REVIEW OF DR. SEARS' REPLY. BY N. S. FOLSOM. WITH the present article I close the discussion on my part with Dr. Sears on "The Word made Flesh." I shall have done what I could for what I earnestly believe the truth. In commencing his reply, Dr. Sears remarks, "I supposed when my article was printed the reader would readily see I had not done with the subject. If my critic had read the two articles which followed before he wrote his, I presume he would have seen that much of his criticism was not ad rem, and did not hit me at all." I cannot admit the supposition to be a reasonable one. There was no promise of a continuation nor hint of it. And it is not the manner of Dr. Sears to leave incomplete any branch of a subject discussed by him, or to exhibit disjecta membra requiring the genius of a Cuvier to tell their design and of what created thing they formed a part. But even had I read the two articles which followed the article in the July number, one simultaneously with my own in October, and the other accompanying his "Reply" in the November number, I think I should only have been induced to try to put my arguments more forcibly, and meet some of his positions from which he thinks I "prudently" kept aloof; but essentially to modify no more than two statements, as follows: first, the defect of not including, in the sketch of the human nature of Jesus, his sinlessness, and, secondly, the extravagant imputation of idolatry to the Christianity of persons who exalt Jesus Christ to joint homage with the Father while at the same time they place him in the rank of a created being. The sinlessness of Jesus Dr. Sears has explicitly recognized in his second article; and the grand chapter in the November number on "Converging Lines" shows that he heartily distinguishes between a system of belief which he deems erroneous and the character of those who may have adopted it. - In respect to the question, "Hast thou seen Abraham?" Dr. Sears says that "no reason appears why pre-existence, as the Jews had understood it, should not have been directly denied." Not to press the point that there is no evidence of their having so "understood it," I ask, Did they not often put their cavilling inquiries, and Jesus ignore them? Had he not done so twice before in this very conversation (verses 22, 23; 53, 54), and quietly proceeded in his talk with no immediate reference, if any at all, to their cavils? He treated in this same way their impertinent question, "Hast thou seen Abraham?" except that he gave new point to the fact of his Messiahship, all along insisted on, by declaring the divine appointment of himself to it before their ancestor, Abraham, and before the Jewish nation in him was, so to speak, even thought of. But is it not a "reason why pre-existence, unless it were true, should not have been directly denied," that the questioners were a set of men become insanely mad with Jesus, especially after he had charged them with being liars, and children of their father, the Devil, who was both liar and murderer? Is it not another reason that the question was put with an angry sneer, or derisive laughter, to one not destitute of self-respect? To account for the rage of the Jews is, I had supposed, the real exigency of the passage. On the supposition that they sincerely understood Jesus to declare his own personal preexistence in another world before Abraham was born in this, their anger would have subsided. They might have replied, “Well, for all that, our father, Abraham, may have pre-existed before you in that other world." Or probably they would have let him go as one possessed with a demon, which they had pronounced him to be. But understanding him to declare a superiority to Abraham; in short, to answer their previous inquiry in the affirmative, "Art thou greater than our father Abraham?" (verse 53), in asking which they seemed, like a tiger on the spring, all ready to destroy the presumptuous man should he dare reply affirmatively, they at once yielded to their murderous propensity, and took up stones to stone him to death on the spot. Dr. Sears connects with this exigency two or three things readily answered and disposed of: (1) That with the rendering, I am he, "no reason appears why cimi, I am, should be put in antithesis with genesthai" (came into existence). Certainly if Jesus meant to say, Before Abraham existed, I existed, the two verbs would have been the same. (2) It is urged, secondly, there is "no reason why the present terse should be used as expressing continuous existence instead of the past as a thing accomplished." The verb cimi does not always mean to exist, any more than the verb to be in English; but the present tense does here express continuous state, as Messiah.* The objection, however, lies as strongly against the mode of speech in Jer. i. 5, "Before thou wast born I know thee," and is therefore of no weight at all. (3) A third objection is, that "no reason appears for the charge of blasphemy." I reiterate, no charge of blasphemy at all was made in connection with the conversation recorded in chapter eighth. It appears for the first time in John's Gospel (x. 33-36) not until two months afterward, and never again! It is found in Matthew and Mark in their account of the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrim; and all three of the Synoptics speak of the Jews thinking in their hearts that he blasphemed when he declared the paralytic's sins forgiven. These are all the instances to be found in the four Gospels. It is no inconsiderable error in Dr. Sears (from oversight, I suppose), to represent me as saying, “There is no charge of blasphemy connected with them (the words in viii. 58) at all, but only [with] Sabbath-breaking." My printed words read, "That charge was put on the ground that he set aside the Sabbath, and by calling himself Son of God virtually made himself God." I connected with it the setting aside of the Sabbath, because Jesus, six months afterward, plainly alluded (vii. 23) to his healing the impotent man on the Sabbath as the occasion of the anger they still cherished towards him; and it was probably uppermost in his mind when he asked for which one among the "many good works," he had done, See farther, on page 15. they were about to stone him (x. 32). Their charges were mere pretexts. Like other bad men, they fabricated these to cover a deeper reason for putting an immediate end to his career which was that he exposed their shams, exposed their formal, hypocritical regard for the sanctity of the Sabbath day, and subverted their selfish influence over the people. With these facts, I refer the words of my friend back from myself to him: "He will see if he reads again that he is greatly mistaken." (4) One other objection is made, that "the sensitive grammarians of the school of Hillel would have been much more likely to stone Jesus for uttering platitudes in violation of the laws of grammar." Are then the words of Jesus, in the record, always conformed to grammatical rules? Let any one. open Winer and read page after page of examples of "interrupted, broken, heterogeneous, defective structure," and of "abnormal relation of individual words." And was it a platitude for Jesus to say, Before the origin of Abraham, IT IS I that was appointed in the divine counsels to be the Christ? It is I, JESUS OF NAZARETH, I and no one ELSE? Then did Jesus utter platitudes twice previously (verses 24, 28) in the same conversation, and half a dozen times more in the same Gospel. Then is it a platitude to assert to-day, It is Jesus of Nazareth that was pre-ordained to be the Christ for mankind. I will not admit, moreover, that it is a violation of good usage to say, It is I that was pre-ordained to be the Christ, any more than to say, "It is I that did it," or any more than for Virgil to have written, "Adsum qui feci" (I am present, that did it). Surely my friend was not in earnest when he thus objected. As to the point that "the question returns just the same, Who is he?" I should refer any such questioner back to verses 24, 28, where are exactly the same grounds for the question; and it seems mere trifling or captiousness to raise it in either place. Nobody could there ask, "Who is he?" with any consistency except in the spirit of the cavilling Jews who said, "Is not this the carpenter's son? Of course, as to "begging the question," I must protest that I am guilt ས less. It is not one worth begging. The only proper answer to it if put in the form, Who is meant by "he"? is, that "he" means THE CHRIST, and I again refer to Matt. xxiv. 5, parallel to Luke xxi. 8, to show that the two phrases, "I am the Christ," and "I am he," are synonymous. If the questioner still asks, "But who is the Christ?" I reply that JESUS OF NAZARETH is the Christ. If he adds, But I mean what is his nature, what sort of a being is he? I reply that the passage does not touch that question. Moreover, I have not affirmed, nor hinted, nor do I believe, that the claims of Jesus were "only of a man sent as the prophets." Dr. Sears has not a word of reply to the decisive point of usage in respect to the phrase ego eimi, I am he, except to put against me the opinion of "the majority of the best scholars," conspicuous among whom is "Bishop Bloomfield," who "refers to the unanswerable refutation' of it given by four eminent scholars." I respect the results of faithful, scholarly labor as much as any man does. But the question before us is not to be decided by an appeal to the opinion of any scholar, however eminent, or of the majority of scholars. It is a question of usage, and we have before us the original sources from which that usage is derived. Now I say, going to those original sources, we find that our critical authorities, who have maintained the declaration of personal pre-existence on the part of Jesus Christ before the birth of Abraham, all break down and fail us. To use a favorite phrase of Prof. Stuart's, borrowed by him from the Germans, in respect to commentators, "They send us to April." Winer, the best of all the New Testament grammarians, classes (p. 267) John viii. 58 with John xv. 27, Jer. i. 5, 2 Peter iii. 4, 1 John.iii. 8, Ps. xc. 2 (Eng. Vers., but lxxxix. 2, Greek). And for what object? To show that the present tense includes also a past tense when the verb expresses a state in its duration.* But this obviously does not touch the question of pre-existence; for of course I may render, and still maintain my interpreta In the notes to the "Translation of the Four Gospels," I put the case less favorably to my interpretation, so far as Winer's authority is concerned, than their words actually warrant and demand. |