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For the diffusion of faith it is a man like Peter that is wanted, who overleaps the obstacles which other men would stop to examine; a man like Luther, erring perhaps in fine points of doctrine, but giving impetus and force to the whole movement in Christ's kingdom, and sweeping along with him a host of weaker and dependent spirits.
But John regards this selfish, cruel advice as a prophecy. Caiaphas spoke wiser things than he knew. The Divine Spirit breathed in strange fashion through even such lips as his, and moulded his savage utterance into such a form as that it became a fit expression for the very deepest thought about the nature and the power of Christ's death.
What did that? Something had come in between which wrought more, in a short space, than all the three years of Christ's teaching and companionship had done for them. What was it?
Michelangelo filled these upper spaces with two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a huge cross, the other a column, in the air. The cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of Christ's Passion. The crown of thorns is also there, the sponge, the ladder, and the nails. It is with no merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffering are thus exhibited.
But we may remember, too, that while Christ's work is, in one aspect, finished, when He bowed His head, and by His own will 'gave up the ghost, in another aspect His work is not finished, nor will be, until the whole benefits of His incarnation and death are diffused through, and appropriated by, the world.
'Well, for Christ's sake don't say nothing about it now, replied Sawkins. 'There's been enough talk and waste of time over this job already. Ned made no answer and the end having by this time reached the ground, Bundy made it fast to the ladder, about six rungs from the top. The ladder was lying on the ground, parallel to the side of the house.
I do not wonder at that, nor do I admit that it is any argument against the truth of the divine revelation which is made in these doctrinal statements, to allege that we find nothing corresponding to them in Jesus Christ's own words. The silence is not as absolute as is alleged, as the quotations which I have made, and which might have been multiplied, do distinctly enough show.
The inspired writers use the word ekkleesia, which means a gathering of people called from their homes into some public place. A correct translation would be "assembly" or "congregation," as it has reference primarily to a local body of Christians assembled for work and worship. If this primary idea were restored, it would make mightily for the strengthening of Christ's kingdom.
"He that ruleth," Rom. xii. 8, and "Your rulers in the Lord," 1 Thes. v. 12, viz. not only in the fear of the Lord, nor only in those things that appertain to God's worship, but also in the Lord; i.e. who are over you, to rule according to the will of the Lord, even by the Lord Christ's power and authority derived to them.
The Catholic welcomes these evidences of the duality of Christ's intellectual life. On the theoretical side, they confirm the central dogma of orthodox Christology. On the practical side, they give him authority for seeking Christ's sympathy in matters intellectual.
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