten the disciple of
Jesus to-day in the work of saving the world.
In two opposite directions sin works out
apparently incurable results. On one side
it generates a shell of selfishness, isolating its
victim like the hard crustacean, impermeable,
rough and stone-like armament. All ap
proaches to the inner man seem impossible
through this shell. This is the peculiar form
in which it appears in those whom the world
regards as better conditioned. The shell
may not always be the same. In some
instances it may be high intellectuality, in
others assthetic refinement, in others social
standing due to wealth and exclusiveness.
In all it is equally potent as a barrier to
approach. The disciple of Jesus is likely to
despair of the redemption of such.
Again in another direction sin may create
an atmosphere of evil, through which the
disciple of Jesus may imagine that he sees
death and corruption and nothing more.
3i

The Son of Man
But the Son of Man knew that under the
offensive aspect of the lower as well as under
the forbidding cover of the higher type of
sinner there was that which called for effort
to save, and that in both cases effort properly
put forth must find response.
Just one type of sin He found beyond
reach, and that was the suicidal sin against
the Holy Ghost ; and that from its nature
was impossible to detect. Though, therefore,
the warning might be given that there is
such a sin, practically it cannot be taken into
account, since it gives no evidence of itself
to the outside world by which it may be
recognised. 3. The Conquest of Sin.
Jesus met sin and recognised it. He
saw sin and declared Himself an enemy of
it. He fought it because He saw in it the
destroyer of God's children. But He did
more than this. He conquered sin. " Thy
sins are forgiven thee." The Pharisees
were right. It was no light thing to utter
that momentous declaration. It was easy
32

Son of Man in a Sinful World
enough to pronounce the words ; but to
give effect to them, to show that the facts
justified them, that the person to whom they
were addressed was indeed and in truth
cleansed of his guilt and freed from the
power of sin, that was a different matter.
It was no empty formula, no magic incanta
tion, no hocus pocus that the sinful man
needed. This paralytic, it is likely, had
had enough of magic and empty formulae
in the vain effort to regain his wholeness.
What he needed was an assurance backed
by reality, and Jesus could give that to him.
Jesus could give him the assurance of sin
forgiven because He knew God's nature and
will, and He was Himself convinced of His
own infallible knowledge of an unchallenge
able right to declare the will of God. But
even more than this, Jesus was aware that
His own greatest achievement would be
through His life and death to make away
with sin as a barrier between God and man.
It was later that He said of His own mission,
" The Son of Man came to give his life a
ransom for many " ; and it was later that
33

The Son of Man
He declared in the institution which was to
perpetuate His memory that His "blood,"
(His life) was being poured for "the
remission of sins " ; but at no time in His
experience could He have failed to realise
that His chief work was the conquest of sin.
When men face sin in the world a serious
problem is raised. What does its presence
mean ? Is it a reality ? Is it a permanent
and inalienable factor of human life ? Is it
an easy foe to overcome ? Must each man
grapple with his enemy in his own unaided
strength ? Questions that will not down,
questions that demand and must be
answered. Does Jesus give us any help
in meeting and answering them ?
He assures us that sin ought not to be ;
that man cannot rid himself of it in his own
strength ; that he need not fight it alone ;
that the Son of Man is present with him in
his struggles, not to make it unnecessary for
him to fight, but to guide the warfare and
take upon Himself the larger part of the pain
of the struggle, and that in the end victory
is assured. 34

Ill
THE SON OF MAN AND HUMAN
INSTITUTIONS

Ill
THE SON OF MAN AND HUMAN
INSTITUTIONS
Mark ii. 27, 28 (Matt. xii. 8 ; Luke vi. 5).
Much may be learned from the way in
which Jesus met criticism of His teaching
and objections to His conduct. In contro
versy as such He took no special interest.
Neither did He care to merely defend Himself
or His views as a matter of vindication. His
sole object in taking notice of opposition
was to impress more deeply the lesson that
had been but superficially learned, to clear
and disentangle issues whose complexity had
given occasion to cavil, and to secure a wider
acceptance of eternal truths.
To this end He adapted His method to the
nature of the problem discussed. He had
no hard and fast logical ways of dealing. If
37

The Son of Man
the issue involved was minor, He reasoned
along conventional lines and upon con
ventional grounds. He used arguments
designed to persuade the minds of His
opponents. He took up as it were their
own weapons and used them. He appealed
to the words of the Old Testament and to
logical consistency ; He used the argumentum
ad hominem, the dilemma, the reductio ad
absurdum ; in such cases it was not necessary
so much to insist on the inherent and
eternal validity of what He was standing for,
as to change the attitude and method of
approach of His opponents to the problems
of life.
If, however, the question raised affected
some vital point, Jesus did not resort to
reasoning ; argument in such cases ceased
to be means of bringing truth into view,
and might even very easily obscure it by
attracting attention to itself. Since the
eternal rock foundations must be reached,
and since they must be found only by the
divinely given powers of each man, the all-
important point was to lead to these primal
38

Human Institutions
elements of thoughts and give each one the
opportunity to recognise them.
The controversies regarding the Sabbath
were of this latter kind. The point at issue
involved the whole system of external
arrangements by which religion among his
fellow countrymen had been promoted and
expressed for generations and ages past, — all
the institutions of Judaism, as they were
from another point of view typified in the
rite of circumcision. Jesus' treatment of
the Sabbath was therefore representative of
His attitude towards all institutions and
covered their function in human life, His
relation to them and their relation to human
freedom. i. Institutions and their Function.
Institutions vindicate their right to be
when they minister to and promote human
welfare. This is just as true of the Sabbath
as of any other institution. Whether dis
covered by accident, or developed as a result
of long experience, it was surely not a purely
human invention. It is not necessary to
39

The Son of Man
interpret literally, and in their most super
ficial sense the words of the establishment of
the Sabbath in the Old Testament in order
to believe in its divine origin and binding
force. Its beneficent operation through
human history abundantly evidences this.
" The Sabbath was made for man." This
is so obvious a proposition that one wonders
why it should have been necessary for such
a teacher as Jesus to give utterance to it.
Yet it is not difficult upon a moment's re
flection to see that the Sabbath was not being
used for the benefit of man. In order to be
a means towards advancing the higher life
through it, it must be understood and ob
served in harmony with its purpose and
nature. But as interpreted and applied by
the men of Jesus' time it had failed in this.
Instead of refreshing and restoring the souls
of men, it had been turned into a means of
wearying and distressing them. And when
the soul is wearied and annoyed, even the
secondary blessing of bodily invigoration
suffers a check, and fails of its full effect.
One of the first experiences recorded of
40

Human Institutions
the patriots in the Maccabean uprising was
that in their zeal to conform to the Law, so
violendy attacked by their oppressors, they
observed the Sabbath with absolute and un
bending rigidity. They would not even
fight their enemies on that day. They con
sented to be slaughtered without defence
rather than break the Fourth Commandment.
On discovering this, their Syrian opponents
timed their attacks so as to bring them on
the Sabbath day. Thus the Law came to be
a hindrance rather than a means towards
the preservation and promotion of life and
welfare. Whereupon, with characteristic sanity
and common sense, the early Maccabean
leaders relaxed the Law sufficiently to permit
them to defend themselves. But the spirit
of literalism developed so early continued
and even grew through the generations inter
vening to the days of Jesus. It is from this
blind observance of prescriptions without
regard to their object and purpose that Jesus
recalled His generation through His attitude
towards the Sabbath.
If institutions are normally mere means
4*

The Son of Man
towards ends, then the moment the ends
fail to be attained by them they become
useless. There are some things in nature
which, being means towards ends, are always
and everywhere effective, hence imperishable
and unalterable. Their connection as means
towards the ends attained by them is vital.
Language is a means of intercommunication
of thought, and always will be. Cultivation
of the soil is a means towards larger fertility,
and it is impossible to conceive of its being
dispensed with. Social amenities are neces
sary in order to co-operation and advancement.
But even in these, though the instrumentality
is necessary, the special form of it may vary.
Vehicles are needed for transportation ; but
their exact forms may change and the power
that drives them may be superseded by
better. This, according to Jesus, is exactly
the case with all institutions. The Sabbath
is a necessary means for the promotion of
human life towards its ideal, but it is not the
same form and kind of Sabbath that brings
about the same degree of spiritual and moral
uplift always and under all circumstances.
42

Human Institutions
It may, indeed, occur that apparently contrary
paths may lead to the same goal. If the
Sabbath was designed to develop manhood
in its entirety, then in certain circumstances
the only way to observe it would be to give
the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, as nearly
as possible to absolute quiet. For it is only
with this complete relaxation of attention
and energy, this perfect abandonment of the
whole being to the processes of unconscious
physical life, that manhood will regain its
elasticity and power of resistance.
But manifestly this is not a typical, or
frequently recurring, situation. Men are
not often so completely exhausted that the
lapse to absolute inactivity is the best form
of rest. In the vast majority of cases perfect
rest is best secured by a change of employ
ment. If the Sabbath is to advance manhood
to a stage further in its growth, it must in
such cases include acts of worship, meditation
and prayer, as well as abstinence from the
usual thoughts and actions of daily life.
But even this may not be the best means
of securing the end for which the Sabbath
43

The Son of Man
was instituted. "Works of necessity and
of mercy " have been usually construed as
exceptions to the Sabbath law of rest. But
there is a point of view from which they
appear not exceptions at all, but instances of
perfect obedience to it. They are not merely
permitted by the Law, but required in its
very operation. The man who went to the
rescue of a beast fallen into a pit on the
Sabbath day was not doing so with com
punction, as if he must resort to this act as
a last step in a desperate situation ; he was
not making a choice between the law of the
Sabbath and the law of life. He was rather
obeying the spirit of the law, which required
of him to build himself up morally and
spiritually. In the act of kindness, the deed
of mercy to man or beast, he who remembered
the Sabbath law was to see a means of bring
ing into exercise, and thus of strengthening,
the finer spiritual impulses, the godlike
intuitions of his nature.
Thus it may come to pass that the same
end may be attained by exactly opposite, and
apparently contradictory, means. In the one
44

Human Institutions
case the inner man may be built up by
conscientious abstinence from all active
forthputting of energy, even^ of the subtlest
spiritual kind ; in the other case it may be
uplifting and ennobling to engage in the
hardest, most menial, muscular, sweat-
producing work. The result in both cases
will be the self-realisation and spiritual
growth of the man. And again in both
cases this will take place because of obedience
to the same law. " The Sabbath was made
for man."
2. The Authority of Institutions.
When Jesus said, "The Son of Man is
the Lord of the Sabbath," it would be easy
to interpret the phrase as though He pre
sumed to make exceptions to the Sabbath
law on His own personal responsibility, either
privately or officially exercised. What it
means, however, is that the needs of human
ity determine the establishment, the modifi
cation, or the abolition of institutions. What
a splendid illustration He furnishes of this in
the new sacraments which He substituted for
45

The Son of Man
those of the Old Testament. The needs of
such an age and of such a race as those of
the Old Testament were best served through
the Levitical institutions and the rite of
circumcision. But, when a new type of life
was to be inaugurated, designed to extend to
the whole human race, scattered over all the
earth, living under all kinds of climatic con
ditions, through centuries and millenniums
to come, it was needful that its sacramental
symbolism should be limited to simpler and
more universally adaptable forms.
The Sabbath and all other institutions
owe their power to compel to the authority
of the Son of Man. It is because humanity
in its entirety agrees, and thus decrees, that
it shall use an institution for its own
advancement that the institution secures its
hold on men's minds and hearts and be
comes a power to reckon with.
The force of this principle is not limited
to the religious sphere. Such a great and
complex institution as modern jurisprudence
is clearly under its sway. The Son of Man
is the Lord of the Civil and of all Law. It
46

Human Institutions
is because humanity has needed prescriptions
to move it towards the exercise of rights
and prerogatives, and safeguards to restrain
it from the abuse of that exercise, that there
has emerged a vast and complex system of
precedents and regulations, of statutes and
prohibitions, recognized as of real authority
by the private citizen.
Look at a more specific instance, that of
trial by jury. The beneficent intention
of this institution and in general its success
ful operation in civilised society can scarcely
be called into question. But how did trial
by jury acquire its hold and place in modern
social organisations ? By proving itself to
be a satisfactory means of avoiding injustice,
eliminating prejudice and putting passion
into the background. Its authority is the
authority of the Son of Man ; and so long
as it harmonises with the will of the Son of
Man it is above challenge.
Yea, as long as institutions express and
execute the authority which has created
them, they gain in strength. They become
the centres around which associations gather
47

The Son of Man
and cluster ; and with these associations,
institutions come to win more and more
respect and recognition. Their power to
accomplish the good for which they have
been set up is enhanced and multiplied.
And the authority upon which they first
secured their acceptance is more clearly
perceived and more effectively exercised.
But a time is apt to come in the life of
institutions when they stand no longer for
the good desired through them, but for
some inscrutable good within themselves.
The overgrowth of their own branches and
foliage, as it were, conceals their connection
with the root and life from which they
sprang. Like parasitic vegetation, they sap
the life of the stock on which they had
fastened. They threaten to, and sometimes
actually do, dominate the very thing which
they were designed to serve. The authority
on which they were based, which, indeed,
made them possible, is superseded by a
fictitious authority of their own. The
Sabbath tends to become the lord of the
Son of Man, instead of recognising the Son
48

Human Institutions
of Man as its own Lord. When this point
is reached the time has clearly arrived for a
protest and a revolution in the name of the
Son of Man.
What has been said is in general true of
all institutions ; but it is more especially
true of those practices and forms which
are associated with the worship of God.
Worship is good in any form and obligatory
in some form ; but when it becomes fixed
and rigid, and when traditional pressure
gives it a standing apart from the obligation
carried by its intrinsic value as a means to
an end, the time has come either to end it
or to mend it.
3. Institutions and Human Freedom.
When Jesus said, "The Son of Man is
Lord of the Sabbath," He did not mean that
man as man, or any man, had a right to
abrogate or change the law of periodic rest.
None but He who instituted the law had a
right to do that. But He did mean that
when a man learns how to realise the true
value of life, and of the things which
49

The Son of Man
minister to its abundance, he will neither
overestimate the external and prescriptive
features of the institution, nor minimise its
inner power and usefulness. He will use
the Sabbath as a master uses a servant,
commanding him to do his bidding. He
will no more allow the Sabbath law to work
him injury in body, soul, or spirit than a
master permits his employees to wantonly
damage his property or harm his person.
In the end, therefore, Jesus places the
Sabbath law, and by implication all other
institutions, under the free interpretative
power of those for whose benefit they have
been erected, provided that such have at
tained the high point of vantage upon which
He, the Son of Man, places them.
But, is it not putting a considerable weight
of responsibility on the shoulders of in
dividuals to ask them to interpret for them
selves as to when and how they shall conform
to the law ? And is it not, from the point of
view of the law itself, taking a considerable
risk ? Is the Sabbath law safe when left to
every man to interpret for himself? May
50

Human Institutions
it not be completely interpreted away ?
These questions will trouble only him who
forgets that the lordship of the Sabbath is
not vested in any man, but in the man who
recognises the Son of Man as his Lord.
No man who so puts himself under the
dominion of the Son of Man will allow
himself for a moment to use the Sabbath for
any other than its proper and ideal purposes.
He would be denying his distinctive nature
were he to act otherwise. He who for the
mere sake of asserting his freedom, or serv
ing a lower end than the ideal, would dis
regard the Sabbath is like a man who would
reject the advantages of friendship, wealth,
or happiness simply to demonstrate or pro
mote his own self-sufficiency.
In the last analysis the whole problem
resolves itself into one of the development
of the highest ideals. Men aim to produce
and maintain human welfare through legisla
tive enactments. When these prove insuf
ficient they endeavour to amend and fortify
them by other enactments more minute
and comprehensive, until in the end life is
51

The Son of Man
enslaved, " cribbed, cabined, and confined "
within a network of rigid prescriptions.
When the Son of Man would add abundance
to life, he begins by implanting his own
image and spirit in men. Then he leaves
them to use the external expressions and
meanings that have proved most helpful
with the freedom that those who have his
image and spirit within them ought to have.
"Against such there is no law."

52

IV

THE SON OF MAN: REDEMPTIVE
MINISTRY

IV

THE SON OF MAN : REDEMPTIVE
MINISTRY
Mark x. 45 (Matt. xx. 28).
There is much to account for the attitude
of the two disciples who sought the places
of honour in the Messianic kinp-dom. It
O
has ever been the practice of the conquerors
and rulers of the earth to reward their
faithful adherents and helpers with posts of
responsibility and honour. Alexander the
Great raised his devoted friends to positions
of command in his army. Napoleon placed
his brothers and kindred on the thrones of
the kingdoms he had conquered. In ancient
times especially office was viewed not so
much in the light of a trust to be conscien
tiously administered either in the interests of
the entrusting sovereign or in those of the
55

The Son of Man
people over whom it carried authority, as in
the light of a prize to be coveted, a reward
of fidelity. If, therefore, the Messianic
kingdom was to have a hierarchy of officers,
those who were the nearest to the king
himself might very well expect headship over
others when the kingdom was established.
From this ideal to that of Jesus it was a
long and difficult way that the disciples were
called to travel. We wonder, first of all, that
they did not at once decline to go further.
We do not wonder that they found it
difficult to move from their position to that
of Jesus. "Ye know that the princes of
the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,
and they that are great exercise authority
over them. But it shall not be so among
you : but whosoever will be great among
you, let him be your minister ; and whoso
ever would be chief among you, shall be
your servant" (Matt. xx. 25-27, A.V.).
It has been, and is, a hard lesson to learn
for the disciples of Jesus. All through the
ages those who have sincerely wished to live
close to Jesus have acted as if somehow they
56

Redemptive Ministry
thought that Jesus did not mean what He
said. For have they not assumed, not only
the tides " Lord " and " Master," " Doctor "
and " prince," but also tried to exercise the
dominion and authority carried by these
names and tides ? There are, indeed, times
when the Master's living illustration of it
looms with irresistible distinctness before the
eyes of the disciples, and humiliation and
heart-searchings follow ; but soon again, like
men who wish to keep awake but whom
sleep overcomes, they lapse once more into
the same jealous watchfulness of each other,
anxious lest their fellow-disciples may some
how gain the upper hand.
" It shall not be so among you " (A.V.).
The way in which Jesus pressed His principle
upon His disciples was not by adducing
arguments, but by holding His own example
plainly before them. " Ye call me Teacher
and Lord : and ye say well ; for so I am.
If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have
washed your feet ; ye also ought to wash each
other's feet " (John xiii. 13). If the king of
the kingdom was not to lord it over the people,
57

The Son of Man
certainly none of them should aim to lord
it over the others. " The Son of Man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
i. Exaltation through Abasement.
He who would be first must become such
by choosing to be last. He who would seek
the position of servant would rise to greatness.
Exaltation through abasement : that is the
paradox of Jesus. The explanation of the
paradox lies in the fact that place as such is not
a proper goal of ambition according to Jesus.
What His disciple should seek is not place
but work. And the reward of work must
needs be place. In seeking work one abases
himself. In receiving the reward he is exalted.
Exaltation through abasement. Yes, but
not abasement in order to exaltation. There
is a way of reading the principle which
nullifies its real force. When one deliber
ately chooses a low place with the intention
of thereby securing a higher one in the end,
not only does he misunderstand the meaning
of the Master, but as soon as his motive
betrays itself, as it is bound to do, he must
58

Redemptive Ministry
needs fail to attain the end. Moreover,
service undertaken for the sake of promotion
to rulership soon becomes formal and per
functory, and degenerates, as in the case of the
mediaeval rite of feetwashing, into an empty
caricature. No one ever commanded more
instant respect for Himself than Jesus did.
Yet no one laid less claim to it for its own
sake than He. " He made himself of no
reputation, and took upon him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of
man " (Phil. ii. 7, A.V.). "Though he was
rich, yet for your sakes he became poor "
(2 Cor. viii. 9, A.V.). Why ? Not in order
to be made richer, or to be raised to a higher
height, but simply and purely in order to
enrich those whom He had loved. Hence,
" God hath exalted and given him a name
which is above every name : that at the
name of Jesus every knee should bow, of
things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth" (Phil. ii. 9, 10).
His abasement was unreserved, and its object
was the lifting up of those who were sunken
into a helpless dejection. 59

The Son of Man
There is a generosity that aims to get
more than it gives : it is the generosity of
the investor. The owner of lands grants to
the community a liberal tract for the erection
of a church or a school in a growing territory.
Apparently he impoverishes himself in order
to enrich the public. In reality he enriches
himself. The value of what he has given
comes back to him, perhaps manifold, in the
enhancement of the value of the lands
remaining in his possession. To this kind
of giver one may almost hear Jesus saying,
" What reward have ye ? Do not even the
publicans the same ? What do ye more than
others ? " What reward does the ostensibly
humble man deserve who depreciates himself
in order to hear others sing his praises ?
What more than others does the apparendy
self-denying man who practises his self-
renunciation for a time in order later to yield
himself to a more unrestrained indulgence ?
The self-abasement which leads to exalta
tion is a self-forgetful abasement. So long
as its spell holds one he knows of nothing
ulterior. How often a public man has
60

Redemptive Ministry
thrown himself into some form of service,
taking a lowly place in the ranks, thoughtful
of nothing but the immediate good end to
be accomplished, and has found himself to
his great surprise the subject of applause and
appreciation. And what in all such cases is
of more consequence to the faithful worker,
he has also earned promotion to higher forms
of service. The last are constantly being
forced to the first places, and the first to the
last, not by the hand of a mocking Nemesis,
but in accordance with a universal law. The
seed that falls into the soil from the plant
seems lost, but from the point of view of
the plant it is the only seed that is not lost.
Self-forgetful effort in behalf of others
always brings forth fruit in perpetuating the
good done ; and self-seeking, self-advertising
activity brings its own reward, which may
be, indeed, conspicuity for a season, but it is
conspicuity with scorn.
2. Leadership through Service.
But exaltation and abasement alike are but
means toward ends. Even self-abasement,
61

The Son of Man
unreserved and self-forgetful, may not be in
itself what Jesus meant to make the law of
His kingdom. "The Son of Man came not
to be ministered unto, but to minister."
More important than exaltation through self-
abasement is the lesson of leadership through
service. Among the nations the goal of ambition
is that one should be offered and accept
graciously the service of his inferiors. The
badge of royalty is to be obeyed. " I also
am a man set under authority," said the
centurion with natural pride, "and I say to
this one, Go, and he goeth ; and to another,
Come, and he cometh " (Luke vii. 8). To
have large numbers of loyal subordinates to
whom one may issue orders and know that
he will be implicitly respected and served,
to have others work for one and to enjoy
the fruits of their labours, this is what made
positions of command so desirable.
There were, indeed, faint glimmerings of
a different ideal of regal dignity and preroga
tive even in ancient times. The advisers of
Rehoboam were divided into two groups.
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Redemptive Ministry
The younger said to him, in effect, that the
demands of the tribes were simply the omens
of a rebellious disposition, the beginnings of
anarchy, the mutterings of an impending
outbreak against discipline. They must be
summarily dealt with, and that with a strong
hand. The only way to maintain order in
such circumstances was to double the rigour
of existing disciplinary measures. The older
and more experienced men held up another
ideal. " If thou wilt serve this people," they
said, " they will obey thee." Events proved
that whatever the value and wisdom of the
older men may have been, that of the younger
was suicidal.
Other kings in Israel, because they realised
the ideal of the older advisers of Rehoboam,
were more successful. They demonstrated
the proposition that the perpetuity of the
ruler's hold on the ruled depends on his
unswerving purpose to administer the govern
ment altogether in the interests of the whole
people ruled. This was what the prophets
meant by righteousness as they held up the
principle to the leaders of Israel. " Ich Dien "
^3

The Son of Man
should be not only the motto, but the working
philosophy of the monarchy that would
expect loyal subjects.
But these were only the foreshadowings,
the dim anticipations of the full divine ideal
of royalty. They were to become clearer
when the grand figure of the Servant of
Jehovah was thrown on the canvas. They
were to be perfected, and perfectly revealed,
in the person and mission of Jesus. In Him
leadership through helpful service was shown
forth in its full beauty, and the evolution of
true princely character was completed.
Noblesse oblige may now well sum up the
distinctive quality of true aristocracy.
Monarchy is passing away. Democratic
political institutions are prevailing all over
the globe. But the spirit of self-promotion
is not limited to monarchical forms of State
organisation. The instinct for dominion
over others, which is a form of the more
primal instinct of self-preservation, continues
to work. It is necessary to set over-against
it what Drummond has taught us to call the
"struggle for the other." Men under
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Redemptive Ministry
democratic forms of government and under
social conditions which exclude aristocratic
distinctions cling to the desire to be served.
They have not ceased aiming to raise them
selves upon pedestals from whence they may
exercise authority. They may not demand
the places on the right hand and on the
left hand of power as a matter of privilege
because of intimacy with the absolute king ;
they may not ask for them on the ground of
inherited rights ; they may only plead the
possession of hard won wealth, or of influence
secured through years of work ; but whether
on the ground of wealth or achievement of any
kind, the moment any one sets forth a claim
to be ministered unto, he is placing himself
in a different class from the Son of Man.
" Ye know not what ye ask," may be said
to him as it was to the sons of Zebedee.
" Are ye able to drink the cup that I shall
drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with ? " How eagerly
these young men accepted the challenge ! A
young prince ambitious to enjoy the glamour
and glory of the throne says, " I am able,"
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The Son of Man
to do the work of the king. But he soon
discovers that the cup which accompanies
the throne has for dregs, anxieties and fears,
apprehensions of revolution, terrors of the
assassin's dagger, or the anarchist's bomb,
forebodings of humiliation and distress for
the loved ones. These are not necessarily
limited to the lot of the weak and unworthy
ruler ; they may be inevitable as ingredients
of royalty under all conditions ; but how
different their aspect to the monarch who
aims at royalty for the honour and the power
it brings, from what it is to the one who
takes royalty as a God-given trust and task
to be performed in the spirit of loving
ministry to his people. To the one they
are the unexpected, mysterious and unde
served misfortunes that fickle Fortune has
placed in his lot ; to the other they are the
cross which all faithful ministry must vicari
ously carry. Herod died haunted by fears
and exhausted by diseases, not knowing why
his lot should have been beset by so many
and so sore trials. William of Orange died
by the hand of the assassin, realising that he
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Redemptive Ministry
had done the will of God, and full of peace
because his efforts had resulted in measurably
advancing the interests of his beloved people.
Again, the man who is emulating the place
of leadership in the modern church or society
— who is seeking to become pope, cardinal,
bishop, president, overseer, moderator,
answers the question, " Are ye able ? " with
a half thought out, " I am able " ; and he
discovers, alas ! too late, that the coveted prize
had attached to it a cup full of bitter dregs.
There was the criticism of his brethren, the
jealousy of his rivals, the misunderstanding
of his motives and aims, the defection of his
associates and helpers, the challenging of
his wisdom, the thousand other petty trials
and annoyances. How will he take these ?
What will they mean to him ? When the
cry is raised that his leadership is resulting
in the muddling of affairs, that he has bungled
and missed the course, that he is driving the
ship to its ruin upon the rocks, what will he
think of it ? Will he say, It is a blind and
cruel fate that has thrown him into the hands
of merciless adversaries, or will he look only
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The Son of Man
to Him that judgeth aright for His judgment,
and to the advancement of the cause com
mitted to his hands as his joy ? It will
depend on whether he was led to the place
of leadership without seeking it for himself,
and accepted it as an opportunity for helpful
service ; or sought the position for the honour,
the power, and the emoluments it would
bring him.
To put the question from a slightly
different point of view, Would the leader
accept the sleepless nights, the carking cares,
the broken health, the unkindness of critics,
and the apparent waste of time and labour,
if he knew these were necessary in the per
formance of the task ? It depends on
whether he views the task as a means of
being ministered unto or of ministering.
3. Redemption through Suffering.
The test, then, of the service which leads
to leadership is not its pure disinterestedness,
but its absorbing and intense interest in the
welfare of one's human brethren. And as
the supreme region where welfare may be
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Redemptive Ministry
wrought out is the spiritual, and the supreme
need in the spiritual sphere is the blotting
out of sin, it was meet that the supreme
instance of service should issue in redemp
tion through suffering. He "came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister, and give
his life a ransom for many." But though re
demption through suffering is peculiarly the
characteristic of the work of the Son of Man,
in a secondary and subordinate way it may
be held as the goal of all service.
The world has in these latter days de
veloped a broad idea of service. All kinds
of good work are included under the enticing
name. It is service to give of one's substance
for the relief of suffering. We call it service
to educate the mind of the ignorant and put
them in a position where they can help
themselves. We call it service to labour for
the righting of wrongs and injustices caused
by an abnormal industrial development, or
incident to a too rapid growth in the scientific
control of the resources of the earth. We
call it service to live in a social settlement
in the midst of the slums with the design of
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The Son of Man
merely showing those who have no oppor
tunity of learning otherwise how a pure,
clean, and noble life may be lived. This is
all very good. It is quite possible, however,
that some one or all of these forms of service
may be looked at as in itself and for its sake
the ultimate goal and aim of effort : and
when this is done merely ameliorative effort
usurps the place of redemptive service.
The Son of Man entered upon a manifold
ministry. He healed the sick, he cheered
the discouraged, he comforted the sorrowing,
he raised the downfallen, he taught the
ignorant ; and all ministries along these
lines in His name must undoubtedly be
reckoned as affiliated with His work, as
having the sanction of His example and the
promise of His approval. Nevertheless it
must never be forgotten that the primary
object of Jesus in ministering was the
salvation of souls from the thraldom of sin.
" The Son of Man came to seek and to
save that which was lost." Had the ills of
humanity been merely those of ignorance or
poverty, of bodily weakness or inadequate
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Redemptive Ministry
legislation, the Son of Man might have left
the natural provisions of the universe to
work out the problem of the elimination of
these evils as they have had a tendency to
do in all ages. But the truth is that behind
and beneath all these subordinate evils there
is one common root and principle of life :
and that, experience has demonstrated no
processes of evolution have, a tendency to
eliminate, and no growth of civilisation has
a tendency to diminish. It was this that
was causing the " loss " of men and women ;
and therefore it was this that the Son of
Man was concerned to attack, and from
the power of this it was His purpose and
endeavour to rescue the children of God.
The Pharisees of old called it " Yetser-
ha-ra " (the principle of evil), theologians
have named it " Original Sin " and " Total
Depravity." And these terms have in the
course of their use acquired connotations
of an objectionable character. We may
easily dispense with their use since Jesus
Himself did not resort to them to express
His meaning. But there can be no question
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The Son of Man
whatever that the thing they aim to express
is a fact of experience and an assumption of
Jesus in His whole attitude and teaching.
Redemptive ministry meant to Him giving
"his life a ransom for many." And all
ministry was summed up and capitalised
in His suffering for the redemption of His
lost sheep. Nor could redemption be ac
complished except by the way of His giving
His life a ransom. There are axiomatic
truths in the physical sphere, as that the
whole is more than any of its parts, or that
two bodies cannot occupy the same space
at the same time. There seems to be a
necessary and even axiomatic truth in the
realm of spiritual reality, less obvious,
perhaps, because truth in the higher sphere
is always less easy to discern, that re
demption cannot be accomplished except
through vicarious suffering.
Finally, such redemptive service can only
be rendered by one who is himself in no
need of redemption, hence for human beings
by those who have been redeemed. Only as
the soul has realised the double truth that
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Redemptive Ministry
once redeemed there can be no more anxiety
for its own blessedness, and that the blessing
of redemption in contrast to the distress and
danger of sin is of infinite value, can it with
adequate and carrying motive power take up
the work of ministering to others and giving
its own life a ransom for many.

73

v
THE SON OF MAN A VICTIM

THE SON OF MAN A VICTIM
Mark ix. 31, x. 33, xiv. 21, 41 (Matt. xvii. 22,
xxvi. 2, 24, 45 ; Luke ix. 44, xxii. 28 ; Mark
viii. 31 ; Matt. xvii. 12 ; Luke ix. 22).
It was not necessary that an angel from
heaven should have taught men that a
Sinless man, if he should appear in an
unideally conditioned world, must necessarily
suffer. Plato in a very familiar passage says,
"The righteous man, being thought un
righteous, will be scourged, racked, bound ;
will have his eyes put out ; and finally,
having endured all sorts of evil, will be
impaled" (Rep. ii. 361). It was inevitable
that where moral standards have been per
verted, the good should be thought evil and
the evil good. The good man, according to
Plato, suffers not because he was known to
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The Son of Man
be good, but because he was thought to be
bad. The perfect man measured, by per
verted standards must needs appear wicked
and be awarded the judgment of the wicked.
When William Carey awoke to the real
nature and genius of the gospel as a message
of world-wide power and application, and
proposed missionary enterprise among the
heathen at the Northamptonshire Association,
Mr. John Ryland vehemendy called him " a
most miserable enthusiast." Probably the
great body of the membership of the
Association concurred in this judgment.
When John Wesley and George Whitefield
began their fervid evangelistic work, pleading
with their audiences for immediate decision
for Christ, the representatives of an easy
going ecclesiasticism, moving in traditional
grooves, denounced them in all manner of
severe and derogatory terms. No thought
ful or observant reformer with ideals above
those of his generation will expect a cordial
welcome and an earnest co-operation from
the corrupt age he is aiming to bring to a
sense of better things. The face of a sinless
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The Son of Man a Victim
man in a sinful community is a challenge to
the forces of evil which they will not be
slow to take up. By His very coming into
the world the Son of Man places Himself
across the path of sin. Will sin fail to fight
for its life ? Does the wild beast at bay
give up meekly to the hunter who is seek
ing its life ? Does the stream across whose
path the dam has been built fail to rise in
its accumulated volume and weight in a
determined struggle to sweep the barrier or
overleap it in its irresistible march towards
the ocean ? " The Son of Man must suffer
at the hands of sinful men." The sin that
is in them must needs arise to sting and
wound and "bruise his heel."
But the suffering of the Son of Man took
certain forms, which, characteristic as they
may be, are not at first sight congruous with
His mission. i. Betrayal.
First of all, He was "betrayed." It is
interesting to note how much is said of the
betrayal of Jesus. The expectation of it
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The Son of Man
weighed heavily upon His mind, so that He
foreshadowed it to His followers. Judas,
who perpetrated the act, was indelibly marked
with the stamp of its dark shame. His
former companions could not, after the act,
think of him apart from the blot on his
record, nor speak of him without adding the
descriptive "which was to betray him."
Even in the preliminary enumeration of the
disciples his last infamous deed must be
linked with his name — "Judas, who also
betrayed him." When in the course of the
narrative of the last days the arrest is reached,
it is with special circumstantiality that the
betrayal is placed before the eye of the
reader. The scene in the garden, the
approach of the officers with the mob armed
with sticks and staves under the leadership
of Judas, the sign of the kiss — all these
details are given with more than ordinary
care and fullness.
Why this special emphasis on the darkest
hour of Jesus' life ? Evidently because it
had impressed all observers with the enormity
of its offence. A betrayal is in the nature
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The Son of Man a Victim
of the case an especially grave wrong. It is
falsehood to a trust. An enemy may oppose
and fight ; and he may do so in an open and
honourable way. A friend must first betray
before he can fight. He cannot fight honour
ably until he has openly ceased to be a
friend. But the traitor persists in appearing
a friend when at heart he has become an
enemy. Betrayal can only take place under
the cover of friendship ; therefore its best
emblem is the wolf clothed in the skin of
the lamb, whose object is to devour and
destroy what it appears to befriend. Its
perpetrator uses the most sacred of relation
ships as ground of the vilest and most
hateful of offences.
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar was not
surprised to see among his assassins the
dark eyes of the "lean Cassius," or of the
" envious Casca " ; but when he perceived
the genial face of his noble friend Brutus in
the group, he quite gave way ; " ingratitude,
more strong than traitors' arms, quite van
quished him." Thus it has come to pass
that Judas has borne the stigma of dishonour,
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The Son of Man
the mark of Cain, on his name and reputa
tion through the Christian centuries.
Men will almost forgive the foul immor
alities and brutal cruelties of a Herod, of a
Nero, a Caligula, or an Alexander Borgia ;
but they will not condone the treachery of
a Benedict Arnold or a Judas Iscariot.
Nothing in the whole range of human
passions serves as a better means of stirring
indignation and calling upon itself the exe
cration of the healthy man than the sin of
treason. Therefore in literature nothing is
more apt to arouse profounder hatred than
this sin ; and in the criminal code nothing
is placed above it as a crime, and punished
with a severer penalty than " high treason."
In the tragedy of Macbeth it was not so
much the heartlessness of the cold-blooded
murder that pierced the conscience-stricken
king and broke him down, as that the crime
was committed under the cover of friendly
hospitality. In an open war much severer
cruelty might have been displayed ; but the
betrayal of the holiest of trusts, of friendship,
led to the incurable, uncleansable stain. AH
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The Son of Man a Victim
of great Neptune's ocean could not wash
away the blot.
The Son of Man was made the victim of
this the blackest form of human depravity.
Is there any significance in the fact ? Was
it a mere accident ? or was it an incident
growing out of the very nature of the
relation He sustained to the moral order of
the universe ? An incident, but inevitable in
the circumstances. Its significance must be
found in the uncompromising character of
the conflict with sin. It was no mere super
ficial, formal engagement to satisfy an empty
code of honour, after the manner of a modern
duel. It was a deadly combat in which He
grappled with the invisible powers and was
assailed by them as a mortal foe. The Son
of Man must, indeed, be betrayed into the
hands of men. Thus only could He drain
the bitterness of the cup to the uttermost.
2. Suffering.
"The Son of Man must suffer many
things, and be rejected by the elders, and by
the chief priests, and scribes." " The elders,"
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The Son of Man
" the chief priests," " the scribes " — these
are the potent influences in social life which
always tend to become more and more
completely organized, and to assume greater
and greater authority. " The elders," i.e.,
those who were appointed to rule, the govern
ing body ; " the chief priests," i.e., the officers
of the churches, the ministers of religion,
those who by reason of their ministering
in the religious services had come to be
regarded as the specially accredited executors
of the divine will ; and the " scribes," i.e.,
the representatives of learning, the teachers
of the people, the literary class, who were
therefore the guardians of the intellectual
interests of the people. The enumeration
is exhaustive. All classes of leaders and all
types of leadership in the community were
concerned with the appearance of the Son of
Man. For He presents Himself as the typical
and comprehensive leader ; and to each type
as well as to each individual He has an ideal
to hold up. But by each class He is rejected.
Being rejected by the leaders, He was
rejected by the community. It is true that
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The Son of Man a Victim
some individuals, such as Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea, would not concur in
His rejection ; and that others went even
further towards Him, and were destined in
later days to be His active followers and
disciples ; but for the moment His rejection
was complete, and it expressed the feeling
and attitude of the whole community towards
Him. Righdy and wrongly the leaders have
borne the brunt of the responsibility of His
rejection. Rightly, because it belonged to
them to guide the people to the best action,
and they failed to do this. Rightly, also,
because no matter how impotent the leader
may be at times when the tide of popular
feeling has risen high and passed beyond his
control, in the end he is one of the makers
of the feeling : and without his active
co-operation it could not have risen so high.
The leader's responsibility is always greater
than that of the mere unit in the crowd.
But these leaders have been also in a
measure wrongly held accountable for the
suffering of Jesus because the people who
followed were equally guilty. The ancient
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The Son of Man
prophet's "Like people like priests" was
ever a true maxim. No people at any time
can place the whole burden of its wrong
doing with the consequent misfortune on the
shoulders of its leaders. But whether people
or followers were more to blame, the
rejection so far as the Son of Man was
concerned was complete.
Nor was it a passive or negative one. It
was no mere silent disregard, a contemptuous
dismissal of His claims, a supercilious scorn
that will not condescend to so unworthy an
adversary. When a crisis arises it may be
met as a great opportunity, a tide with which
one may move and advance the world's pro
gress ; or it may be met as a call to warfare,
a stream that must be stemmed and reversed ;
and again it may be met as a matter of no
immediate concern, since the forces that are
to settle the issue raised are adequately at
work within the crisis itself. In the last
case the statesman adopts a policy of
masterly inaction. This was not the way
the leaders looked upon the crisis raised by
the appearance of Jesus. No policy of
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The Son of Man a Victim
silence could satisfy the conditions. They
must take note of Him, they must gird
themselves to the conflict with Him. He
was too great to be passed by ; too con
spicuous to be ignored.
There is that in Jesus which commands
men to some kind of attitude towards Him.
The instant His true nature and claims are
apprehended, it is necessary to reckon with
Him. If not accepted He must be rejected.
He always divides the world into opposing
camps. He that is not for Him must be
against Him. " He came unto his own,
and his own received him not." But this
was not the end. " But as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become sons
of God." " For judgment I am come into
the world, that they which see not might see,
and that they which see might be made
blind." Has there ever arisen among the
sons of men one who, like this Son of Man,
has drawn from the lips of His brethren so
much animated expression or such vehement
rejection ?
"He must suffer many things," not
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The Son of Man
necessarily bodily maltreatment. This was
severe enough in His case. The scourgings
and bufferings, the nails piercing His hands
and feet, the carrying of Him bodily to and
fro : these are incidents in the suffering of
the Son of Man, and serious, no doubt ; but
more serious than these were the pangs that
entered His soul, the hatred and malice, the
misunderstanding and misrepresentation, the
bitterness of spirit and the hopeless and
cheerless ill-will that lay behind these out
ward acts of His persecutors.
The bodily pain inflicted on Jesus in the
days of His flesh was but a circumstance,
and an inevitable one, in the whole complex
of outward aspects of the life of His age.
Offenders must needs be dealt with in that
way. The times have changed. That
method of treating criminals, either alleged
or real, has passed away. Men no longer
scourge, buffet, or publicly crucify offenders
against the law of the State or the Church.
But there is reason to believe that Jesus was
not much pained by these outward blows.
Those that raised His body on the Cross and
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The Son of Man a Victim
otherwise treated it as that of a criminal,
elicited from His lips the alleviative : " They
know not what they do." But the pain of
seeing men vent feelings of malice and
hatred, the realisation that the good He
was doing them was being misunderstood,
the doubt as to the present success at least
of His Messianic mission — for these things
there seemed to be neither excuse nor ex
tenuation. These pierced Him to the heart.
And has the spirit that actuated the chief
priests and scribes in their treatment of
Jesus passed away ? Men, even the most
hostile to Him and to the institutions He
has created, would shrink with horror from
the idea of inflicting physical pain upon
such an one as He was. But do they not
still pass from misunderstanding to rejec
tion of Him ? Do they not with their evil
and unworthy thoughts of Him still cause
Him to "suffer many things." Do they
not by their contemptuous treatment "of
the least " of His brethren, by their proud
and censorious attitude towards His gospel
of compassion, still grieve and break His
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The Son of Man
heart ? The old prophet characterised the
ideal sufferer as "despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief." And the description fits, and must
always fit, Jesus the sinbearer, as long as
the aim of His coming into the world is
hindered and counteracted by the sins of
men. 3. Death.
But the valley of humiliation had a deeper
level for the Son of Man to tread, even that
of death. The Apostle Paul in his familiar
portraiture of the ladder through which the
Eternal Son reached this depth points out
its various rungs. The first step in the
downward course was that " he emptied
himself"; the second, that He "took the
form of a servant " ; the third, that " he was
made in the likeness of men " ; the fourth,
that " being found in fashion as a man, he
humbled himself"; and the fifth, that "he
became obedient unto death," and the
Apostie adds the cap to the climax as he
points to the form of the death, "Yea, the
death of the cross." 90

The Son of Man a Victim
To submit to death is, in itself, neither
misfortune nor merit. It carries neither
honour nor deprivation. Death coming at
the end of full and complete life may be a
blessing. An eminent scientist has pro
pounded the view that by nature man
should be endowed with an "instinct for
death " just as he is endowed with an
instinct for life. It is his meaning that
when life has run its course and its stream
hasv spent its force, there should ensue the
hunger and expectation for death just as
naturally as the desire for sleep after a day
of healthy toil, or the desire for food and
drink after thorough depletion. The reason
such an instinct does not manifest itself in
human experience is that life, because of
unnatural conditions, is cut off before the
proper stage is normally reached for the
development of the instinct. However
this may be, death certainly has a place in
the complete experience of a man, and it
cannot in itself be regarded as a curse except
in a world that has ceased to be normal.
But why should the Son of Man be put
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The Son of Man
to death ? To die is one thing and to be
put to death is quite another. Why should
the ideal man be put to death ? Why indeed,
except that he came into a world of sin, a
world in which not death as a release from
earthly and purely physical conditions was
the ruling principle, but one pervaded and
completely controlled by sin, — a death in
which sin is a controlling factor, a death in
consequence of sin.
Thus the death of Jesus, like His life, is
symbolised by the whole burnt-offering, a
perfect, absolute, unqualified surrender of
His whole self, an unreserved dedication of
His personality to the work He undertook to
accomplish and to the will of His Heavenly
Father. "Yea, the death of the cross,"
exclaims the Apostle as he contemplates the
self-sacrifice of the Saviour of mankind.
The Son of Man must, indeed, be put to
death.

92

VI
THE SON OF MAN TRIUMPHANT

VI
THE SON OF MAN TRIUMPHANT
Mark ix. 9, viii. 38 (Matt. xii. 40, xvii. 12,
xiii. 41, xvi. 27, 28, xxvi. 64).
It appeared an incredible thing to the disciples
of Jesus that He whom they believed to be
the Messiah and who called Himself the Son
of Man to them, should be put to death.
The prediction of such an event was so
starding and perplexing that the spokesman
of the group must needs voice the protest of
the faithful and loving followers. In this
prediction what they saw of the supernatural
element in their leader must have seemed to
contradict itself. Trusting in the super
natural knowledge of their Master, they must
believe His foreshadowing of His tragic end ;
but again, thinking of His supernatural power
as a worker of miracles, could they believe
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The Son of Man
that it was necessary for Him to surrender
Himself to His enemies ?
Moreover, why should He be put to death ?
He was no vehement preacher of sedition.
What possible ground could there be upon
which just action leading to His death could
be taken by the rulers ? Were He, like some
former claimants to the Messiahship, the
organizer of an open rebellion against the
powers that be, His gloomy outlook into the
future might have some plausibility ; but
for a teacher of righteousness, for a law-
abiding citizen such as He was, the only just
recompense must be a supernatural, or as
we nowadays call it, " apocalyptic " ratifica
tion and establishment of His Messiahship.
But if it was bold for Jesus to predict His
own violent death, it was quite as bold, if
not indeed much bolder, to predict His rising
from the tomb. Here, too, was an oudook
highly improbable in itself. The resurrection
idea, though not unfamiliar to the disciples,
was by them, as it was by the Pharisees,
associated with the remote event of the end
of the world, the great " Day of Jehovah."
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The Son of Man Triumphant
For a resurrection to happen as a sporadic
event to any individual was very hard indeed,
if not impossible, to believe. And yet the
combination of the two predictions of death
and resurrection must have helped to lessen
the difficulty of believing either separately.
Just because He could and should rise again,
the Son of Man might look upon His violent
death with equanimity. In some way not
to be clearly seen, His death might be the
means towards the accomplishment of a
higher end, if only He were to shake Himself
free of the power of death in the end. And
again, if Jesus was to die as the Messiah, His
resurrection would at once be taken out of
the class of ordinary events and placed in an
entirely different category. Thus in the
Son of Man apparent contradictions are
always reconciled. If He exhibits weakness
before the eyes of men, it is in order to show
strength. If He is strong, it is that He may
give up His strength in the struggle for the
good of His loved ones. His defeat is His
triumph.

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The Son of Man
i. The Resurrection of the
Son of Man.
That the Chosen of Fortune could not
remain a permanent victim of misfortune has
been the widespread belief and conviction of
all ages. It is, indeed, the counterpart of the
prophetic " Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy
One to see corruption." Unless it be re
garded as a gratuitous introduction of prodigy
into human thought, the resurrection of
Osiris or Adonis means the confidence that
what has flourished in glory is ever stronger
than the powers of decay.
The Persian sages argued that it is easier
to bring back into life one who has died than
to create him out of nothing. For in creating,
the creator must bring into being both the
idea and the material of the creature, whereas
in the restoring the dead to life the idea was
already in existence. The pattern is at hand,
and all that is needed is to give it back its
power and substance. Or, to put it in another
form, creation, because it must proceed without
antecedents, must be harder than resurrection
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The Son of Man Triumphant
with the path already marked out for it by
creation. But Persian sage, Greek philo
sopher, and Hebrew seer alike resorted to
the idea of resurrection as a protest against
the idea that the noble and great among men
should be in the end swallowed up in non
existence. In all these earlier premonitions of a
possible rising to life of those who had died,
it is only the select that are thought of as
entided to the privilege. " Thou shalt not
suffer thy beloved one to see corruption."
In the case of Osiris, it was the demigod who
through resurrection was deified. The hero
who possessed irrepressible energy or inde
structible life might aspire to victory over
the powers of darkness. There was no com
fort in this to the ordinary man. Hence it
does not appear that belief in the resurrection
of an Osiris or an Adonis had any bearing
whatever on the everyday life of the devotee
of the ancient cults.
Quite different is the function of the
belief in the resurrection of the Christ in
the New Testament. From the moment
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The Son of Man
when Jesus predicted it the event is associ
ated with His public work as Saviour. It is
not for Himself that He either dies or rises
again not to display His power over the
world principle, nor to illustrate- a cosmic
law, nor yet to prove the truth of the con
viction that a noble, a pre-eminent soul
might enjoy a rare privilege, but that the
whole race might be made partakers of eternal
life. His resurrection is not meant as the
occasion of arousing sympathy for and fellow
ship in His joy, but to assure of an inner and
vital identification of Himself with them.
Thus the whole treatment of the saving
work of Jesus in the apostolic references to
it co-ordinates His resurrection with His
death. As He dies in order to give His
life a ransom for many, so He rises in order
to bring many into a new life. Paul clearly
and logically establishes this connection.
" He was delivered for our offences, and
was raised again for our justification " (Rom.
iv. 25). But He is not alone in making the
resurrection the corner-stone of salvation.
" God," according to Peter, " begat us again
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The Son of Man Triumphant
unto a living hope by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead" (i Pet. i. 3).
John has so thoroughly apprehended the
significance of the resurrection of the Master
that he not only gives the most extensive
and detailed account of the event, but pre
serves the immortal and invaluable utterance :
" I am the resurrection and the life " (John xi.
25). One does not wonder that whereas the
working out of the resurrection thought
around the story of Osiris and around the
story of Adonis once flourished in the
form of a mere myth, but has now been
left to the archaeologist, the historian, and
the lover of folklore to cherish, the resur
rection fact of the Gospel, the return from
the tomb of Jesus, has retained all its first
vitality : yea, and that it has gained with
every new interweaving of it into human
experience.
2. The Victory over Death.
Thus far we have followed the thought of
the resurrection of Jesus involved in His
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The Son of Man
Messiahship. "Thou wilt not suffer thy
Holy One to see corruption " ; not, however,
for His own sake. Nothing that enters into
the experience of the Messiah, the Son of
Man, is for His own sake. He is not suffered
to see corruption in order that His holy ones
might be associated with Him in His joys and
have the assurance that though the worst had
happened to them they can still maintain their
place and privilege as the children of God.
The Son of Man is not exempt from
suffering and death in a world of sin. How
then can any other man expect to be ? But
the Son of Man has triumphed over suffer
ing and death ; he has defied it, and it has
done its worst on him ; yet he has won the
victory over it at its strongest. Even death
lies conquered and shorn of its terrors at
his feet. Therefore all the sons of men for
all time may look to the final victory over
suffering and death.
" Jesus rose, no longer now
Can thy terrors, death, appal me ;
Jesus rose, and well I know
From the grave He will recall me."
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The Son of Man Triumphant
The revolutionary significance of the
resurrection of Jesus for the experience of
death, though at first glance obvious enough,
can be easily underestimated. The antici
pation of death has a tendency to distress,
depress, and even paralyse the normal move
ment of life. There are times and circum
stances in which the expectation comes with
even terrifying force. In its mildest form
the emotion excited, as, for instance, in the
aged who have lived the full measure of
days on earth, is one of deep regret. There
is a pathetic passage in one of Herbert
Spencer's latest letters, in which, after attain
ing his eightieth birthday, he faces the
prospect of speedy dissolution, and speaks
of the sadness that fills his soul as he thinks
that soon the world of birds and flowers, of
sunshine and blue skies, of progress in
knowledge and enjoyment of friendships,
must close to him.
And the fuller and purer has been the
stream of life, the greater the regret at its
running dry. The nobler the aspirations,
the more strenuous the endeavours to achieve
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The Son of Man
ideals, the greater the self-denials in the
struggle for better things, the greater the
waste and loss and the consequent pathos at
the view of the cutting off of life even at the
end of its normal length. "If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all
men most miserable." " If after the manner
of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,
what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not ?
Let us eat and drink ; for to-morrow we
die" (i Cor. xv. 19, 32). Thus wrote one
whose years were comparatively full ; he
was not a very young man ; and his life had
been full of good works ; yet he found no
perfect satisfaction in the backward look ;
nor will any one in a healthy frame of mind.
The soul must be able to look forward in
order to feel that it has had fair treatment
in the struggle of life.
But the case is even more serious, more
full of pathos and sadness, when, instead of
coming to the end of a long and full career,
man is cut off in the midst of his days.
Add to this the frequent and unaccountable,
either physically or morally, association of
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The Son of Man Triumphant
pain and disease with the ending of life.
What is more pathetic than the sight of a
young person stricken with an incurable
malady, desirous to live, full of hope, and
even of determination, realising that hopes
and prayers and efforts of will and skill
must alike prove futile ? How even the
Christian world stands dumbfounded and
staggered by the untimely taking away of
some heroic young man, like Henry
Martyn, David Brainerd, Ion Keith-Falconer,
or William Whiting Borden, whose life
promised so much for the advancement of
the kingdom of God. And if the gospel
were a religion of this world and for this
world only, the misgivings and forebodings
of Christendom in such circumstances would
be justified. But the rising of the Son of
Man from the dead puts an entirely
different aspect both on the peaceful depart
ure of the aged and of the strong and active
man in the flower of his manhood. Death
is not the conqueror, but the servant of life.
The worst that could have been done has
been done, and the Son of Man remains not
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The Son of Man
only unscathed, but master over his ad
versary. He has the enemy at his mercy.
There are conflicts which end in the an
nihilation of either party. They can end
in no other way. The contestants are
absolutely incompatible with one another.
As long as they both live they must con
tend for the extermination of the other.
Such is the conflict of Christ and sin, but
not such was the conflict between Christ
and death. It was rather a contest for place.
Death being conquered, he becomes the
obedient minister of the Lord of Life.
Therefore the Church has ever sung :
" Alleluia ; The strife is o'er, the battle done ;
The victory of life is won ;
The song of triumph has begun.
The powers of death have done their worst ;
But Christ their legions hath dispersed ;
Let shouts of holy joy outburst. Alleluia."
3. The Son of Man in Glory.
But rising from the dead, great and
wonderful and meaningful as the fact may
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The Son of Man Triumphant
be, is not all that the Son of Man has
achieved. He has ascended into glory.
"What is man, that thou art mindful of
him ? or the son of man, that thou visitest
him ? " sang the ancient Psalmist. And the
New Testament writer, quoting the words
and applying them to Jesus, adds as he
explains their meaning : " But now we
behold him, who has been made a little lower
than the angels, even Jesus, because of the
suffering of death, crowned with glory and
honour " (Heb. ii. 5-8). " Crowned with
glory and honour " for the suffering of
death ! The experience of death, then, adds
to the lustre of the crown which was His
from the beginning. It may even be said
that it was a new crown He won through
death and resurrection. The Cross and the
victory over death do not merely replace
things in the order in which they were
before sin. Redemption is no mere restitu
tion. It involves an advance. There are
diseases which, when healed, lead to purer
health than that enjoyed before they came.
There are misfortunes, the overcoming of
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The Son of Man
which leaves a greater blessing than could
have come without them. It is well at
times to preserve a structure in its primitive
simplicity ; but when that structure has
been wrecked, to take up the ruins and
make them over into a grander and more
stately edifice, this is, indeed, the noble part
of the true artist. It is conceivable that the
almighty Creator might have prevented the
entrance of sin into the world. But after
sin did enter, that He should take up the
ruins and reconstitute them into a better
world than one that has never known sin,
this is His glory. "Where sin abounded,
grace did abound more exceedingly " (Rom.
v. 20). The gain through redemption is
greater than the loss through sin. The
glory after the resurrection is more brilliant
than the pleasure of a life without sacrifice
and death.
We are not disturbed in this thought by
the logical and purely speculative considera
tion, that if Christ was a divine person His
glory in His pre-existence could not be in
creased by resurrection, as it could not have
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The Son of Man Triumphant
been diminished by the humiliation of the
incarnation. Since as God He did yearn for
those who needed His saving ministry, and
since He did " for the joy that was set before
him endure the cross, despising the shame,"
and that "he hath sat down at the right
hand of God," it must needs be that the
reward adds something to His satisfaction,
that " the joy that was set before him "
was greater than that He was possessing
before. But what, after all, is the glory of God ?
What is the glory of the Son of Man ?
The glory of God is surely nothing else
than the glow of the warmth of His love
spreading and engulfing ever increasing
multitudes of His children. Men glorify
God not when they stand in awe of His in
conceivable greatness, or obey His will out of
sheer dread lest by disobeying they bring
wrath and condemnation on themselves, or
by chanting His praise in words and strains
carrying no depth of meaning, but when
they yield themselves to His love and allow
Him to work His gracious will through them.
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The Son of Man
It is thus that He gets honour to Himself
through them.
What then, once more, is the glory of the
Son of Man ? Jesus told His disciples that
His meat and drink was to do the will of the
Father that sent Him. The glory of the Son
of Man is to induce the largest number
possible of His brethren to come within the
reach of the Father's love. The glory of
the Son of Man is the light which issues
from His countenance as He contemplates
the blessedness created by His successful
achievement of the work of redemption.
" He shall see of the travail of his soul and
shall be satisfied" (Isa. liii. n). This must
be taken as the standard and measure of the
glory of the Redeemer at the right hand of
God. The tyrant may count it his glory that
men fear him and obey him. The pompous
potentate may deem it his glory that the
dazzling splendour of his robes and the
glittering crown he wears fill the poverty-
stricken multitude with amazement and
envy. The worldling may think it his
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The Son of Man Triumphant
glory when men praise his genius and
applaud his wonderful achievements, or
even his goodness and kindly disposition.
But the mother's glory consists in the
genuine well-doing (not merely the welfare)
of those whom she has nourished and cared
for. "Behold my jewels," she says, in the
person of the Roman matron. It was the
glory of the mother of the Gracchi to have
given herself for her sons and to see in them
realised her best ideals for herself.
This was in a manner signified when Jesus
broke forth into rejoicing as He was told of
the desire of the Greeks to see Him at
Jerusalem. "The hour is come that the
Son of Man should be glorified " (John xii.
23, 24). These Greeks were the vanguard of
a vast army, the first arrivals of an endless
migration. They evoked the vision before
His eyes of the world-wide movement of the
Gentiles toward Him. The multitudes,
invisible to others, were seen by His own
keen eyes. The hour had already struck.
The love of God which He had made known
and available to all would be presently tasted
1 n

The Son of Mart
by the world for which He was to give His
life a ransom. This was, indeed, a reward
to be enjoyed and at the same time a goal to
be achieved. No wonder that it filled His
soul with inexpressible emotion and led Him
to the sacrifice that He must make with new
determination. What if that sacrifice seemed
to be the effacement of Himself? "Except
a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die,
it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it
beareth much fruit." He was glorified in that
he bore much fruit.
The resurrection of the Son of Man, His
triumph over death, His reduction of the
last enemy into not merely a harmless
adversary, but into a willing and useful
minister of good, His ascent into His glory,
are not for Himself alone. They are like
the wealth for which the father of the house
hold toils and plans, to be placed at the
disposal of his loved ones. He can only
enjoy them in full as he shares them in full
with those who belong to him, of whom he
also says in his intercessory prayer, "I am
glorified in them." 112

VII
THE SON OF MAN IN THE WORLDS
FUTURE

VII
THE SON OF MAN IN THE
WORLD'S FUTURE
Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62 (Matt. x. 23, xxv. 13, 31,
xxiv. 30; Luke ix. 26, xii. 40, xviii. 8, xxi. 27).
To the modern mind one of the most strik
ing features of Apostolic and early Christian
thought is the strength and widespread pre
valence of the belief that Jesus was to make
a second appearance very shordy. The man
of the twentieth century is bound to ask :
" How did this belief arise ? and why was
it so firmly and vividly held ? " One
answer to these questions is, that Jesus Him
self predicted His early second coming.
The scholarship of these latter days is largely
behind this view. Grudgingly at first, and
with many misgivings on the part of some,
the concession has been made to exact
H5

The Son of Man
historical research. Jesus did cast His
message concerning the coming of the
Kingdom of God into a form carrying in
itself the idea of His own coming again in
visible splendour, and that within the lifetime
of His hearers.
But behind the utterances of Jesus and
conditioning them lay the Old Testament
picture of the Messianic reign. Whatever
else this picture might or might not mean
in detail to the mind of the time of Jesus,
it did convey the idea of a dispensation of
ideal conditions and invaluable blessings.
And, since Jesus had not fulfilled in a
visible and tangible form this promise of
prophecy, if He was indeed the Messiah, the
only logical inference must be that He Jiad
postponedntfils^part of the Messianic worjc
to a later date. He must then come again
to complete His work. It might thus be
said the belief in the Second Coming was an
inevitable corollary of the acceptance of Him
as the Messiah of Prophecy.
But modes of expression used by Jesus
and the Old Testament conceptions of the
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Son of Man in World's Future
Messiah are alike historical outcroppings of
a more deep-rooted reality and a fundamental
need in human nature which this reality
meets and satisfies. The conviction that
the Son of Man was to get complete control
of the organisation of humanity and manifest
His will in a perfect, and perfectly just, order
of social life, would not have secured its hold
on the minds of men, either in its Jewish or
in its Christian form, were it not that the
human heart at its best moments hungers just
for that consummation, and that there is a real
culmination for the Kingdom of God which
satisfies this spiritual hunger. It is this that
best explains both the words of Jesus and
the enthusiastic acceptance and vigorous and
joyful transmission of the truth of the
Second Coming of the Master.
i. The Certainty of the Second
Coming.
The assurance that the Christ would make
a second entrance into the world of human
affairs is interlinked with the fact of His
resurrection and ascension. "He shall
"7.

The Son of Man
come " means first of all that He is absent
to the eye of the body, but real to the eye
of faith ; He rules as the King of glory. The
term which the early Christians used was not
" second " coming, or coming of any kind,
but "Presence" (Tarousia). It was the
transformation of the existence of the Master
from a hidden reality to an actively felt
presence that appealed to them and impressed
them, the change from faith to sight, the
perfecting of the experience of companion
ship with Him in the restoration of ideal
order to the world by the inclusion in it of
the physical side of His being.
The Presence of the Master is from this
point of view a bringing into visibility of
the invisible. It is described as a " manifes
tation," a "revelation," an "appearing."
"When he shall appear," "If he shall
appear," says John (i John iii. 3). "When
Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested,"
says Paul (Col. iii. 4). When Paul would
impress it upon the mind of the young
Timothy that his duties as a servant of the
gospel are of a most important character, he
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Son of Man in World's Future
charges him by "the appearing (of the
Christ)" (2 Tim. iv. 1). When he would
commend to Titus a pure life as the subject
of preaching, he points to "the hope and
appearing of the glory of the Great God and
Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. ii. 13). Peter
likewise holds up "the revelation (A.V.
"appearing") of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. i. 2)
as a ground for patient endurance of present
affliction. The assurance of the future disclosure of
Him is even now a vivid reality and a
guarantee of his continued interest in our
present efforts and struggles. He has not
gone from the world and left us with a fund
of good, which henceforth we may use
irresponsibly, which we may risk and
possibly lose. He shall come again !
Therefore all we do is of consequence to
Him. Thus in all the allusions to the
future Return as a "revelation," or
"manifestation," there is a practical aim in
view. First of all, the hope of His coming again
becomes " an anchor of the soul, both sure
119

The Son of Man
and steadfast." Men dared in the Apostolic
days, and have dared ever since, to stand by
what they have received from Christ, because
they have known that He would justify them
in their trust of Him, and prove to a gain
saying world that they were not deceived,
that they had not misplaced their confidence.
There were hours of temptation in those
early days. There have been hours of dark
ness and trial ever since. Nor is the time
for them past. All through these the call of
the Master is the same : " That which ye
have, hold fast till I come " (Rev. ii. 25).
Thus has this hope worked out the conser
vation of gain in Christian experience. In
facing all enmity, all opposition and effort
to despoil one of his treasure as a Christian,
let this word but be spoken and the soul is
filled with courage and steadfastness.
In another direction the same confidence
becomes a strong motive for watchfulness.
All expectation begets vigilance. The evil
we expect stirs us to watch and be ready to
meet and fight it. From this point of view,
considering the effect of His coming on the
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Son of Man in World's Future
weak and those who might be found in
default of duty, the Master compares His
coming to that of a thief in the night. The
emphasis is on the uncertainty as to the
time. Watchfulness is a needed means to
preserve from the despondency and the
running low of the powers which result in
letting go and giving up. "Watch, there
fore, for ye know not the day nor the hour "
(Mark xiii. 33).
But there is another sort of watchfulness
resulting from expectation of good. " When
the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith
on the earth ? " (Luke xviii. 8). He shall.
Because there shall be many who shall be
eagerly looking forward to the privilege and
the blessing of fellowship with Him. Being
assured that at least, so far as it concerns
them, His coming is not in wrath but in love,
they shall strain their eyes even as children
do upon the road on which they expect
momentarily to see the gladdening figures
of their absent parents. These are they
whose prayer does not cease to ascend day
nor night : " Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
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The Son of Man
Once more, this confidence becomes an
aggressive power, working out purification
and progress. For, after all, life, if it shall
be worth while, must be something more
than a mere struggle for existence, a mere
battle for the defence of a treasure, no
matter how great and precious. There must
be before it a prospect of advancement. The
possibility of increasing its gains must be
guaranteed to it as well as the possibility of
conserving its gains or the original fund
entrusted to it. " And every one that hath
this hope in him purifieth himself, even as
he is pure " (i John iii. 3). For he reasons
that that which he is to be, and that which
he ought to be, it is worth while for him to
begin to be, since " we know that, if he shall
be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we
shall see him as he is." Growth in all that
pertains to the type of life begotten by the
Son of Man is given a strong impulse and
motive. The early Christians were not only buoyed
and sustained by the expectation of the
Second Advent of the Master, but also
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Son of Man in World's Future
stimulated to most astonishing missionary
efforts. This means that it was with them
a hope and not a fear. At the end of the
tenth century in the history of the Church,
the same expectation revived. The end of
the world at the close of the first millennium
of Christianity was preached by many and
believed by more. But, instead of resulting
in purer lives and more earnest efforts to
spread the gospel, it issued in excesses and
riots of licentiousness such as have rarely
been surpassed in any period. Those who
looked forward to it were filled with fear ;
they were morally paralysed and petrified ;
they were carried away helpless victims to
the evil that was in them. " Maranatha "
(The Lord cometh) does indeed become
anathema " if any man loveth not the Lord "
(i Cor. xvi. 22). To serve as a conserving
and stimulating influence, the belief in the
Presence of the Christ must be a living hope.
2. The Manifold Aspect of the Hope.
While the conviction that the Master shall
reveal Himself in the future is a constant
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The Son of Man
and universal accompaniment and fruit of
Christian faith, it assumes a large number
and variety of forms. Some of these are
apparently contradictory of one another, and
those who entertain them are apt at times to
appear to one another as not holding to the
conviction at all.
In some Christians a sense is developed
of the Master's presence and companionship
as a living and powerful reality in such a
manner that they cannot conceive of Him as
either ever having gone away or as coming
again. Bodily and material reappearance
would add nothing to the comfort these
have in the sense of His nearness. What
could be the meaning, for instance, of a
Second Coming to a person like Frances
Ridley Havergal, who said that she could
not conceive of the ascension of Christ, since
to her He was always present ? Or could
one like Charles Spurgeon take any personal
interest in a visible Second Advent who is
reported to have said, that never for even
fifteen minutes in his experience had he
missed the sense of Christ's nearness to
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Son of Man in World's Future
himself? And what shall we say of the
long line of mystics who habitually saw their
Saviour not merely in ceremony and symbol,
but in day-dream and night vision ? who
held converse with Him and addressed Him
not merely in prayer and sacrament, but in
the privacy of the monastic cell as well as
in the publicity of daily labour ? Who both
saw Him and heard Him " whether in the
body or apart from the body they knew
not " ? Surely all these could not, except by
a violent break from the logic of their own
experience, think of a material Second Coming
as of vital import to them ; surely, if they use
the language of the apocalyptists, it must be
because of inability to avoid using forms of
thought current in their environment.
It is a question whether "the disciple
whom Jesus loved," the author of the
Fourth Gospel, was not the prototype of
this class of Christian. To him the coming
again was identical with the coming of the
Comforter. For does not he report Jesus
as saying : " I will not leave you desolate :
I come unto you " ? (John xiv. 1 8 ff.). In
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The Son of Man
this familiar and precious passage, Jesus,
according to John, uses the word " come "
of Himself, of the Father, and of the Holy
Spirit ; and in such a way as to blur the
distinction between the coming of the three.
Of Himself He says, " I go away, and I come
unto you." And of the joint coming of the
Father and Himself He says, " If a man love
me ... we will come unto him, and make
our abode with him." The key to the
complicated usage seems to be in the ex
pression : " He that loveth me ... I will
love him, and manifest myself unto him."
The coming of the Comforter was only the
flooding of the world with the light that was
to reveal the presence of the Lord Himself,
and since the Father was revealed through
Him only, His own manifestation was to
be the manifestation of the Father. Yet it
cannot be without significance that the same
Gospel is silent on the apocalyptic Second
Coming. If the Master was to be present
in power among His loved ones, His physical
manifestation to the world could possess for
them only secondary interest.
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Son of Man in World's Future
There is another type of believer to whom
the presence of the Risen Redeemer is a
fact of experience, but not in the immediate
form of the mystic. While he does not
associate the presence of the Lord with
a material phenomenon, neither does he
altogether dissociate it from the world of
material facts. He feels it through the
medium of palpable signs and emblems.
His heart burns within him as he discourses
with the mysterions stranger by the way,
but it is only " in the breaking of bread "
that the Master is " known of him."
There is a large class of devout souls
whose spiritual senses are dulled by the
humdrum hubbub of daily routine. But
when they withdraw from the din and strife
of worldly interests and employments and
fall under the spell of an elaborate and
impressive ritual, especially if it be enriched
with suggestive associations interwoven into
it through generations of human experience,
their apprehension of outward matters is in
its turn lulled to sleep, and the gendy
awakened spiritual sense recognises the
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The Son of Man
" Vision of His Face." While they muse
the fire burns, and in the accompanying
glow they see the Lord.
Others are not as sensitive to spiritual
realities. They must be startled by soul-
stirring occurrences. Some escape from mono
tony by some great crisis in public affairs ;
the explosive detonation of a sudden and
stupendous calamity, rising above all the
din and turmoil of life like a clap of
thunder, is needed to arrest these in their
course and to enable them to see the Lord in
the momentary lull following the event.
Still others can only feel the nearness of
the Great Companion in the fellowship of
service with Him. As they gird themselves
to the task of relieving suffering or righting
wrong, of bringing cheer into darkened
places or healing and restoring the broken
and bruised, they remember His words when
He said, " Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of these little ones, ye have done
it unto me," they penetrate the disguise
and discover the Christ.
It is related of one of these devout souls,
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Son of Man in World's Future
a cobbler by trade, that he had the assurance
of his Saviour in a dream that on the next
day He would visit him in his shop. Where
at the faithful one made himself ready for
the promised call. From his basement bench
he would lift his eyes to the side-walk above
and listen to the tramp of footsteps, and
eagerly imagine that each successive passer
by might be the Master. And from time to
time he would leave his bench, go up the
street and invite some weary one to sit down
and rest in his humble quarters, and offer
him refreshing food and drink. The even
ing came. The Master had failed to keep
his promise. But during his night's sleep
the Master stood once more beside his bed,
and as he humbly reminded Him of His un
fulfilled promise, the Master told him that
every weary one he had taken in and refreshed
and cheered during the course of the day
was Himself in disguise.
But there are also other souls who are not
favoured with the privilege of the Vision of
Christ in any of its forms. They do not
doubt the testimony of their brethren who
I 29

The Son of Man
have glimpses of Him, or of those who live
in His ever present companionship ; but for
themselves, they must look into the future
for that full and intimate fellowship which
their hearts crave.
3. The Spiritual Value of the
Parousia.
For every Christian the fact cannot help
but be of the utmost importance, that there is
a promise of a larger blessing and of a purer
joy in the future through Christ's presence
in the world. What is the essential meaning
of the promise ? We shall not go far astray
if we find the answer in some such form as
this :
1. All the powers of the world, known and
unknown, are in the end to work out God's
will of love, and through Christ manifest to
the entire universe His goodness and truth.
Mere spectacular display is certainly far from
the inner thought of Jesus when He speaks
of His own coming in glory with the
"angels." Angels are ministering spirits.
So are the forces of nature, and so may
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Son of Man in World's Future
become the wills of men. All shall in the
end be brought into harmony with His plan
and purpose.
2. Christ's thought shall be the standard
of discrimination for all and in all matters.
Men and things shall be brought more and
more to His ideas as a basis of approval and
disapproval. Borrowing the imagery of
antecedent methods of thought, Christianity
has from age to age clothed this aspect of its
hope in vivid pictures of a specific event,
including terrible Judgment, like that of the
" "Dies irce, dies ilia." But the interest
underlying and conveyed by these is always
that Christ's will shall be the rule not only
to guide, but also to measure His action after
it is done.
3. Relationship with Christ shall be free
and intimate. At present the spirit struggles
with a thousand hindrances in its effort to
reach the bosom of its Master. At His
coming it shall have access to Him unfor
bidden and uninterfered with by any. There
fore it prays : "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
131

APPENDIX.
The phrase which constitutes the title of this
book has a history both in its broader and
in its narrower sense. The latter is limited
to the Biblical and associated apocryphal and
apocalyptic writings. For a minuter study
of this history Dr. Driver's article (" Son of
Man ") in Hastings' Bible Dictionary may
be taken as the most comprehensive guide.
It contains not only an analytic survey of the
ancient usage of the phrase, but also a sum
mary of all the principal interpretations of it
to the date of publication (1902). Kindred
in aim, but neither hampered by the limita
tions nor helped by the special requirements
of a dictionary or encyclopedia article, is
Edwin A. Abbott's The Message of the Son
of Man (London, Adam and Charles Black,
1909). Somewhat narrower in its scope,
but very keen and, from the philological
133

Appendix
point of view, invaluable, is Dalman's dis
cussion in the Words of Jesus (Eng. tr.,
Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1902). Other
more condensed treatments of the subject
from the same point of view will be found
in the standard works on the Biblical Theology
of the New Testament (Beyschlag, Eng. tr.,
T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1895) (vo^ *•
chap, iii.) ; B. Weiss, Eng. tr., T. & T. Clark,
Edinburgh, 1888 (part i. chap, ii.) ; G. B.
Stevens, International Theological Library,
Scribner's Sons, 1899 (part i. chap. iv.).
Geo. P. Gould's article in Hastings'
Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels is an
answer to the questions, Whence, when and
why did Jesus adopt the tide ? and why
His followers did not apply it to Him ? and
leaves little to be desired.
Works on the Teaching of Jesus also
include sections discussing the use of the
phrase by Jesus as applied to Himself (cf.
H. H. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus (Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1892 (vol. ii. chap. i. ) ;
Stalker, Christology of Jesus (Hodder &
Stoughton, 1900 (chap. ii.). Here must be
134

Appendix
mentioned Dr. A. B. Bruce's Kingdom of God
(T. & T. Clark, 1891), a scholarly but un-
technical discussion of the whole Teaching of
Jesus. In addition to the above, a class of works
representing a broader effort to reach funda
mental ideas underlying all expository treat
ment have great value in the study. (1)
Foremost in this class stands Professor
Ernest F. Scott's The Kingdom and the
Messiah (T. & T. Clark, 191 1). It is
characterised by special scholarly insight into
the thought of the period in which the title
was used. (2) W. L. Walker's The Cross and
the Kingdom (second edition, 191 1, T. & T.
Clark) stands out for the sane theological de
ductions based upon recent critical research of
the less radical type. (3) The late Dr. W. N.
Clarke's The Ideal of Jesus (N.Y., Scribner's,
191 1) is a free interpretation in modern
terms of the mind of Jesus, but not the result
of an original study of the words of Jesus
reported in the Gospel. It is based rather
on the general results harvested in this field
by New Testament specialists. 135

Appendix
A third class of works which may prove
valuable in organising courses kindred to
that of the subject of this book would include
the larger discussions of the life and work of
Jesus. We can only mention here, however,
those that are concerned with the portraiture
of His personality and character. Those that
give an account of His work in its chrono
logical, geographical, and antiquarian interest
are numerous and most of them familiar.
Of the first-named type the following will be
found the most helpful : (i) David Smith,
In the Days of His Flesh (London, Hodder
& Stoughton) ; (2) A. E. Garvie, Studies in
the Inner Life of Jesus (London, Hodder &
Stoughton, 1907) ; and (3) W. A. Grist, The
Historic Christ in the Faith of To-day (N.Y.
& London, Fleming H. Revell Co., 191 1).

136

INDEX.

Aramaic usage, 21.
Betrayal, 80 f.
Brutality, 5 ft".
Carey, William, 78.
Cobbler, waiting for the
Master, 129.
Death, instinct for, 91.
,, victory over, 101 f.
Drummond, Henry, 64.
Exaltation through abasement,
58-
Freedom, human, 50.
Generosity, spurious, 60.
Glory, 109 f.
God and man akin, 17.
Gracchi, the, m.
Havergal, Frances Ridley,
124.
Institutions, growth of, 47.
Leadership, price of, 67.
„ its responsibility,
84 f.
„ through service,
61 f.
Lodge, Sir Oliver, 24.
Martyn, Henry, 105.

Mystics, 125.
Napoleon, 12, 55.
Nature, elemental, 15.
Nietzsche, 18.
Osiris and Adonis, 98 f.
Parousia, Il8f.
,, its spiritual value,
130.
Plato, 77.
Redemption, 107.
, , through suffering,
68/
Resurrection of Christ, 98.
Sabbath, 40 f.
Service, redemptive, 70-
Shakespeare, 8 if.
Sin, Christ's view of, 23 ff.
„ original, 71.
Spencer, Herbert, 103.
Spurgeon, 124.
Suffering, 88 f.
Watchfulness, 121.
Whitefield, 78.
William of Orange, 66.
Young, death of the, 105.
I Zebedee, sons of, 65.

137