SEVEN QUESTIONS ABOUT JESUS.* Da. WARKBAVER sets himself in his
new book to answer the following seven questions concerning Christ :—" Was He the Son of God P Was He sinless ? Did He perform miracles ? Could He forgive Bins? , Must we believe in Him in order to be saved P Did He rise from the dead? Did He
die for us ? " The questions, taken together, cover the whole ground of Christology. Our author prepares his readers at once for somewhat unorthodox conclusions :— "In attempting to answer each of them from the avowedly modern standpoint, we can only plead the earnest desire to aid the cause of a reverent and positive faith. Above all, while We shall not hesitate to show where and why we differ both from traditional views and modern arguments Used in their defence, we shall bear in mind throughout how dear and sacred some of those views are to many who have grown up in them."
The promise of the first chapter is fulfilled in the rest. The whole tone of the book is deeply religious, and though Dr. Warecliatier will not satisfy, he can hardly offend the most orthodox. He believes that "the one fact of supreme import- ance in the history of mankind was the life of Jesus Christ.' He is able to say that "the Incarnate Son is the supreme and
crowning instance of the Divine Immanence." He believes that the appearances of our Lord after death were "objective," though he refuses to dogmatise upon the subject. The sinleeeness of our Lord was, he thinks, "not, as it is commonly understood, an inability to fall, but an ability to resist and triumph," for, "in the last analysis, it is only the possibility of sin, even in Jesus, which constitutes the possibility of sinless- nese." As to the vexed question of the Atonement, Le is frankly unable to accept it, even in the form in which it is offered to the faithful by its most modern apologists :—
" With every wish to discover points of agreement rather than of diffot once, it in impossible" for him, ho says, "to escape the conclusion that the writers in question are still under the sway of theories of punishment, of expiation and of forgiveness which the ethical consciousness of the age is fast leaving behind."
Previous page
