146 



REV J. O. F. MURRAY, D.D., ON 



Peace and of the glory of the Cross of shame. That faith is still 

 after nineteen centuries, m spite of tremendous upheavals in the 

 social and political condition of the world, and in spite of the 

 inconceivable extension of the horizon of human thought, the 

 spring of the deepest and most inwardly transforming experience 

 in the lives of countless myriads of those who are called by His 

 Xame, so that He is at tliis moment the spiritual power centre of 

 the whole life of the Church and through the Church of the 

 world : not only because He has given us an assurance of personal 

 immortality by " bringing life and incorruption to light by the 

 Gospel,'' but by exerting an immediate, personal, redeeming and 

 transforming influence on those who believe in Him, which 

 carries with it a moral evidence in heart and conscience, w^hich 

 P. T. Forsyth''' rightly maintains goes deeper than any merely 

 logical demonstration. 



At this point an objection is sure to rise in many minds who 

 are willing enough to go the whole way with me so far. Surely, 

 they will say : " The root of the matter is just here. You cannot 

 compare in intrinsic importance acceptance of the fact of the 

 Empty Tomb with realisation ot the present li\4ng power of 

 Christ. Why worry us and endanger such faith as we have with 

 the consideration of what is after all only a physical detail ? Can 

 we not with Harnack accept ' the Easter Faith ' that Christ is 

 risen, while we throw over, or suspend judgment on, ' the Easter 

 Message ' of the Empty Tomb ? \N'e believe whole-heartedly that 

 Jesus conquered death. We do not know, and to tell the truth we 

 do not care, what became of His Body. We have the kernel of 

 the truth : the narrative, which has served as a protective husk 

 to it in the past, has done its work, and may cheerfully he con- 

 signed to oblivion." 



This attitude is a not-unnatural reaction to an attempt to press 

 the evidence of '* miracles " farther than it will go, and to treat 

 this, the Di"sanest of signs, as if it had a power in itself to 

 coerce assent. No power from without can compel conviction. 

 Even the Son of God Himself, as Symeon warns His Blessed 

 Mother, must be to the end " an ambiguous sign." The Di\dne 

 element, the Hand of God, in a " miracle " can never, any 

 more than the inner meaning of a Parable, be perceived by those 

 that are without. 



At the same time, I do not think that it is only due to my 

 Scotch pertinacity that I find it impossible to acquiesce in this 

 position. The kernel and husk metaphor is attractive, but I am 

 not convinced that it really applies to the relation between one 

 rirt of the evidence for our Lord's Eesurrection and the rest. 

 It was natural piety, no doubt, which made the faithful women 



*The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 200. 



