Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/24

 find in the Gospel record that He made, become intel- ligible to us. These claims are accepted and attested by the consensus of the whole Christian world.

We believe that the study of the New Testament in this way is the true road by which men can arrive at the truth concerning God's justice, holiness and mercy, and concerning human sin and salvation from sin. It is also the road by which we can arrive at such knowledge of the mode of the Divine existence and God's one revelation of Himself to the human understanding as our finite minds are able to grasp. We may well press home the question. What are Jesus Christ's claims ?

1. Jesus Christ announced Himself and His apostles proclaimed Him Saviour of men, and this salvation was wrought out through suffering and death. As has already been shown in preceding chapters of our book, Jesus Christ revealed God to men, and was also Himself the pattern of a perfect human life. His mission, however, was not to reveal God as One, or Creator, or Supreme Sovereign, or as Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient. The Hebrew prophets and the Hebrew sacred writings, historical and poetical, had already made this revelation. More than that, the holiness and justice, and also the mercy of God, were revealed in the Old Testament. The special mission of Jesus Christ as Revelator was to declare and illustrate, in words, in acts, in His life and in His death, the boundless, fathomless love of God the Father towards men. His erring, lost children. His mission was to reveal the fact that while a Holy God hates sin, yet God, as loving Father, yearns for the salvation of men from sin, as a father longs for the return home of his erring, wandering child. The mission of our Lord Jesus involved much more than that. By His own life, teachings, and sacrificial, but voluntary death. He opened the way of return to God for every penitent soul that would trust in Him to lead that soul back into acceptance before God. Jesus Christ was prophet in the proper sense of that term, i.e., one who spoke to men on God's behalf. But that was not the essence and soul of His mission. (Luke ii. 11 ; Luke xix. 10; 1 John iv. 14; Acts v. 31; John xii. 47;