|
IV.
AND IN JESUS CHRIST HIS ONLY
SON OUR LORD.
To us...there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things and we through Him.
1 COR. viii. 6.
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God...and the Word became
flesh.
JOHNi. 1, 14.
Philip
saith unto Him: Lord, shew us the Fahter, and
if sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto
him, Have I been so long
time with you, and dost thou not
know Me, Philip? He that
hath seen Me has seen the
Father.
JOHN
xiv. 8,9.
I
ascend to My Father and your Father and My God
and your God.
JOHN
xx. 17.
We have
not a High Priest that cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but
one that hath been in all
points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin.
HEB. iv. 15.
WHEN we attempt to follow out the main
thoughts suggested by the Creed as to our
belief in God, the Father, All-sovereign, Creator
of heaven and earth, it cannot but be that we find
ourselves in danger of being lost in unsearchable
mysteries. Every effort to give distinctness to
the idea of God in Himself ends by limiting that
which is unlimited. The action of Provi-
dence is so complicated and on so vast a scale that
in our endeavours to follow it we commonly do no
more than isolate a few events from the broad
stream of which they are a part. The workings
of physical law are so stern and inexorable that
hope and love lose the freshness of their energy
under the hard discipline of experience. As we
learn more of the weakness of our own powers,
more of the vastness of history, more of the un-
varying forces of nature, God the All-sovereign
the Creator seems to be withdrawn further and
further from us. The prę-Christian history
of the world is the record of this sorrowful truth.
|
IV.
|
46
The presence of God given back in Christ.
IV.
John xiv.
8.
John xiv.
1.
|
And as we realise it, each one in our own life, as
we must do, we find ourselves, half-unconsciously,
repeating the prayer which summed up the desire
of the old world: Lord, shew us the Father, and it
sufficeth us: give us, that is, a vision of God in
some shape which we can understand, which
belongs to actual life, which will grow with our
growth, and we ask, we need no more.
Now as then the answer to this prayer has
already been given, the sight has already
been granted, through word and revelation by dimly
understood or altogether unregarded. The Lord
has said before we speak: Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be afraid. Believe in God:
believe also in me.
Following, striving to follow, this command we
say in the Apostles' Creed not only I believe in
God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth, but also I believe in Jesus Christ, His only
Son, our Lord. What then do we mean by our
confession? This is the question which we must
try to answer now.
As we consider the words we shall see that
they contain two main statements which set
before us the Person and the Nature of Him in
Whom we are taught to see the Father.
I believe in Jesus Christ. Here is the
Person
in Whom we trust.
|
The work of Judaism.
47
I believe in Him as the only Son of God,
our
Lord . Here is the description of His Nature in
regard to God and to ourselves.
I believe in Jesus Christ . These simple
words
are a Creed in themselves. The phrase, Jesus
Christ is more than a name, more than a title. It
expresses that One truly man fulfilled a divine
office, that Jesus Who was born, suffered, died on
earth, is the Christ, the hope of Israel, the hope of
the world. And we declare our belief in Him as
true man and as the Christ.
The thought of Jesus the Saviour - shadowed
forth in the first who bore the name, Joshua the
Conqueror of Canaan - as man, true man, perfect
man, representative man, will come before us
afterwards when we notice what the Creed tells us
of the details of His life. Now we have to con-
sider what we learn by acknowledging Him as the
Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed.
As often as we repeat the words I believe in
Jesus Christ we bear witness to the work of
Judaism: we acknowledge how through long ages
God was preparing a people as ministers of His
will, by the vicissitudes of bondage and victory, of
dominion and exile, by isolation and dispersion, by
the hard restraints of the Law and by the spiritual
enthusiasm of the Prophets: how the hope, which
was the foundation of the race, that in them all
|
IV.
|
48
The counsel of God.
IV.
Gen. xviii.
18; xii. 3.
Gal. iii. 16.
Gal. iv. 4.
Matt. xi. 2.
John x. 24.
Matt. xvi.
17.
|
the nations of the earth should be blessed , gained
definiteness and power from the changeful for-
tunes of nearly two thousand years: how priest
and king and seer and sufferer each added some
new trait to the portraiture of a perfect Saviour:
how at last in the fulness of time, when all things
were ready, One came born of a woman , who by
the manifestation of the Truth fulfilled the office
of the prophets, by the sacrifice of Himself
crowned the ministry of priests and illuminated
the picture of the righteous in affliction, by laying
open the springs of human sympathy established
on the Cross the power of an eternal kingdom.
We believe therefore in Jesus, the Christ, as
the apostles proclaimed Him; but Israel did not
believe. Here lies another lesson in our Creed.
God fulfilled His promises, but He did not fulfil
them as men had expected. The Lord wrought
the works of the Christ and required those who
witnessed them to decide who He was. He left
the minds of the wilful and self-seeking in sus-
pense: He welcomed the confession of faith as a
direct revelation from His Father. And so
it is still. Our belief in Jesus as the Christ does
not come from any direct proof which relieves us
of responsibility. We see in the Gospels the
record of His words and deeds: we feel in our
hearts the needs of life: the Spirit, by God's gift,
|
The Divine Nature of Christ.
49
connects the facts of history with the facts of
conscience, and we acknowledge each for ourselves
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Saviour for Whom
we look, Who has brought God to dwell with us
and in us.
Thus from the Person of the Lord we go on to
consider His Nature. We confess that He is 'the
only son of God' and 'our Lord'. In both respects,
though truly man Who lived with men, He occu-
pies a position essentially distinct from that of
any other. His Godhead is one with the God-
head of the Father, His sovereignty over men is
absolute. Christians are sons of God, but
sons by adoption in virtue of their fellowship with
Him Who is Son by nature. There are many
lords who claim the obedience of outward service
by One only Who demands the complete surrender
of the soul.
We believe - I say - and confess that Jesus
Christ is the only Son of God. The confession
cannot be lightly made. If the simple thought of
God ought to fill us with speechless awe, the
further thought of God as Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, one God, is yet more overwhelming. On
such a mystery, where human words and human
thoughts must fail, our words should be few, and
these spoken rather in devotion that in explana-
tion or argument. Happy are we if we can yet
W. H.
F. 4
|
IV.
|
50
Practical consequences of belief
| IV.
|
rest in the simple language of our Baptismal
Creed. We need go no further for perfect adora-
tion and perfect confidence. It is enough
for us to know that He Who lived our life, on
Whom we place our trust, is the only Son of God,
and therefore Himself in essence very God: to
know that the realities of Fatherhood and Son-
ship lie in the Godhead, so that we cannot now
think of the one God except as Father nor as
Father without the Son: to know that the Word , the
Logos, in the phrases of St John, He Who was in
the beginning with God , when time began, Who
was therefore with God beyond time, He through
Whom all things were made, became flesh : to
know that He who in His human nature can be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities is able in
His divine nature to help to the uttermost those who
come to Him .
Such knowledge is indeed most practical. If,
as we have seen, the confession of God as the
Creator of heaven and earth brings all things
very near to us, much more does this confession
of our belief in Jesus Christ the only Son of God
through Whom are all things and we through
Him . By this confession we learn to see
how that connexion of the Son with man which
was completed by the Incarnation was prepared
by manifold revelation of His power and love
|
God All-sovereign.
51
from "the beginning;" how He was ever coming
into the world which He had made, as its true
light; how He was ever present in the world,
as its true life. By this confession we learn
to see how He Who has redeemed us by taking
our nature to Himself is the Author of every
noble thought which has been uttered by uncon-
scious prophets, of every fruitful deed of sacrifice
which has been wrought by statesmen and heroes,
of every triumph of insight and expression by
which students and artists have interpreted the
harmonies and depths of nature. So we
claim for Christ with patient confidence, in spite
of every misrepresentation and misunderstanding,
'whatsoever is true, and noble, and just, and pure,
and lovely and gracious,' whatsoever witnesses
to man's proper being and rightly demands his
praise; we claim all for Him through Whom are
all things , all things which are, all things which
abide in the presence of God.
In virtue of this our faith we affirm the
reality of a dominion of Christ which is often
unacknowledged and often denied: we welcome as
fellow-subjects and fellow-labourers those who re-
pudiate our greeting. But we do not stay
here. We ourselves accept without reserve in our
own case, openly and with all its consequences, the
allegiance which is due to His divine sovereignty.
|
IV.
1 John i.
1.
John i. 9.
Phil. iv. 8.
|
52
The obligation to the
| IV.
|
We believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
our Lord: 'our Lord,' and not vaguely 'the
Lord.' The words describe plainly the posi-
tion in which we stand and proclaim that we
stand towards Him. Others whom He has en-
dowed not less richly, through whom He works not
less effectively, to whom He has made some parts
of His will clearer than to us, may refuse to recog-
nise His gifts, His inspiration, His teaching, but
we have known Him, and take upon ourselves the
obligations of His service. His will is the law of
our action. His strength is the support of our
efforts. His praise is the measure of our success.
But do we not in this respect - the inquiry
must rise within us - expose ourselves to just re-
proach? Is it not true that being Christians we
dissemble our motives and our hopes till we prac-
tically lose sight of them? that we hide from
others first and then from ourselves the impulses
by which we are most powerfully stirred, the
aspirations which we most devoutly cherish? that
we make the world the poorer by refusing to give
it the example of what Christ has wrought in us?
Such dissimulation is beyond question better
than the hypocrisy which affects lofty principles
without inwardly feeling them. But it sets aside
the charge which is laid upon us by our Creed to
|
The range of belief in God. 53
do all things for God's glory. For in apostolic
language, each Christian is in due measure him-
self a Christ, empowered by the gift of the
Holy Spirit to announce the truth which he has
learnt, to apply the atonement which he has
received, to establish the kingdom which he
believes to be universal. Here it is, I repeat, that
we fail most grievously. However repulsive the
ostentation of religion may be, the suppression of
faith is more perilous. Who can believe that the
heart is full when the lips are silent? And in this
our practice condemns us. We inherit and we use
the powers of the Faith, and yet we do not make
it visible that we differ from those who do not
willingly accept such an inheritance. We do not
follow our belief to its issues, asking ourselves
again and again what it enables us to do and to
bear and to hope more than other men: asking
ourselves silently till the answer comes: and then
letting the answer be seen in a life which is mani-
festly swayed by a present consciousness of the
unseen and the eternal; which rests upon the con-
viction that the end of our being has been made
attainable by the Cross; which yields loyal obedi-
ence to a Lord they symbol of Whose sovereignty
is sacrifice.
It is a truism to say that Christianity is a
belief in Christ; but is it not a forgotten truism?
|
IV.
1 John ii.
20.
|
54
Christianity
| IV.
|
We honour with ungrudging admiration those who
labour with zeal and patience to shield the weak
from injury, the poor from want, and the ignorant
from temptation; who hope to elevate the condi-
tion of our artizans by giving their opinion the
responsibility of power, and to discipline the im-
provident by ideas of comfort and self-respect:
those who investigate the problems of religious
thought, and seek to shew how circumstances of
time and place call out this and that want, this
and that belief, and lay open the manifold elements
of truth which give whatever stability and strength
they have to the religions of the world: those
who in lonely meditation strive to reconnect man's
spirit with its source. Such are not far from
the kingdom of God; but as yet they are not Chris-
tians.
Christianity is not philanthropy, or philosophy
or mysticism. It realises, guides, chastens each
noblest energy of man, but it is not identified
with any one of them. It gives permanence and
power, it gives light and support, to the many
activities of body, soul, and spirit, but no one of
these richest activities can take its place.
As Christians we believe in God: we believe
also in Jesus Christ. It is, let us boldly avow it,
an amazing faith. We cast the burden of our
lives upon Him Who, very man, has borne it upon
|
the belief in Christ.
55
earth, upon Him Who has fulfilled by living,
dying, rising again, every promise to Jew or
Greek through which the Father encouraged the
world to look for redemption and consummation:
upon Him Whom we confess in the fulness of His
Deity as the only Son of God , and in the absolute-
ness of His sovereignty as our Lord .
We believe in Jesus Christ our Lord . We
recognise with the deepest thankfulness the debt
of reverence which we owe to all Princes and
Governors, to all ministers and magistrates, to all
teachers and spiritual fathers, through whom God
is pleased to reveal His authority on earth. But
in each of these we see only a faint and partial
reflection of that supreme glory which is the
source of their dignity and the ground of their
existence. For us there is - and if the confession is
able to give its true majesty, its proper joy, its
lofty meaning to every office of our daily duties -
one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all
things and we through Him .
|
IV.
|
|
