Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/23

 read by itself without a copy of the New Testament in hand, and by one whose familiarity with the Gospel record is limited. The second part of the book, four chapters, treats of the teachings and works of Jesus Christ. The proportion of text to comment is about the same as in Part I. Some of the principal parables and miracles are cited in detail and briefly annotated.

It is Part III. which makes its o\\ti appeal to the reader ^Wth the briefest possible comment. First it urges that we hold the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament as a fact granted by all competent critics, and in saying this we mean the New Testament as Christians of all sects receive it. We mean not only the original Greek New Testament but the same book as it has been translated into almost all human languages by Christian scholars. This position of ours has been denied, but those who have denied it have been unacquianted with the weight of evidence for the genuineness and authen- ticity of the Gospel in Christian hands, or b}^ those who have been misled b}^ incompetent instructors. The proofs of the genuineness and authenticity of the Gospel are so many and so strong that we have the right, in our present work, to assume the fact as granted. The Gospel narratives, therefore, are true narratives. The claims made by Jesus Christ in the Gospel, claims which we are now to consider, come to us as a part of the attested and universaU}- received Gospel record. I would also Hke to emphasize the tendency among Chirstian scholars of the present day to expend less intellectual acumen in the attempt rigorously to define the confessedly mysterious doctrine of the Trinity and of the unique Person of Jesus Christ than the early Christian fathers did in the fourth century. We direct attention to the fact, plainly revealed in the Gospel, of Christ's unique Person, teach- ing, works and claims, and emphasise its significance. In this way the wonderful hfe and teaching and work of Jesus Christ reveal to men in a unique manner the one all Merciful God, the Holy One, who loves men so much that, for their redemption from sin. He made the greatest conceivable sacrifice. In this way Christ's work of atonement for human sin, and those unique claims which we