Slike strani
PDF
ePub

sides, in the age of the Reformation, was less striking. The only parallel to it is in what had place at the coming of Christ into the world; and it is not strange that some have been prompted to see in it in this way, the natural counterpart of that first advent, the introduction of a new dispensation in fact, drawing with it in the end the full power and glory of His second advent." Before ten years were around the illumination came, for in 1883, pp. 31-42, we have the following, which seems to us to express it as clearly and unmistakably as the same thought could be expressed in any language: "The spirit thus in the word is no other than Christ Himself. He, therefore, is the one universal sense of the word, its inward life and soul. He is not in it partially only, here and there, nor occasionally only, now and then. He is not in it in any secondary view, as the reflection merely of some primary object or system of objects, on the mundane side. He is there as the inmost whole of the entire revelation. To that we are absolutely shut up by the force of the Christological idea itself. Other things may be the shadow of Him, He can never be their shadow. What follows from this? The inspiration of the word has nothing to do with its mundane aspects-historical, ritualistic, pictorial or simply scientific in any view-on their own account; but look through these always and wholly to Christ, and the spiritual world in Him, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. Is He not in His divine humanity the sum total of all revelation? How then can we talk or think of a word of God, revealing the mind and will of God, and not believe Him to be in it as its living principle at every point. Nothing less than that indeed is what He Himself says of His coming into the world, that it was to fulfil all things written concerning Him in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms. For most assuredly this fulfiling was not to be of some grains of truth only hid away here and there in bushels of chaff; and then also, perhaps, through such strained constructions of the natural sense as we find applied to the text, 'Out of Egypt have I called My Son,' and other like examples.

[blocks in formation]

It could be nothing less than the internal spiritual meaning of the law, the Psalms and the prophets, in their wholeness (as this had been in them from the beginning) now emerging from them and disclosing what it had been all along, in His own actual advent as the living Messiah, the only true God manifest in the flesh."

44

Kaftan's "Brauchen wir ein neues Dogma?"

sides, in the age of the Reformation, was less striking. The only parallel to it is in what had place at the coming of Christ into the world; and it is not strange that some have been prompted to see in it in this way, the natural counterpart of that first advent, the introduction of a new dispensation in fact, drawing with it in the end the full power and glory of His second advent." Before ten years were around the illumination came, for in 1883, pp. 31-42, we have the following, which seems to us to express it as clearly and unmistakably as the same thought could be expressed in any language: "The spirit thus in the word is no other than Christ Himself. He, therefore, is the one universal sense of the word, its inward life and soul. He is not in it partially only, here and there, nor occasionally only, now and then. He is not in it in any secondary view, as the reflection merely of some primary object or system of objects, on the mundane side. He is there as the inmost whole of the entire revelation. To that we are absolutely shut up by the force of the Christological idea itself. Other things may be the shadow of Him, He can never be their shadow. What follows from this? The inspiration of the word has nothing to do with its mundane aspects-historical, ritualistic, pictorial or simply scientific in any view-on their own account; but look through these always and wholly to Christ, and the spiritual world in Him, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. Is He not in His divine humanity the sum total of all revelation? How then can we talk or think of a word of God, revealing the mind and will of God, and not believe Him to be in it as its living principle at every point. Nothing less than that indeed is what He Himself says of His coming into the world, that it was to fulfil all things written concerning Him in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms. For most assuredly this fulfiling was not to be of some grains of truth only hid away here and there in bushels of chaff; and then also, perhaps, through such strained constructions of the natural sense as we find applied to the text, 'Out of Egypt have I called My Son,' and other like examples.

[blocks in formation]

= could be nothing less than the internal spiritual meaning of he law, the Psalms and the prophets, in their wholeness (as this ad been in them from the beginning) now emerging from them ad disclosing what it had been all along, in His own actual Ivent as the living Messiah, the only true God manifest in the esh."

II.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE ON THE DOCTRINES OF GOD, OF MAN, AND OF GRACE.

BY REV. W. RUPP, D.D.

Ar this day it is a commonly accepted proposition that the idea of Christ must be the ruling conception of a system of Christian theology. It is admitted that no system of theology can be regarded as strictly Christian that is ruled by any other than the Christological principle. This is what is meant by the statement now so widely accepted, that Christian theology, in order to be true to itself, must be Christo-centric.

Yet, in spite of this common admission, theological science, having been for ages determined by other leading ideas, is slow to submit to the dominative influence of this principle in the construction of its particular doctrines; so that, while the principle is generally accepted, there are still doctrines taught and preached, which are inconsistent with it, and which, therefore, are not truly Christian.

It is the aim of this paper to consider a few of the leading theological doctrines in the light of this principle, and to observe what influence this principle will have upon their construction and contents. Within the time and space at our command this can be done only in the most cursory way; while an exhaustive treatment of the subject would require the writing of a whole system of theology. What is proposed here is merely an illustrative treatment of a few themes belonging to each of the three departments into which theological science may be divided. If, therefore, we should fail to refer to any

46

« PrejšnjaNaprej »