g moral excellence the individual and the
race are thus moving toward an ideal already manifested in history.
The most effective taunt that can be levelled at inconsistent
Christians is that they are unlike their Master. Criticisms of the
character of Jesus are now few in number, and usually take the form of
declaring that it is impracticable or impossible, not that it is
undesirable or imperfect. Some, no doubt, would maintain that perhaps
the real Jesus did not answer to the ideal which Christians have formed
of Him, but that is another question. Here we are now face to face
with the unescapable fact that the greatest moral and religious force
in the world is embodied in the name of Jesus, and this by general
consent.

+The Jesus of traditional theology.+--But what has traditional
Christian theology to say about Jesus? Here we enter a region in which
the ordinary man of the world does not live and is never likely to
live, but we cannot afford to ignore it. According to the received
theology, Jesus was and is God and man in a sense in which no one else
ever has been or ever will be. As the shorter catechism has it,
following the language of the ancient creeds, "There are three persons
in one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory," and Jesus
is the second of the three. This kind of statement cannot but be
confusing to the ordinary mind of to-day if only because the word
"person" does not mean to us quite the same thing that it meant to the
framers of the ancient creeds. Strange as it may seem to some of my
readers, I believe what the creeds say about the person of Jesus, but I
believe it in a way that puts no gulf between Him and the rest of the
human race. This, I trust, will become clearer as we proceed; it seems
to me to be implied in any real belief concerning the immanence of God.
I think even the Athanasian creed is a magnificent piece of work if
only the churches would consent to understand it in terms of the oldest
theology of all! But, according to conventional theology, the second
person in the Trinity, who was coequal and coeternal with God the
Father, laid aside His glory, became incarnate for our salvation, was
born of a virgin, lived a brief suffering life, wrought many miracles,
died a shameful death, rose again from the tomb on the second morning
after He had been laid in it, and ascended into heaven in full view of
His wondering disciples. In fulfilment of a promise made by Him