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That such an ethical reformer lived who believed in the coming of the Messianic kingdom, that he was embroiled with the priestly class and was done to death by them with the aid of the Roman governor who feared a seditious outbreak, that his disciples after his death came to believe in his resurrection and his coming Messiahship upon earth, all this appears to me more than probable.
The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must publicly assert Messiahship; and this was certain to bring things to an issue. I suppose him to have hoped that he was Messiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings.
I say, I suppose this; but I build nothing on my supposition. I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiahship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, if that claim was ill-founded: viz., either he must have become an impostor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom.
Knowing that if they should confess the divine origin of John's mission they would thereby establish the Messiahship of Jesus to whom John had borne witness, and that if they should deny it they would forfeit the favour of the people, they answered, We cannot tell, meaning, It is inconvenient to express an opinion.
They had not perceived the inner significances of the Holy Bible. They voiced their objections, saying, “We are expecting Christ, but His coming is conditioned upon certain fulfillments and prophetic announcements. Among the signs of His appearance is one that He shall come from an unknown place, whereas now this claimant of Messiahship has come from Nazareth.
It may have been their belief in His Messiahship, accredited by His resurrection and destining Him to come with power and judge the world, that led them to place Him at the right hand of God; but there was the place where He seemed to them to belong. None have ever conceived God more highly than they who said, "God is love," and these men set Jesus side by side with God.
Comfort coming at the end of the announcement of calamities so great finds no entrance into, nor room in, the heart. We all let a black foreground hide from us a brighter distance. III. The Master's feet mark the disciples' path. If suffering was involved in Messiahship, it is no less involved in discipleship. The cross which is our hope is also our pattern.
But genealogies for or against Messiahship seemed to me a mean argument; and the fact of the prophets demanding a carnal descent in Messiah struck me as a worse objection than that Jesus had not got it, if this could be ever proved. The Messiah of Micah, however, was not Jesus; for he was to deliver Israel from the Assyrians, and his whole description is literally warlike.
When He was living the life of retirement in the country He was rebuked that He did not go up to the feast and state His claims plainly justify, that is, by activity, His pretensions to the Messiahship; and when He did so, He was entreated to bid his acclaimants to hold their peace to justify, that is, by humility and retirement, His pretensions to spirituality.
The divine-human Being called the Messiah has assumed human form; the only development of which he is capable is self-realization. The Imāmate is little more than a function, but the Messiahship is held by a person, not as a mere function, but as a part of his nature. This is not an unfair criticism. The alternation seems to me, as well as to Mr. Johnston, psychologically impossible.
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