THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST

In the foregoing section, while ample testimony was borne to the greater accuracy and clearness of the new version, little or nothing was said of its doctrinal significance. It is not uncommon, indeed, to hear it stated that the Revised Version has no direct bearing upon doctrine, and that, whatever other changes it may effect, it will at least leave the cardinal articles of the Christian faith exactly where it found them.

In a sense, no doubt, this statement is true. Though the witness of particular texts may be altered, or even disappear altogether, as in the case of the famous proof-text for the Trinity (1 John v. 7), the general balance of doctrinal truth remains unchanged. No essential article of our creed is lost. But this is not to say that no new light is cast upon any of these articles, or that a more intimate acquaintance with the exact form in which the truths of Revelation were first announced may not lead to a considerable modification in much of our popular theology. It is impossible in our present limits to establish this as fully as one would like. The utmost that can be attempted is to indicate a few of the passages in which the changes made by the Revisers, whether caused by an improved text or a more exact translation of the original, appear to have a bearing upon doctrinal truth.

1. The Person of Christ.

Thus, to begin with the doctrine of our Lord's person, when we turn to the much disputed passage, I Tim. iii. 1 6, it is to find that the Revisers in their marginal note pronounce strongly in favour of the reading "He Who" instead of "God," and in consequence translate, "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; He Who was manifested in the flesh." We seem at first sight only to have loss. The passage in this form can no longer be quoted as a direct testimony to the Godhead of Christ, but indirectly it surely implies this in no uncertain way. Only of One Who Himself existed before, could it be said that He was "manifested in the flesh." But, even if it were otherwise, we are not dependent upon this text for the proof of Christ's Divinity, and any supposed loss in this direction is more than made up by the new and striking witness which we gain to the personality of our religion. For it is not, as we would naturally expect, a neuter relative which follows the Greek word for "mystery," but a masculine pronoun : "the mystery — who."1 The mystery is not a thing, but a Person, not any propositions about Christ, but Christ Himself : He Who was manifested, justified, seen, preached, believed on, received up in

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glory.2 Or, as the same truth is expressed in the amended version of Col. ii. 2, "the mystery of God, even Christ."3 While with the description which follows, "in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden," we may compare the words of ch. i. 19, "For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell," rendered still more emphatically in the margin, "For the whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell in Him." The Son of God's love (i. 13),4 in (A.V., by) whom all things were created (ver. 16), and unto (A.V., for) whom, as to their goal, all things tend, is Himself distinguished not merely by "all fulness," but by "the whole fulness," the Pleroma of all the Divine attributes and powers.

Other passages which, in their revised form, bear more or less distinctly on the Divinity of our Lord are John v. 18, where the adjective is recognized as having the full emphatic force, which it does not always possess in late Greek, "but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God"; Acts xvi. 7, where the striking reading "the Spirit of Jesus" (not simply, as in the Authorised Version, "the Spirit") implies that the Holy Spirit had so taken possession of the Person of the Exalted Jesus that He could be spoken of as "the Spirit of Jesus"; 2 Cor. iv. 5, where the sum of Apostolic teaching is declared to be the preaching of "Christ Jesus as Lord," "Lord" in the Pauline Epistles being apparently generally used with reference to the risen and glorified Redeemer; Tit. ii. 13, where a slight change in the translation and improved punctuation show that "the appearing of the glory," the fulfilment, that is, of the symbolical appearances of "the glory of the Lord" in the Old Testament, is associated with "our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ," not two persons, but one (cf. 2 Pet. i. 1); and 1 Pet. iii. 15, "Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord," where, in borrowing his language from Isa. viii. 13, the Apostle directly identifies Christ with Jehovah, and so attests His deity in the most unequivocal maimer. Archbishop Alexander indeed singles out this verse as more than any other assuring him of the Divinity of Jesus, and adds that its "restoration to its rightful force outweighs nearly all that can be said against the Revised Version."5

To these may be added the remarkable marginal rendering "God only begotten," in John i. 18, which points to One Who is both God and Son6; and John viii. 58, "Before Abraham was, I am," where again the marginal note makes clear that different words are used in the original to describe the being of Abraham and of Christ — "Before Abraham was born," came into being from a previous non-existent state, "I am," I necessarily and eternally am.7 As an example of a slight but significant change, may be mentioned the rendering "offered" for "presented" in Matt. ii. 11, bringing the verse into harmony with the numerous passages in the Septuagint and the New Testament, where the same Greek word is used of religious offerings in worship to God.8

With reference to the other side of our Lord's person, His human nature, it must be sufficient to point to Phil. ii. 5-8 with the accompanying marginal notes, which here, as throughout the Revised Version, are of the utmost value in bringing the exact force of the Greek before the English reader. Starting with the thought of Christ's Divinity, the Apostle proceeds to tell us how He Who was thus originally in the form of God counted not this equality of being with God "a prize," a thing to be grasped at or retained, as compared with what by sacrifice He might effect for our sakes, but "emptied Himself," this great act involving, rather than followed by (as the Authorized Version suggests), the two great steps, "taking the form of a servant (bondservant)," and "being made (becoming) in the likeness of men," while these in turn led to the lowest step of all, "the death of the Cross." How clearly as we note the changes, and more particularly that one bold expression "emptied Himself," so different from the paraphrastic "made Himself of no reputation," is the tremendous reality of our Lord's humiliation brought home to us. And in the verses that follow what new dignity is added to the exaltation by "the (not "a") name which is above every name," which God gives to Jesus, "in (not "at") which every knee should bow."9 There can be little doubt that the name here referred to is the human name Jesus, and not the Divine title Lord, as many are tempted to imagine. And in this connexion we may recall such passages as the following, where the use of the simple name fixes the emphasis on the person of the Lord in His true humanity — Luke xxiii. 42, "And he said, Jesus, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom"; 1 John i. 7, "The blood of Jesus His Son deanseth us from all sin"; and Heb. iii. 1, "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, even Jesus." The last instance is specially important, in view of the frequency with which in this great Epistle the human name stands alone, and sometimes as here with marked emphasis, with reference to our Lord.10

2. The Work of Christ.

When we pass from the Person to the Work of Christ, the doctrinal consequences attending certain improved renderings are even more significant than those we have already noticed. Thus it is the constant practice of Scripture, and more particularly of the Pauline Epistles, to regard the change wrought in the believer in an ideal light. The change from death to life, though practically only gradually realized, is presented as ideally complete, "summed up," as Bishop Lightfoot puts it, "in one definite act of the past; potentially to all men in our Lord's Passion and Resurrection, actually to each individual man when he accepts Christ, is baptized into Christ."11 And by way of illustration he points to such important doctrinal passages as Rom. vi. 2, 2 Cor. v. 14, and Col. iii. 3, where the Revisers have translated the Greek aorists as referring to a definite past time — "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" "For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died." "For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God."12

The extent of Christ's redeeming work, as including potentially all mankind, to mention another point, gains also new witness from the Revised Version. Read Rom. v. 15-19 as in the Authorized Version, and the benefits of one man's obedience would seem to be confined to "many"; but give the definite articles before "one" and "many" their proper force, as in the Revised Version, and then it will be seen "that the many,13 in an antithesis to the one, are equivalent to all,14 in ver. 12, and comprehend the whole multitude, the entire species of mankind, exclusive only of the one."15 The reason why the term, "the many," is used being, as Godet has well pointed out, in order to establish this contrast with the one : "all would be opposed to some, and not to one." "So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life" (ver. 18).

1 μυστήριον ὅς.

2 See a striking sermon on "Personality of the Gospel" by Dean Vaughan, in Authorized or Revised? London, 1882, p. 3 ff.

3 It should be noted that the reading in this verse is very uncertain.

4 How much more expressive than "His dear Son" Cf. Augustine de Trinit. xv. 19: "Filius caritatis ejus nullus est alius, quam qui de substantiâ ejus est genitus."!

5 The Divinity of our Lord (in the series of "Helps to Belief"), p. 66.

6 μονογενὴς Θεός.

7 πρὶν ΄Αβρὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγώ εἰμι. Cf. 2 Pet. i. 4, "That through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature."

8 προσφέρω. It may be noted that the significant change of tense in the two occurrences of this verb in Heb. xi. 17 is now brought out in the Revised Version : "By faith Abraham, being tried, hath offered up (margin) Isaac: yea, he that had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten son." "The first verb [προσενήνοχεν, perfect tense] expresses the permanent result of the offering completed by Abraham in will: the second [προσφερεν, imperfect tense], his actual readiness in preparing the sacrifice which was not literally carried into effect" (Westcott ad loc.).

9 It it curious that the Authorized rendering "at the name of Jesus," should first be found in the Genevan Testament of 1557, and that consequently this version should have been the means of establishing one of those outward ceremonies against which the Genevan Reformers set themselves so strongly.

10 Cf. ch. ii. 9, vi. 20, vii. 22, x. 19, xii. 2, 24, xiii. 12.

11 On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament, 3rd ed., London, 1891, p. 94.

12 It is a common criticism that the Revisers have carried their renderings of the aorist as a definite past too far, and it must be kept in view that our simple past tense does not always coincide in meaning with the Greek aorist, any more than our perfect tense always corresponds with the Greek perfect; see the important statement by Moulton, Prolegomena to a Grammar of New Testament Greek, Edinburgh, 1908, p. 135 ff.

13 οἱπολλοί.

14 πάντες.

15 Bentley, Works (ed. Dyce), iii. p. 244. The passage will be found in Lightfoot, ut supra, p. 108, or, more fully, in Trench, ut supra, p. 135 f.