In the previous paper it was pointed out that our Lord not only frequently referred to the Pentateuch as the law of Moses, but that He unequivocally stated its writer to have been Moses (John 5:46, Mark 10:5). And surely with all simple and godly souls the word of the Lord is sufficient, but it is avowedly not so with the critics. They, forsooth, have their own opinions to maintain, and accordingly endeavor to evade the direct force of this evidence by expedients, the character of which more than strongly hints at the desperateness of their position. Their principal theories are two, and have been not inaptly described as (1) the adaptation theory, and (2) the self-limitation theory. The first of these involves an attack upon our Lord's moral character and the second upon His Person. And from this their ultimate origin is sufficiently indicated.
The “adaptation” theory, as the term suggests, asserts that our blessed Lord adapted Himself to the mistaken beliefs of those among whom He lived. It states that the Jews wrongly ascribed the Pentateuch to Moses, and that the Lord gave His verbal assent to the notion though He knew it to be false. Now, in order to show that this representation of the theory is not unjust, the following quotations are made. Referring to the words “He (Moses) wrote of Me” (John 5:46), it is said “We may regard them as an address ad hominem, as an incidental and temporary adoption of the conceptions and language of those to whom He was speaking, in relation to a subject foreign to His immediate purpose. We may understand Him as if He had said: Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for the books which, as you suppose, Moses wrote, concern Me. “He accepted, as the basis of His teaching, the opinions respecting the Old Testament current around Him; He assumed, in His allusions to it, the premises which His opponents recognized “ “It is not derogatory to our Lord's Divinity to maintain that it was necessary for Him to argue with the Jews from their standpoint without necessarily endorsing the truth of the popular opinion “ The sentiments herein expressed are by no means obscure or difficult of apprehension. The assumption common to all is, as has already been observed, that the ordinary belief of the Jews of that day in the Mosaic authorship of the first five books was quite erroneous; and further that the Lord accepted this, together with other current opinions, as the basis of His teaching.
Such a hypothesis is most serious to all who desire to he loyal to Christ; since its acceptance unquestionably casts no small slight on the moral character of our adorable Redeemer. For the Lord, in some cases, made the entire force of His argument to rest upon the fact that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch. To refer again to but one instance; in John 5:45-47 the point of our Lord's remarks is that Moses witnessed to Him. He is not alluding to the scriptures as such, for this He had already done (ver. 39). But here He takes up the great lawgiver himself as a personal witness. Moses would be their accuser, and that because they believed neither him nor Christ. Truly, if they believed not the writings of him who wrote of Messiah, how should they believe the words of Messiah? Thus Moses and Christ, Moses' writings and Christ's words, are so antithetically placed that to all unbiased minds there can be no manner of doubt that our Lord meant His hearers to understand that Moses himself had testified to Him in his writings. Now, supposing it be true, as the advocates of the theory in question allege, that the Jews were all wrong in thinking that Moses wrote the law, then we are at once forced to the abominable conclusion that our Lord (may He forgive even such a thought!) declared to them that Moses, their great leader, wrote of Him, when, at the same time, He was perfectly aware Moses did nothing of the kind. So that He, herein, resorted to mere artifice and unworthy cunning in order to win the ear of His opponents. He thus exaggerated before them the value of the testimony borne to Him and sought to take advantage of their ignorance to advance His claims. In short, if the “adaptation” theory be true, Christ is found guilty of duplicity! Where can be the reverence, not to say love, of those who brave such an issue as this? Once more the Lord is wounded in the house of His friends. Will they never cease their unholy handling of the Word of life and truth? Is it either, wise or good to seek to degrade our Lord to the level of a mere rhetorical trickster, in order to sustain what is, after all, no more than supposition? On whom then can we rely, if not on Him, Who was the Truth? And the Lord was not only the fullness of truth in His Person, but His words were the expression of Himself. As He Himself said to those who asked Him “Who art thou?” “τὴν ἀρχὴν ὄτι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν” “Absolutely that which I also am speaking to you “ (John 8:25). This is a direct reply to those who charge Him with equivocation. He was, what none ever were before or since, in exact correspondence with what His words expressed. So that all notions of “adaptation,” save that He became a man amongst men, sin excepted, amount to ignoble calumnies against His holy and blessed Person. It is incredulity.
But this theory will not bear the light of facts on record. The allegation that Christ accepted the opinions current around Him is entirely visionary and altogether opposed to the words of the evangelists. On the contrary, from the commencement to the close of His ministry, He invariably upheld the sanctity and divine authority of the law as originally given, and condemned the human fancies and speculations with regard to it which were prevalent around Him. Did He, for example, accept “the current opinions” of the rabbis as to what was or what was not permissible on the Sabbath day? Was it wise accommodation to popular views when He drove out the traders from the temple courts at the beginning as well as the end of His public life? Was it a measure of conciliation to charge the teachers of the law with “laying aside the commandment of God” whilst “holding the tradition of the elders”? (Mark 7:5-8) Do we find that in order to gain general favor He spared either the hypocritical punctiliousness of the Pharisees or the proud skepticism of the Sadducees? On the contrary, it is made manifest throughout the Gospels, that, wherever the Truth went, error was necessarily exposed. And as such was His general practice, it remains for the critics to explain why there was this exception, if indeed there is an exception, as they groundlessly imagine. Had the belief that Moses wrote the law been a blunder, it would not have been attested but would have been condemned, like their broad phylacteries and their divers washings.
But the theorists further assume, without warrant, that the “law of Moses” was the only name under which the Pentateuch would have been recognized; so that the Lord was obliged to speak thus in order to be understood. “Jesus must have alluded to the books of the Old Testament by their recognized names, just as men will always speak of the poetry of Homer, even if the composite origin of the Iliad and the Odyssey comes to be universally recognized." “Unless He had violated the whole principle of the Incarnation by anticipating the slow development of natural knowledge, He must have spoken of the ‘Deuteronomist’ as ‘Moses’ (John 5:46, 47) as naturally as He spoke of the sun rising.'" Now, it is not necessary to refer again to the applicability of the allusion in this passage to the “man Moses,” and not to a fictitious “Deuteronomist.” But it is quite an error for Mr. G. to assume that He must have spoken in this way, as if no other term were intelligible. A very slight examination of the Gospels would have revealed that the single word “law” was well understood by the Jews to refer to the first five books, and not merely to the decalogne. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets” (Matt. 5:17). “Have ye not read in the law etc..” (Matt. 12:5). “This people who knoweth not the law are cursed” (John 7:49). If the addition of “Moses” was not necessary in these and other instances, neither was it at all necessary for purposes of distinctness. So that, if our Lord merely wished to avoid anticipating “the results of scientific inquiry or historical criticism," He might, when referring to the Pentateuch, have uniformly made use of the word “law,” and thereby left the question of authorship unaffected by His words, and escaped the condemnation of the critics. Neither would He, by this means, have been impaled on the other horn of Mr. G.'s dilemma; for silence on the point in question could not “have violated the whole principle of the Incarnation by anticipating the slow development of natural knowledge.” Therefore the simple truth can only be that Moses wrote the law, and the Lord confirmed the belief in the same by His authority, using such words as could leave no other impression on the minds of those who heard Him.
Another statement in connection with this theory should be pointed out because of its misleading character. Professor D. says “There is no record of the question, whether a particular portion of the Old Testament was written by Moses or David or Isaiah having been ever submitted to Him; and had it been so submitted, we have no means of knowing what His answer would have been." Now this is really throwing dust in people's eyes. There is good reason why no such question as “Is it true that Moses wrote the Pentateuch?” was brought to our Lord; for not even the skeptical Sadducees doubted it in that day (Mark 7, Luke 20). But though no such question was asked, the fact is affirmed under such circumstances that the testimony thereto is nonetheless certain. For instance, when the Pharisees came to the Lord with a question concerning divorce, they referred to Deuteronomy and said “Why did Moses command so-and-so?” Here was an opportunity for the Lord to have shown, if such were the case, that this permission was granted not by Moses but by the “Deuteronomist” who lived many centuries after him. However, instead of saying the “Deuteronomist because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives,” He said, confirming their own words, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts etc.” (Matt. 19:7, 8). So that, in this instance, a particular portion of the O.T. is submitted to the Lord as written by Moses; and those who have no theories to maintain, like Professor D., will surely agree that our Lord gave a verbal assent to it.
Even the advocates of these notions themselves appear to feel the insufficiency of the “adaptation” theory, and accordingly the “self-limitation” theory is also advanced. The real effect however is not the mutual support and consolidation of the theories but their mutual destruction. As the false witnesses against the Lord before the high priest were valueless because their witness agreed not together, so the critics, in their eager desire to silence the Lord's testimony against them, have overreached themselves and destroyed one another. The “adaptation” theory declares our Lord was aware that Moses was not the author of the first five books, but that He said so in deference to the teaching of that age; while the “self-limitation” theory declares that our Lord was ignorant of the true author of the Pentateuch, being restricted in His knowledge to the current opinions of the day. Thus one says He did, the other He did not know. But it is impossible for both assertions to be right, though very possible for both to be wrong.
The following quotations give the terms of the latter theory in the writer's own words. “Now when He speaks of the sun rising He is using ordinary human knowledge. He willed so to restrain the beams of Deity as to observe the limits of the science of His age, and He puts himself in the same relation to his historical knowledge." “He never exhibits the omniscience of bare Godhead in the realm of natural knowledge; such as would be required to anticipate the results of modern science or criticism.” “Indeed God ‘declares His almighty power most chiefly’ in this condescension, whereby He ‘beggared Himself' of divine prerogatives to put Himself in our place.” “Why should it be thought that He would speak with certain divine knowledge on this matter (i.e. the authorship of the Pentateuch) more than upon other matters of ordinary science or history?
The first thought that strikes one in reading these brief extracts is the utter want of reverence displayed for the Holy Person of Whom they speak. The very attempt to limit the knowledge of “God manifest in the flesh” is, to say the very least, audacious in the extreme. And when He is thus reduced to the level of a poor ignorant Jew for the sole purpose of proving the vast superiority of nineteenth century wisdom, it is high time for such wolves to he stripped of their sheep's clothing that the flock may be warned. What more flagrant dishonor than to take advantage of His humiliation to seek to prove that His manhood was not even perfect, but could be imposed upon by the blunders of the “uncritical age” in which He lived? Have they forgotten the solemn words of the angel to Mary “That Holy Thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” Luke 1:35? Will not the remembrance of His Deity (for in spite of His lowliness He was never less than God) stay them from laying lawless and defiling hands upon His Humanity? But the fact is the intellectual pride of men will not brook the thought that even the inscrutable mystery of the Incarnation is beyond their ken. Defying the Divine utterance, “No man knoweth (ἐπιγινώσκει) the Son but the Father,” Matt. 11:27, they “rush in where angels fear to tread,” proving their own folly and worse. Let them remember Kirjath-jearim. Surely this, above all subjects the most holy, demands reverence, not curiosity, faith, not speculation. Yet it is asked “why should we permit in theology what we ruthlessly exclude from every other region of science” Therefore it is sought to enlighten theology “the most difficult of all sciences” (sic) by instituting an “honest inquiry” into our Lord's knowledge as a. man. Is it any wonder that theories such as these under examination, are promulgated, when our Lord, instead of being revered as the Truth, is treated and discussed in the same manner as a fossil, a zoological specimen, or a cuneiform inscription? It really means that faith is thrown to the winds, and man's mind and will made the judge of all.
(To be continued.)