Edwin A. Abbott
Published: 2023-12-23
Total Pages: 59
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The present treatise invites the general reader to take a brief and comprehensive view of the results of a long and detailed investigation into the meaning of Christ's self-appellation, in which the investigator starts from the hypothesis that Jesus was more likely to be influenced by the jewish scriptures than by the Jewish apocrypha. The latter should certainly be called in to our aid, but, in the author's judgment, not until the former have been fully utilized. IF we had to select from the gospels two or three phrases that seemed fittest to give a clue to the meaning of Christ’s deepest doctrine, “the Son of Man” would seem to claim a place in the selection. It is applied to Christ in all the four gospels, and that frequently, and near the end, as well as near the beginning, of His career. It never proceeds from a friend, never from an enemy, never from an evangelist or neutral relator, but practically always from our Lord Himself. This self-appellation is connected, sometimes with a claim to authority; sometimes with a recognition that the Claimant has been rejected; sometimes with predictions that He is destined to suffer and to die and to be raised up; sometimes with descriptions of a future Coming in glory. If we could understand why He chose this unvarying title to describe Himself amid such various circumstances, we might gain more insight into His conception of the nature of His mission.