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Rh be traced to other sources, and when we know what these are we understand it, and can rate it at its true value. It is not necessary to discuss this method of study here. Its right is unquestioned, and, though like all new things it is apt to go to some heads with intoxicating power, it has brought light to a few dark places in the New Testament, and has doubtless more to bring. The point at present is that it emphasises certain differences which exist in the New Testament, differences which (it asserts) may amount to a direct contradiction of essential Christian truth.

No one, it will be admitted, can deny that the New Testament has variety as well as unity. It is the variety which gives interest to the unity. The reality and power of the unity are in exact proportion to the variety; we feel how potent the unity must be which can hold all this variety together in the energies of a common life. The question raised by every demonstration of the undeniable differences which characterise the New Testament is. What is the vital force which triumphs over them all? What is it in which these people, differing as widely as they do, are vitally and fundamentally at one, so that through all their differences they form a brotherhood, and are conscious of an indissoluble spiritual bond? There can be no doubt that that which unites them is a common relation to Christ — a common faith in Him involving common religious convictions about Him. Such at any rate is the opinion of the writer, and it is the purpose of the following pages to give the proof of it in detail. Everywhere in the New Testament, it will be shown, we are in contact with a religious life which is determined throughout by Christ. Be the difference between the various witnesses what they will, there is no difference on this point. In the relations of God and man, everything turns upon Christ and upon faith in Him. There