onsummation? Did He not call Himself the Son
of God, saying, "The Father hath given all judgment unto the Son; that all
may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father"? Did He not declare,
"I and My Father are one"? and again, "All things have been delivered
unto Me of My Father: and no one knoweth the Son, save the Father;
neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son willeth to reveal Him"? And when one of the Twelve bowed down before
Him, saying, "My Lord and my God," did He not accept the homage as
though it were His by right? What further need, then, have we of
witnesses? Is it not manifest that the explanation of all that has been
claimed for Christ, from the days of the apostles until now, is to be
found in what Christ claimed for Himself?

This is true; nevertheless it may be well to remind ourselves that
Christ Himself did not thrust the evidence on His disciples in quite
this wholesale, summary fashion. It is an easy thing for us to scour the
New Testament for "proof-texts," and then, when they are heaped together
at our feet like a load of bricks, to begin to build our theological
systems. But Peter and Thomas and the other disciples could not do this.
The revelation which we possess in its completeness was given to them
little by little as they were able to receive it. And the moment we
begin to study the life of Jesus, not in isolated texts, but as day by
day it passed before the eyes of the Twelve, we cannot fail to observe
the remarkable reserve which, during the greater part of His ministry,
He exercised concerning Himself. When first His disciples heard His call
and followed Him, He was to them but a humble peasant teacher, who had
flung about their lives a wondrous spell which they could no more
explain than they could resist. Indeed, there is good reason to believe,
as Dr. Dale has pointed out,[14] that the full discovery of Christ's
Divinity only came to the apostles after His Resurrection from the dead.
At first, and for long, Christ was content to leave them with their
poor, imperfect thoughts. He never sought to carry their reason by
storm; rather He set Himself to win them--mind, heart, and will--by slow
siege. He lived before them and with them, saying little directly about
Himself, and yet always revealing Himself, day by day training them,
often perhaps unconsciously to themselves, "to trust Him with the sort
of trust which can be legitimately given to God onl