and as we are dependent upon human emblems for the conceptions we form of heavenly things, we see through a glass darkly.  But though we cannot fully understand the sense in which our Lord is the Son of God, we yet believe that He is so in a manner analogous to that in which we are our fathers’ sons—­possessing the same nature as His Father, and having that nature communicated to Him as the only-begotten Son.  God has other sons.  Angels are termed sons of God.  Men are also His offspring, and believers are now the sons of God; but Jesus is God’s son in a higher, special, and perfect sense.

That Jesus claimed to be in this sense the Son of God is clear from many incidents in His history.  It was ostensibly on the ground that He declared Himself to be “equal with God” that He was arrested and condemned by the Jewish rulers.  The high priest put the question to Him directly and solemnly, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.”  The reply was distinct and emphatic.  “Jesus said, I am:  Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven."[056] There is no resisting the meaning which these words convey.  The Sonship they assert is very different from that which is implied when a mere man who fears God and keeps His commandments is said to be a son of God.  It was a claim to the possession of Divine personality and power, and was so understood by His accusers.  When Caiaphas heard the reply he accepted it in its full significance, tearing his clothes and exclaiming, “He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.  What think ye?  They answered and said, He is guilty of death."[057]

His saying that He was the Son of God was the “blasphemy” for which He was condemned.  The horror, real or affected, and the rent robes of the high priest, the verdict of the court, and the contemptuous treatment to which Jesus was afterwards subjected, leave no room for doubting that He declared Himself to be the Son of God, having at His disposal the powers of heaven and earth.

SECTION 5—­OUR LORD

The last title of the Second Person is expressive of His dominion.  The name “Lord” is the translation of a Greek word, which signifies ruling or governing.  Jesus Christ is not only a Lord, He rules by authority and in a sense peculiar to Himself, so that He is commonly spoken of in the New Testament as “the Lord”:  “Come, see the place where the Lord lay";[058] “They have taken the Lord out of the sepulchre";[059] “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.”  In the time of Christ the title “Lord” had for Jews and Jewish Christians a special personal meaning.  “The Lord” was in the Septuagint, as it is still in the Authorised English version of the Old Testament, the translation of “Jehovah."[060] When, therefore, the Apostles