From what the Creed claims for Christ as a divine person we pass on to consider what it states concerning His humanity. “Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.” So is expressed in the Creed the origin, nature, and circumstances of our Lord’s humanity. Now again as to the exposition. It is said that when we come now to speak of our Lord’s humanity we are on ground more familiar, we are in a region where the human mind is less likely to be so entirely incapable of reasoning as concerning His divinity. The subject matter is more within our scope. There is at the same time a complaint made that hitherto Christian thinkers have been too reticent on this matter of Christ’s humanity, and that the difficulty of the subject is largely imaginary. As an encouragement to proceed, one thing we are told in this connection that while hitherto in the creed we have moved in the region of truth open only to spiritual intelligence, now we are on altogether different and lower ground. We arrive at that which makes no call upon anything higher than ordinary historical credence, and that therefore discussion here is both legitimate and expedient. The clause just recited differs from preceding ones in this respect—that whereas they appeal to faith, this is a simple historical statement.
Now it is admitted that this portion of the creed, as it is said, is history, the particular clause of it where it trenches on historical ground. “Suffered under Pontius Pilate” is the distinctive mark of this special character of the clause. As has often been noted, this is the only time mark in the creed. Concerning it Pearson wrote— “As the Son of God by His deliberate counsel was sent into the world to die in the fullness of time, so it concerns the church to know the time in which He died. Accordingly that we might be properly assured of the actions of our Savior which He did and of His sufferings... in accordance with ancient methods of computation we learn that ‘He suffered under Pontius Pilate.’” Now, that Jesus Christ passed across the stage of human history may be an event to be recorded in its annals as of supreme importance, and without a doubt it concerns the church, in proclaiming these facts to the world, great, marvelous, and momentous as they are, regarding Him whom it confesses as Savior and Lord, to comply with all due requirements of evidence giving, and to set forth, in right order and sequence, supplying at the same time the date of, such great events. Yet it must surely be felt that, historical though this portion of the creed may be, it is scarcely as history that it counts. We can scarcely he said to have much evidence in Scripture that the Holy Spirit greatly concerns Himself with man’s history as such—mere cosmical as distinguished from moral history, that is—and as far as Christ’s place in that is concerned much more is made of it in many quarters than seems called for. The great fact historically in regard to Christ, it must be remembered, is that man, when He came to His own, received Him not. The great outstanding fact in the world’s history is that it rejected Him. This discounts considerably any historical valuation of Him they may frame now. The Holy Spirit has come “to convict the world,” not of His place in its history, but, “of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
Then again, to return to the Creed, historical whether this portion of it be or not, it is certainly more than history it recounts, its several items more than mere events for which it demands intellectual credence. It is surely more than the admission of these occurrences—the birth, suffering, death, etc., of Jesus Christ—as historic facts that is asked from those who subscribe to the Creed. Why let the opportunity pass of pressing upon hearers their own intimate concern in these facts, that here is no mere otiose confession of their historicity; but acceptance of them as truths from God charged with all the importance and potency that all such truths possess. Why, even in a historical work recently, which we might well expect to give no more than a secular view, on “The conflict of religions in the early Roman Empire,” the writer, who is, too, more or less Unitarian, after taking the matter up on this very ground, and speaking of “what exactly it was which happened in Palestine under the Emperor Tiberius,” is constrained to admit that “men are scanning that to-day with the sense that it concerns them personally to know, that the answer has an immediate bearing upon their interests and practice. Jesus of Nazareth,” he says, “does stand in the center of human history, but also HE brings God and man into a new relation and He is the personal concern of every one of us.” Ah! there are many who can assign to Christ a correct and unique historical niche who have little place for Him in their hearts. These professions of belief in His sufferings and death are surely more than academic acceptance of bare historic facts. They must be if to prove of any value spiritually. We cannot take Jesus Christ historically; the thing is impossible. Nor can this clause of the creed be so absolutely differentiated from others which make their appeal to faith. The spiritual exercise involved in the reflective study of such facts, and in the true entertainment of such beliefs, is not less intense nor real than in the case of the others professed. How then can the ground taken be in any way lower or more accessible to the natural man’s apprehension?
The assumption of our comparatively greater ability to understand Christ’s humanity is reiterated now as a thing that is enhanced by modern equipment theologically for the task. It is affirmed, at the same time, that many still too little realize the truth and force of the “gospel of Christ’s manhood.” The lingering reluctance of many to admit the subject as fit matter for discussion at all is scoffed at as unreasonable timidity in presence of what we know now, and we are informed indeed that the predominant note in Christology has long been the human element in Christ’s person. The real problem for many today, it is said, does not lie so much there, where modern religious thought can claim some acquaintance. That which constitutes their difficulty is to understand His essential divinity. That He who lived a veritable human life was at the same time very God. The opposite was the case, it is said, in early Christian times. It was the humanity, not the divinity, upon which emphasis came to be needed at a very early period. Their impression of His divinity became in turn so strong that they found it hard to realize His real humanity. An instance of this is found in Gnosticism, which, with its conception of the inherent evil of matter, found it necessary to maintain that Christ, whom they more or less clearly conceived of as in a sense divine, did not take unto Himself real human nature and form. So much was this the case that the menacing challenge of 1 John 4:2, 32Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (1 John 4:2‑3), was, in regard to them, amply justified. “Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is it in the world.”
Whether this Docetic teaching alluded to owed its origin to an overpowering conviction of Christ’s divinity naturally dominating the thoughts concerning Him of those who were in so close proximation to Him who spake as never man spake, and did among men the works which none other man did—whether this be so or not, the fact remains that such false ideas were early afloat, and that it was in face of them, in an incipient form at least, that the apostle uttered the above warning note. “Jesus Christ come in flesh” is the true confession of Him, deity and humanity both real and true; and anything else John unhesitatingly regards as of Satanic origin and character. The time of fullness of manifestation and operation for that spirit of antichrist was not yet, but still future. A premonitory instance of its activity the apostle discerned this to be. How ominous is the reflection that it was precisely concerning this matter of the humanity of Christ that these went astray. Is there not then cause for apprehension lest, on these same sunken rocks where shipwreck of the faith on such a large scale in the past has occurred, we also should strike? It is no healthy feature of our time that this over-insistence on the humanity of Christ is the predominant note. The tendency to resolve everything into it is remarked by not a few. Thus Professor Orr, for instance, in his recent Sidelights on Christian Doctrine” — “Many tendencies are at present in operation to weaken the doctrine of the incarnation—speculative and evolutionary theories, doctrines of divine immanence, a pantheistic identification of God and man, above all, the powerful bent in the spirit of the age towards a non-supernatural interpretation of the facts and truths of religion. In all directions the attempt is being made to lower the doctrine of Christ to a more or less humanitarian level.”
What if this materialistically inclined “spirit of the age” should be identified with this same “spirit of antichrist” of which our passage speaks. Does it not appear like it? In view of all the subtle questions abroad on the subject also may we not in this declaration concerning the simple confession of “Jesus Christ come in the flesh” read a warning of the innate tendency of human speculation to err on the subject, particularly when the mystery of the person of Christ, of how His humanity and divinity are related, is sought to be analyzed metaphysically? One thing the passage makes plain at all events, the vital importance of true doctrine as to the person of Christ, and the decidedly antichristian nature of error on that score. Compared with present-day lukewarmness there is a seeming intolerance and illiberality about such a statement as that of John just quoted, when truth as to the person of Christ is in question, which some are not slow to condemn as one of “those sudden ebullitions of the fierce invective of bigotry characteristic of the beloved disciple. The difficulty would be to imagine the apostle adopting any less uncompromising attitude towards what assailed the true faith as to the One of whose divinity he was in a sense the special witness. To prove himself a “Boanerges” there was in no wise out of season. But in fact it is no mere question of John or Paul; scripture testimony is harmonious throughout, and we shall do well both to observe its unanimity and imitate its reserve. Why after all should any presume to go beyond it? Why should we consider human thought to-day better fitted to investigate, or more competent to declare exactly what occurred when the second Person of the Godhead entered the ranks of humanity, when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”?
In pursuance of the claim of increasing competency to dissect the human nature of Christ, this section of the Creed is gone on with. Taking the verbs of the five clauses— “conceived, born, suffered, died, and was buried” —the lecturer speaks of them as “expressing the humanity of Jesus in terms in the compass of which every normal human life was contained.” Combining the two first, “conceived” and “born,” and significantly omitting all but the mere verbs, “the reality of the humanity He assumed is shown by the fact that he entered life by the ordinary channel. It was a real and not a phantom body He took when born, real human life He lived, and a real human death He died.” This is not at all satisfactory even in what it states; but in what it omits it is far from dealing fairly with the truth. If even the scriptures bearing upon it merely had been quoted, there would have been so far an exposition of this part of the Creed. So much at least we might surely expect, not to say that from a Presbyterian one might even look for some such attempt to define as his “shorter catechism” gives— “Christ the Son of God became man by taking to Himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.” Instead of which we are led to understand that Biblical criticism and other lines of study have raised difficulties which make it desirable to look for the elucidation of the truth regarding, and confirmation of the uniqueness of, Christ’s humanity in other directions than what is called “the doctrine of the virgin birth.” That is to say, what is related concerning His miraculous birth in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels being under suspicion, grave and of substantial basis, either as to its being credible or authentic history, or as to genuineness of text, that particular line of evidence must be dropped.
Now what are the facts of the case here? The truth enunciated in that clause of the Creed, “Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,” had been objected to, and ridiculed, by opponents of Christianity for long. In the welter of unbelieving skepticism prevailing over Christendom at present, however, many professing Christian teachers, having fallen under the spell of infidel reasoning all round, naturally shrink now from exposing themselves to the ridicule of those whose good opinion they have come to respect, by firmly maintaining this apparently particularly vulnerable doctrine. The objections, remark, have not themselves greatly changed, nor gained in force from any new facts elicited, from Scripture or otherwise. What has changed is only the sphere where they can be entertained, and that again is solely due to the inoculation of modern Christian doctrine with infidel ideas. Does this seem too strong? What else can be said of those who find now of so much weight arguments that in days of more robust faith never would have counted?
Proceeding then to consider this very damaging modern attack on the “doctrine of the virgin birth,” let us take an example from a work entitled, significantly enough, “Jesus, Seven Questions.” There is no thought of attempting to meet the questions raised, or the objections urged. Let them be seventy times seven, and they still could be added to, and remain questions. One peculiarity about them all is that while to a mind that can entertain them at all they must be insuperable, to a plain believer there is absolutely nothing in them. The only reason for quoting them at all here is to show the stuff the bug-bears of theologians are made of, and perhaps at the same time serve to supply an instance of what Prof. Orr has spoken of as to characteristic tendencies of modern thought on the subject. This attack on the doctrine of the virgin birth is opened by an attempt to account for its origin as a doctrine. The unique and transcendent place Jesus Christ occupies in history is first emphasized as “accounting primarily for the feeling that the character of both His person and His entry into the world must have been unique.” Then a familiar argument that “humanity could not in the ordinary course have produced Jesus Christ, and that therefore a miraculous birth was necessary ere Jesus could have been in possession of the attributes He continually manifested” is met—how? by arguing that “there is no accounting for the phenomenon of genius,” and that “evolution does not exclude the occasional and unrepeated irruption of genius.” Next, the silence of Paul, as well as of the Epistles in general, and of Mark’s and John’s Gospels regarding the virgin birth is mentioned as a discounting feature. Then, coming to the two passages which alone clearly teach it (Matt. 1:18-2518Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. 20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. 22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. 24Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: 25And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS. (Matthew 1:18‑25), and Luke 1:34, 3534Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:34‑35)), the author raises the question as to whether at all they are historical and not rather poetical and legendary. The bulk of what both these Gospels record in connection with the nativity of Jesus is then gone over, and so valuated. [ J. T.]
(Continued from page 96)
(To be continued)