Christ and Criticism. 81 at His teaching,” we are told, “for He taught them as one having exousia.” The word occurs again in Acts 1:7, where He says that times and seasons “the Father hath put in His own exousia!’ And this is explained by Phil. 2 :6, 7: He counted it not a prize (or a thing to be grasped) to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself the word on which the kenosis theory of the critics depends. And He not only stripped Himself of His glory as God; He gave up His liberty as a man. For He never spoke His own words, but only the words which the Father gave Him to speak. And this was the limitation of His “authority” ; so that, beyond what the Father gave Him to speak, He knew nothing and was silent. But when He spoke, “He taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” From their scribes they were used to receive definite teaching, but it was teaching based on “the law and the prophets.” But here was One who stood apart and taught them from a wholly different plane. “For,” He declared, “I spake not from Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak. * * * The things, therefore, which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me,'so I Speak” (John 12:49, 50, R. V.). And let us not forget that it was not merely the substance of His teaching that was divine, but the very language in which it was conveyed. So that in His prayer on the night of the betrayal He could say, not only “I have given them Thy word,” but “I have given them the words which Thou gavest Me.”* His words, therefore, about Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures were not, as the critics, with such daring and seem ing profanity, maintain, the lucubrations of a superstitious and ignorant Jew ; they were the words of God, and conveyed truth that was divine and eternal. When in the dark days of the Exile, God needed a prophet *Both the \oyo
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker