Testimony of Christ Regarding His Divine Mission and His Doctrine — Part II: God, the Trinity, and the Divine Filiation in the Synoptics

§ II.—Synthesis of the Teaching of Christ.

Modernists claim that Christ did not teach a body of doctrine, but simply began a religious movement. Others say that the teaching was at first Judaic, later Pauline, later still Johannine, and finally Greek and universal. Both propositions are condemned (D. 2059, 2060).

Art. I.—Teaching of Christ on God and the Trinity.

I.—The Synoptic Gospels.

(1) Christ presupposes and confirms the teaching of the Old Testament regarding God the Creator:

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God” (Mark xii. 29).

“He created creatures” (Mark xiii. 19).

“Lord of Heaven and earth” (Matt. xi. 25).

“Heaven the throne of God” (Matt. v. 34).

“The earth is his footstool” (Matt. v. 35).

“Your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. v. 48).

“One is good, God” (Matt. xix. 17).

“Things that are impossible with men are possible with God” (Luke xviii. 27).

“Thy Father who seeth in secret” (Matt. vi. 4, 6, 18).

“Your Father knoweth what is needful for you before you ask him” (Matt. vi. 8).

(2) Relatively to man God is our Father, most provident, merciful and just.

“Be you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. v. 48).

“Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven” (Matt. vi. 9).

“Behold the birds of the air … your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?” (Matt. vi. 26).

“Ask and it shall be given you” (Matt. vii. 7).

“Your Father is merciful” (Luke vi. 36).

He requires labour proportioned to the talents of each (Matt. xxv. 14 sq.).

He gives to each according to his works: “Come ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. xxv. 34).

“Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. xxv. 41).

He seeks the lost sheep (Luke xv. 1-7).

He mercifully and joyfully receives the penitent prodigal (Luke xv. 24).

(3) God has a Son equal to Himself.

“No one knoweth the Son but the Father: neither doth anyone know the Father but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him” (Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22).

(4) The Holy Ghost.

“I send the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke xxiv. 49).

“When they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak … it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you” (Matt. x. 19, 20).

“The Holy Ghost shall teach you in that hour what you must say” (Luke xii. 12).

“Who speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world or in the world to come” (Matt. xii. 32; Mark iii. 29).

The distinction and equality of the three Divine Persons is asserted by Christ, when He said to His Apostles: “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations: baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. xxviii. 19).

II.—Gospel of St. John.

(1) Regarding God.

“God is a spirit, and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth” (John iv. 24).

(2) God has a Son equal to Himself.

“My Father worketh until now; and I work” (John v. 17).

“As the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life, so the Son also giveth life to whom he will” (John v. 21).

“As the Father hath life in himself: so he hath given to the Son also to have life in himself” (John v. 26).

“God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son” (John iii. 16).

“I and the Father are one” (John x. 30; xvii. 11, 21).

(3) The Holy Ghost.

“But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me” (John xv. 26).

The Paraclete, Spirit of Truth, “shall abide with you and shall be in you … he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you” (John xiv. 17, 26).

The Spirit of Truth “shall glorify me: because he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Therefore I said, he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you” (John xvi. 14-15).

From this teaching it is clear that the Holy Spirit is God, personally distinct from Father and Son, by whom He is sent. The mystery of the Trinity is explicitly revealed by Christ. The same doctrine is found in the Epistles of St. Paul.

Towards the end of the First Century when Pope Clement of Rome wished to repeat the Old Testament affirmation “As the Lord liveth,” he wrote: “As God liveth, and the Lord Jesus Christ liveth and the Holy Spirit” (Clem. ad. Cor. lviii. 2).

Art. II.—Testimony of Christ in regard to His Divine Filiation and the redemptive value of His death.

I.—Heterodox opinions.

Modernistic views:

The Divinity of Christ is not proved from the Gospels, but is a dogma which Christian feeling has deduced from the idea of the Messiah.

In all texts of the Gospels, the name “Son of God” is equivalent to the name “Messiah,” and by no means implies that Christ is the true and natural Son of God. The teaching regarding the expiatory death of Christ is not evangelical but Pauline doctrine (D. 2027-2038).

Many Rationalists (Renan, Weiss, Wendt, Harnack) acknowledge Divine filiation in Christ higher than His Messiahship, but they deny that Jesus, in virtue of this filiation, is true God. Renan writes: Jesus is the individual who has made the greatest step towards Divinity.

Our Lord is called in the Gospels “Son of God” more than fifty times. In what sense has this expression to be taken? The term may be understood in a wide sense of those who are upright and God-fearing; in a strict sense it is used of the Second Person of the Trinity ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, “the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (John i. 18). The name “Son of God” is sometimes equivalent to “Messiah,” when the term was applied by those who had not as yet recognised His Divinity (Mark iii. 12). But in the Synoptic Gospels alone, it is certain that Jesus declared that He possessed the Divine nature, and not merely a participation of the same by grace, as in the case of good Christians, whom St. Peter describes as “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter i. 4).

II.—Synoptic Gospels.

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus declared His Divinity:

(a) By claiming rights and privileges which belong to God alone;

(b) By affirming that He was Son of God in the strict and literal sense.

(A) He claimed Divine rights. There are seven instances.

1° He claimed to be greater than any creature: greater than Jonas and Solomon (Matt. xii. 41, 42), greater than David who called Him Lord (Mark xii. 36), greater than Moses and Elias who appear in attendance at His transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 3), greater than John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 9, 11), greater than Angels “who ministered unto Him” (Mark i. 13), who belonged to Him (Matt. xvi. 27; xxiv. 31).

2° He claimed the exercise towards Himself of Faith, Obedience, Love, even to the sacrifice of all other affections, nay, even to the sacrifice of life. “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. x. 37). These words would be an indication of intolerable pride, if Jesus were not God. “Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left … father or mother or children … for my sake and for the Gospel who shall not receive a hundred times as much, now in this time … and in the world to come life everlasting” (Mark x. 29, 30). “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth” (Matt. xii. 30). “Blessed are ye when they shall … persecute you … for my sake” (Matt. v. 11).

3° He speaks as Supreme Legislator:

“You have heard that it was said to them of old… . But I say to you, etc.” (Matt. v. 21-48). He prohibits divorce which Moses, because of their hardness of heart, permitted (Matt. v. 32; xix. 9). He claims to be Lord of the Sabbath (Mark ii. 28).

4° He works miracles in His own name.

“He said to the man sick of the palsy, Arise” (Matt. ix. 6; Mark ii. 9; v. 41; Luke vii. 14).

“He said to the sea: Peace, be still. And the wind ceased” (Mark iv. 39).

The Apostles work miracles in the name of Jesus (Matt. vii. 22; Acts iii. 6; iv. 10).

5° He claims the power to forgive sins.

“Be of good heart, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee” (Matt. ix. 2-7).

“Come unto me all you who labour and are burthened and I will refresh you” (Matt. xi. 28).

He communicates to others the power of forgiving sins (Matt. xviii. 18).

6° He judges the living and the dead.

“You shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mark xiv. 62; viii. 38; xiii. 26).

“And he (the Son of Man) shall send his angels with a trumpet and a great voice; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them” (Matt. xxiv. 31).

7° He promises to send the Holy Ghost.

“I send the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke xxiv. 49).

He accepts adoration (Matt. viii. 2; xxviii. 9). Whereas St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, and even Angels refuse adoration because they have no claim (Acts x. 25-26; xiv. 14; Apoc. xix. 10; xxii. 8).

(B) In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus affirms several times that He is Son of God in its strict and literal sense.

1° “All things are delivered to me by my Father. And no one knoweth the Son but the Father; neither doth any one know the Father but the Son, and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal him” (Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 21, 22).

The authenticity of these texts is admitted by the majority of critics. Equality of Father and Son as to knowledge is stated, and this equality implies consubstantiality. St. Thomas writes (in Matt. xi.): the substance of the Father is beyond comprehension of created intelligence; so likewise is the substance of the Son, which is known only by the Father. Loisy admits (L’Évangile et l’Église, p. 47) that the sense is the same as in John i. 18, and though Rationalist critics accept the authenticity of the texts (Weiss, Keim, Wendt, O. and H. Holtzmann, Stapfer, etc.) Loisy attributes both texts and meaning to later Christian tradition.

2° Reply of Christ to Confession of St. Peter:

“Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, Son of the living God. And Jesus answering said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father, who is in heaven” (Matt. xvi. 16, 17).

Some critics say: It cannot be proved historically that Peter affirmed more than Christ’s Messiahship, inasmuch as in Mark viii. 29, the words recorded are “Thou art Christ,” and in Luke ix. 20, “Thou art the Christ of God.” But from the reply of Our Lord, it is clear that Peter affirmed more than Messiahship. Messianic signs had been manifest to the Apostles from the beginning of Our Lord’s ministry. Andrew, Philip, Nathanael (John i. 41, 49) openly recognised them. Our Lord enumerated the signs to the disciples of John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 4). Hence simple Messiahship did not require so great a revelation. From the text cited above: “No one knows the Son but the Father,” it may be argued: if Peter could know only from the Father what he affirmed of the Son, this shews that he affirmed Divine Filiation. It does not follow that Peter at that time knew by Faith the nature of the Divine Filiation as explicitly as the Church later defined it.

3° Formula of Baptism (Matt. xxviii. 18, 19, 20).

“And Jesus coming spoke to them saying: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”

From which text it is clear:

(a) He to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth has power over every creature—a prerogative which belongs to God alone.

(b) In the formula, the Son is equal to the Father and to the Holy Ghost.

(c) He promises aid unto the end of the world which God alone can accomplish. “I am with you all days” is the realisation of the prophecy “they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted ‘God with us’” (Isaias vii. 14; Matt. i. 23).

Regarding the authenticity of this text, Loisy without justification denies it, though he admits that it is found in the Didache vii. 1, and that it was universally known in the Church at the beginning of the Second Century A.D. 100.

4° Reply of Christ to Caiphas (Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, 65).

When Christ appeared before the Sanhedrin, the high priest said to Him: “I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God. And Jesus saith to him: Thou hast said it. Nevertheless I say to you hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his garments, saying: He hath blasphemed: what further need have we of witnesses? Behold now you have heard the blasphemy.”

In this reply, Jesus appears more than Messiah, for to the simple dignity of Messiah, Divine Filiation, a seat at the right hand of God, the exercise of supreme power do not belong. Hence Caiphas rent his garments and cried out: “He hath blasphemed,” as is recorded in the three Synoptic accounts. Compare with this incident the anger of the Jews (John v. 18). “The Jews sought the more to kill him, because he did not only break the Sabbath, but also said God was his Father, making himself equal to God.” Again when Our Lord said: (John x. 30) “I and the Father are one. The Jews took up stones to stone him.” Hence as recorded in John xix. 7, the Jews answered Pilate: “We have a law: and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God” (Cf. Mark xiv. 61; Luke xxii. 66, 70).

5° The question of Jesus to the Jews regarding Christ son of David (Matt. xxii. 42 sq.).

“The Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying: What think you of Christ: whose son is he? They say to him ‘David’s.’ He said to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying: The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word” (Cf. Luke xx. 44; Mark xii. 37). David’s Lord is superior to David, and equal to the Lord God.

The authenticity of this text is admitted by Wendt, Dalman, Weiss, Stapfer, Werhle, O. Holtzmann. Loisy does not regard the text as genuine, because in his view, the Divinity of Christ, asserted in the text, was later teaching gradually deduced by Christian feeling from the idea of Messiah.

6° Parable of the Vineyard and Husbandmen (Mark xii. 1-12; Matt. xxi. 33-46; Luke xx. 1-19).

The application of the parable is clear: the servants sent by the Lord of the Vineyard represent the prophets (Cf. Matt. xxiii. 31 sq.). His “most dear Son and Heir” was more than prophet, more than Messiah. Compare with the parable the opening words of the Epistle to the Hebrews: “God, who at sundry times … spoke … by the prophets, in these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. Who being the brightness of his Father’s glory and the figure of his substance … sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high.”

Conclusion: in the Synoptic Gospels, the declarations of Jesus regarding His eminent dignity transcend the rôle of Messiahship and express Divine Filiation, which makes Christ equal to God, i.e., God Himself, second Person of the Trinity.

III.—Confirmation from Acts of the Apostles.

It cannot be maintained that the doctrine of the Godhead of Christ was gradually evolved by a process of idealisation after His death. The time necessary for this supposed idealisation was wanting, as it is certain that the Apostles from the day of Pentecost taught that Jesus was not only Messiah but God. St. Luke in the “Acts” bears witness to this fact. All Catholic critics, many non-Catholic critics (Barde, Blass, Plummer, Headlam, Zahn, etc.) and even many pronounced Rationalists (Renan, Reuss, Harnack, etc.) attribute the whole book of the Acts of the Apostles to Luke, companion of St. Paul. The Acts were written probably about A.D. 63-64, at any rate before A.D. 70. The Tübingen school used to assign A.D. 150 as its proximate date, but Harnack, one of the greatest authorities on early Christian chronology, influenced by historical evidence, assigns its composition to the years A.D. 78-83 or possibly to A.D. 60-70.

The discourse of St. Peter recorded in Acts iii. 13-16, has the following words: “The God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus… . But the Author of life you killed, whom God hath raised up from the dead.” The Author of life can be only God.

When Peter was interrogated by the high priest and the ancients by what name he had wrought the miracle (Acts iv. 10-18) Peter replied: “By the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him this man standeth here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by the builders: which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to man, whereby we must be saved.” A little later, when the Apostles were liberated by an angel from prison, being again interrogated, Peter replied: “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, hanging him upon a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be prince and saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins” (Acts v. 29-31). St. Peter’s teaching is clear: Jesus alone is Saviour of souls, giving remission of sins.

At the Council of Jerusalem, which decreed that Gentiles should not be bound by Mosaic Law, Peter said: “Now therefore why tempt you God to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we believe that we are saved in like manner as they also” (Acts xv. 10, 11).

Several times Jesus is called by Peter “Lord” (Acts ii. 36; vi. 20), “Lord of all” (Acts x. 36), “appointed by God to be judge of the living and of the dead” (Acts x. 42). The Apostles in the name of Jesus work miracles, confer baptism, and St. Stephen, dying, cried out: “Lord Jesus receive my spirit” (Acts vii. 58).

In these speeches of St. Peter, delivered immediately after Pentecost, appears the faith of the primitive church. Christ is believed to be Son of God, Author of life, Lord of all, Saviour of all, Judge of the living and of the dead. There could be no process of idealisation between primitive documents and the composition of the Gospels. Let Rationalists explain how the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ—in their view, a new doctrine—could have been introduced and accepted against their will by convert Jews whose faith was supremely monotheistic, how the supposed new doctrine was accepted equally against their will by primitive Christians, and diffused throughout the Church. Absolutely opposed to this view is the historical fact that it was heretics—Ebionites—who denied the Divinity of Christ, and were, as the Apostolic Fathers relate, unanimously condemned by the Church.

IV.—Confirmation from Epistles of St. Paul.

St. Paul, when he expressly affirms the Divinity of Christ, does not announce it to the Church as a new and unheard of dogma, but as one already received. Many Rationalists, amongst whom are Harnack and Jülicher, admit that the Epistles to the Thessalonians (i. and ii.), to the Galatians, the Corinthians (i. and ii.), Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, were written between the years A.D. 48-49 or 50-64.

Some of the principal testimonies of St. Paul are given:

“Concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh. Who was predestinated the Son of God in power according to the spirit of sanctification, by the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead” (Rom. i. 3-4).

“God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. viii. 3).

“He spared not even his own Son: but delivered him up for us all” (Rom. viii. 32).

“And when the fulness of time was come God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, that he might redeem them, who were under the Law: that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father” (Gal. iv. 4-6).

Hence Jesus is Son of God according to the spirit of sanctification, and is from the seed of David according to the flesh.

Moreover, St. Paul affirms the eternal pre-existence of the Son of God before the Incarnation:

The minds of unbelievers are blinded “that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine unto them” (2 Cor. iv. 4).

The “Son of His love” “who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of every creature: for in him were all things created in heaven, and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him. And he is before all, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things he may hold the primacy: because in him it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell: and through him to reconcile all things unto himself” (Col. i. 15-20).

In this text the Son of God is called “Creator,” and in Romans xi. 36, it is written of God the Creator: “Of him and by him and in him are all things.” Clearly the Son of God is equal to the Father.

“We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles, foolishness. But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God … of him (God) are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and justice and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. i. 23-30).

“In him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporally” (Coloss. ii. 9).

“Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal to God: But emptied himself taking upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man” (Philip. ii. 5-7).

In this expression “form of God,” the word “form,” “μορφή” means “essence” or “Divine nature,” as follows from the words “equal to God.” No clearer statement could be given of the glorious pre-existence of the Son of God before the Incarnation. “I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ for my brethren … of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all things God blessed for ever, Amen” (Romans ix. 3, 5). There is a difficulty of punctuation in regard to this text. The Tischendorf-Gebhardt edition reads: “Of whom is Christ according to the flesh. Who is over all things God blessed for ever, Amen.” If the full-stop be placed after flesh, the following sentence is an invocation made to God. But the editions Nestle, Westcott-Hort, Weymouth, Weiss and many others retain the comma after “flesh.” All the Fathers of the Church see in these words an affirmation of the Divinity of Christ.

“In these days (God) has spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world. Who being the brightness of his glory and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high” (Hebrews i. 2-3).

“Thou in the beginning, O Lord, didst found the earth, and the works of thy hands are the heavens” (Hebrews i. 10). Thus Christ is superior to prophets, Moses, Angels. He is mediator and priest for ever: “He is able to save for ever them that come to God by him: always living to make intercession for us” (Heb. vii. 25).

Catholic critics (e.g. Jacquier) hold that St. Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (though he made use of an amanuensis). Harnack suggests St. Barnabas as author, and gives the date of composition as 65 or 66, perhaps before A.D. 70.