127. II. The Consciousness Of Christ In Suffering.

II. The Consciousness Of Christ In Suffering. In the conclusion of the previous section it was stated that the sufferings of Christ in common with our own were such in multiformity and intensity as to constitute a complete law of his sympathy with us. There is, however, a further question which vitally concerns the sufficiency of this law. It is the question of the consciousness of Christ in the sufferings which he endured. The doctrine of his personality is vitally concerned in this question.

1. Deeper than a Human Consciousness.—On the ground of the person of Christ, as revealed in the Scriptures and accepted in the faith of the Church, he suffered in a consciousness far deeper than a mere human consciousness. In a personal oneness there must be a unity of consciousness. With a distinct and purely human consciousness in Christ there must have been a distinct human person. The result would be either a Socinian or a Nestorian Christology. Christ must have been either a mere man or two persons, divine and human, in a merely spiritual communion. Each consequence is contrary to the accepted doctrine of the person of Christ, and subversive of all that is deep and evangelical in Christianity.

Yet even in the orthodox faith or with orthodox believers there is a tendency to the Nestorian view. While the theanthropic character of Christ, as determined by the union of the two natures in a oneness of personality, is accepted as a truth of doctrine, there is a halting at the consequent relation of his divine nature to the consciousness of his sufferings. In the thought of not a few his sufferings are restricted to a mere human consciousness. Such a limitation must mean a distinct human person in Christ, and consequently the sundering of Christ into two persons. This is openly contradictory to the accepted doctrine of his personal oneness in the union of the two natures.

2. Else, Only a Human Sympathy.—If the sufferings of Christ were limited to a mere human consciousness, his sympathy through a law of common suffering with us must be limited to a mere human ground and capacity. Sympathy through suffering must be in the same consciousness in which the suffering was endured. We cannot limit the suffering of Christ to a mere human consciousness and then carry it up into his divine consciousness as a law of sympathy therein. By such limitation neither the suffering nor the sympathy can have any place in the divine. And again the Christ is sundered into two persons, the one divine and the other human, while only the human can sympathize with us through a law of suffering.

3. An Utterly Insufficient Sympathy.—A mere human sympathy of Christ, though in the fullest capacity of the human, could not answer for its place in either the Scriptures or the deeper Christian thought and feeling. There was no deification of the human nature assumed in the divine incarnation. Its exaltation and glorification with the divine Son could not free it from the limitations of the finite. The false assumption of its distinct personal existence must concede it, even in that exaltation and glorification, the limitations of the human. It would follow that the sympathy of Christ through a law of common suffering with us must be subject to human limitations. Therefore his sympathy could not be sufficient for the many instances of suffering and need in the present life. There are two forms of limitation which should receive special notice.

Sympathy is conditioned by the measure of personal knowledge. It can reach no one which the knowledge does not reach; nor can it be more intense than the clearness of the mental apprehension. These facts impose narrow limits upon the capacity of human sympathy. If we determine for the human nature of Christ a distinct human personality, his knowledge must be subject to the limitations of the human. As his sufferings, if limited to a human consciousness, cannot be carried up into the divine consciousness as a law of sympathy therein, so the divine knowledge cannot be brought down into the human mind as the provision of a sympathy which may have the comprehensiveness of the divine. The sympathy of Christ which the Scriptures reveal as through a law of common suffering with us would thus be subject to the limitations of human knowledge. Hence, it could reach but few of the many that need its gracious ministries. Nor could it be intense and constant respecting any. Such is not the sympathy of Christ which the Scriptures reveal.

There is still another law of disability under such limitations. All sympathy through mere human suffering is subject to the laws of time and changing conditions. The trying experiences which lie far back in the years of even the present life give little power of present sympathy with others in like trials. The mother who buried her child twenty years ago cannot have through the memory of her own sorrow the same sympathy with a friend in a like bereavement as the mother who came but yesterday from the burial of her child. The more is all this true as the years subsequent to one’s sufferings may be full of new and happy experiences. The same laws must be operative in the future as in the present life. The deep nature of Moses was tenderly responsive to the afflictions of his people; and his sympathy was the deeper as he suffered with them. In the pathos of this sympathy he could pray that, if they might not be spared, he might perish with them (Exodus 32:32). Such a soul was St. Paul’s. With a like deep nature and sympathy he could wish himself accursed from Christ for the sake of his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh (Romans 9:3). Neither Moses nor Paul has lost the depth of his nature in the glory of his exaltation; but with the many centuries of blessedness which separate them from their earthly sorrows little power of sympathy through the memory of those sorrows can remain with them. Some personal facts of the present life we may ever carry with us in the full vigor of their reality; but they must be facts of personal conduct which concern ourselves, and cannot be such as mainly constitute the ground of our sympathy with others.

If we limit the sufferings of Christ to a human consciousness, and so determine for him a distinct human personality, there must be the same laws of disability in his sympathy. These consequences cannot be voided by any appeal to his divine nature; for by such limitation we place that nature infinitely above all consciousness of suffering; and therefore we cannot bring it down so as to invigorate the law of his sympathy and lift it above the limitations of all human sympathy. If the sympathy of Christ is subject to such limitations it must ever be a diminishing force, and in the blessedness and glory of his exaltation would already be quite exhausted of its efficiency.