v] Some Implications of the Incarnation 171 



cost. We must analyse our difficulty and try to get it 

 clearly formulated, before we can attempt to solve it. 

 For in truth it is generally present to our minds in a 

 very vague form. 



We will begin with the problem of the historic Christ. 

 The first point that arises is clearly this: Why should 

 Christ have come at that time and no other, in that 

 nation and no other? It is all very well to say that the 

 Jewish nation was in some sense prepared for the coming 

 of the Messiah; that adds to the difficulty. How do we 

 know that Jesus was not hailed as the Christ for that 

 very reason? The fact that people were on the look out 

 for some such manifestation only weakens the Christian 

 position, for they would be sure to read miraculous 

 power into the doings of some wonderful man who 

 happened to be born at that time. Now this sort of 

 argument, though it lies behind a great deal of our 

 questioning, will not do at all. It is hopelessly muddle- 

 headed; and we must above all think clearly. In the 

 first place it simply throws overboard all our previous 

 abstract thinking and starts afresh, and very badly. 

 Either we were right or we were wrong in thinking that 

 we had reasoned to the need of a coming of God in 

 human form. If we were right, the fact that He was 

 vaguely expected in the land in which He came, the 

 fact that many other lands believed in similar comings 

 without associating them with definite historical hap- 

 penings to a definite, historical person, have nothing to 

 do with us. If we were right in our abstract argument, 

 there is no earthly reason why other people of other 

 times and nations should not have argued in the same 

 sort of way, though doubtless in a very inferior manner, 

 for we are unquestionably the people and wisdom was 

 at least born with us even if she will not die with us ! 

 If they did argue in the same sort of way, there is every 

 reason that they should have tacked their imaginings 



