race. Finally, the self-testimony of Jesus summoned them to ponder
his relation to God the Father, with the presuppositions of that
relation, and to give it expression in intelligible statements.
Speculation had already begun on these four points in the Apostolic age,
and had resulted in very different utterances as to the Person and
dignity of Jesus (Sec. 4).[79]

3. Since Jesus had appeared and was believed on as the Messiah promised
by the Prophets, the aim and contents of his mission seemed already to
be therewith stated with sufficient clearness. Further, as the work of
Christ was not yet completed, the view of those contemplating it was,
above all, turned to the future. But in virtue of express words of
Jesus, and in the consciousness of having received the Spirit of God,
one was already certain of the forgiveness of sin dispensed by God, of
righteousness before him, of the full knowledge of the Divine will, and
of the call to the future Kingdom as a present possession. In the
procuring of these blessings not a few perceived with certainty the
results of the first advent of Messiah, that is, his work. This work
might be seen in the whole activity of Christ. But as the forgiveness of
sins might be conceived as _the_ blessing of salvation which included
with certainty every other blessing, as Jesus had put his death in
express relation with this blessing, and as the fact of this death so
mysterious and offensive required a special explanation, there appeared
in the foreground from the very beginning the confession, in 1 Cor. XV.
3: [Greek: paredoxa humin en protois, ho kai parelabon, hoti christos
apethanen huper ton hamartion hemon.] "I delivered unto you first of all
that which I also received, that _Christ died for our sins_." Not only
Paul, for whom, in virtue of his special reflections and experiences,
the cross of Christ had become the central point of all knowledge, but
also the majority of believers, must have regarded the preaching of the
death of the Lord as an essential article in the preaching of
Christ[80], seeing that, as a rule, they placed it somehow under the
aspect of a sacrifice offered to God. Still, there were very different
conceptions of the value of the death as a means of procuring salvation,
and there may have been many who were satisfied with basing its
necessity on the fact that it had been predicted, ([Greek: apethanen
kata tas graphas]: "he died for our sins _according to the
scripture