permit this. Over against this several considerations point out the attitude that we should take.

We note first the expressions of Jesus himself and the testimony of the gospel narratives. Jesus specifically disclaims omniscience as to the future, and particularly as to the program of coming Messianic events. "Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only” (Matt. 24. 36). This word was one over which men very early stumbled, and undoubtedly it is for this reason that not a few manuscripts of Matthew's Gospel omit the phrase, "neither the Son." It is present, however, in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew and there is no question as to the parallel in Mark. Further, as we read the Gospels there is nothing to suggest that Jesus held other than the current ideas of his age in regard to matters of history, science, and the like. Why should this have been otherwise? Is not this involved in the church's doctrine of the humanity of our Lord, held unwaveringly, if not always clearly, throughout the ages? The sort of omniscience which some have attributed to Jesus would have made his life non-human and abnormal. The clear picture of the New Testament should have the right of way over men's theories of what ought to be. We need not wonder, then, that in the matter of time and even in that of manner, the outworking of events did not fulfill what was apparently the expectation of Jesus. He too here on earth walked by that faith which does not see all things but which does see God, and seeing him is content. Consistent with this is that indifference to detail, to calculations and programs, which we have noted and which marked his higher faith. Directly

expressive of this is the way in which from the beginning he faced first the possibility, then the certainty of his death, closing with that struggle in the garden in which the way before him still seemed dark, but in which his confidence in the Father and devotion to his will remained unshaken and triumphant.

What, then, is it that has made Jesus the revelation of God and the Lord and Saviour of men? What is it that we are to look for in a revelation? It is wrong thinking here that has led us astray and multiplied difficulties. We face the same question in connection with the Bible as a whole. Revelation is not the supernatural communication of a collection of facts and doctrines contained in an infallible book. It is God revealing himself in the living experience of men and through these to their fellows. Revelation is God showing himself, God giving himself. We have been making impossible demands of God and then failing to see his great gift. What is it that we need for the purposes of religion and life? Not infallible history, whether past or predicted, not infallible science nor details of doctrine; we need to know God: what he is, what manner of life we should lead as his children, and what we may expect from him. How will he help us to be his children here? What has he provided for men here, and beyond? These are the great questions, God and duty and hope, and they all find their answer in the first, in God himself.

Exactly this is what Jesus has brought to us, as, indeed, he brought it to those first disciples. "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," said one of these early followers (John 14. 8). "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself;" so another summarized the

meaning of Jesus for his faith (2 Cor. 5. 19). When we ask to-day concerning God there is but one answer that satisfies: the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the knowledge of whose glory we have seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We have no higher need than that, and than that nothing higher can be said of Jesus. We want to know the way of life; we learn it to-day from the words of Jesus and from this self-same spirit in which we have found God's own life. We raise the question of hope: what may we expect of God? He gives us the answer again, whether we ask for forgiveness and fellowship with God, or the assurance of a new world here on earth, or the hope of a life beyond. And in all these things it is the spirit of Jesus even more than his speech that gives us light. It is, then, furthest from the truth to say that Jesus, because of the form of his hope, is "a stranger to our time and an enigma to our age." Rather must we say that as we read those ancient Gospels we forget the difference of speech and race and the long centuries that divide, and there stands before us in Jesus of Nazareth the Eternal Spirit with the ageless message of truth.

To sum up briefly: for the curious who demand a program of the future the Gospels bring little satisfaction. For the humble, earnest soul of faith they bring abundant answer. (1) Jesus shows us God, the ground of all trust, the source of all light for the hopes of men. (2) He shows us what the coming rule of God will mean, the sway of such a spirit as that which we see in Christ himself. (3) He gives us confidence that this rule will come. (4) He shows that God's rule means also judgment and summons us to repentance. (5) He calls us

to faith and service: to believe with joy in the coming rule, and to begin at once its life of loyalty and love and mercy and service, that we may be sons of our Father who is in heaven. And this message is as fresh and as valid and as needed in this century as in the first.

CHAPTER IV

THE CHRISTIAN HOPE IN THE APOSTOLIC AGE

APOCALYPTIC HOPES

LET us turn first to the apocalyptic side of the early Christian hope. It seems quite clear that the expectation of the first disciples was not so vastly different from that of other Jews except for their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. They "hoped that it was he who should redeem Israel" (Luke 24. 21); they thought of him as one who would "restore the kingdom of Israel" (Acts 1. 6) They quarreled about places in the kingdom, about the seats next to the throne; "What then shall we have?" they asked. But wholly aside from more selfish ideas, their thought moved in the general apocalyptic lines. What death had prevented, Jesus was to accomplish very soon upon his return. Just how the first disciples conceived it in detail we do not know, but they did expect the coming of a new age, the overthrow of all forces of evil, the establishment immediately and by this deed of the kingdom of God.

What Paul's thought was we know more definitely, and there is no reason to suppose that he differed at any essential point from the rest of the church. He believed, first of all, that the visible return of Jesus and the dawn of the new age were very near; the ends of the ages were come upon them, the time was short, the day was at hand (Rom. 13. 12; 1 Cor. 1. 7; 7. 29–31; 10. 11; espe