“The representation of Jesus as the Lamb of God taking away the sins
    of the world is the very basis of the Fourth Gospel.”

Again, in the same page:—­

    “He died for the sin of the world, and is the object of faith, by
    which alone forgiveness and justification before God can be
    secured.”

Again, with reference to His Intercession, we have not only the truth set forth in such expressions as “I will pray the Father,” but we have the actual exercise of the great act of priestly Intercession, as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of the Fourth Gospel.  If we look to words only (which the author of “Supernatural Religion” too often does), then, of course, we allow that the epithet “priest” is quite foreign not only to the Fourth Gospel, but to every other book of the New Testament, except the Epistle to the Hebrews; but if we look to the things implied in the idea of Priesthood, such as Mediation and Intercession, in fact Intervention between God and Man, then we find that the whole New Testament is pervaded with the idea, and it culminates in the Fourth Gospel.

The next assertion of the author of “Supernatural Religion” on the same passage betrays still more ignorance of the contents of St. John’s Gospel, and a far greater eagerness to fasten on a seeming omission of the letter, and to ignore a pervadence of the spirit.  He asserts:—­

    “It is scarcely necessary to point out that this representation of
    the Logos as Angel, is not only foreign to, but opposed to, the
    spirit of the Fourth Gospel.” (Vol. ii. p. 293)

Now just as in the former case we had to ask, “What is the characteristic of the priest?” so in order to answer this we have only to ask, “What is the characteristic of the angel?”

An angel is simply “one sent.”  Such is the meaning of the word both in the Old and New Testament.  The Hebrew word [Hebrew:  mlakh] is applied indifferently to a messenger sent by man (see Job i. 14; 1 Sam. xi. 3; 2 Sam. xi. 19-20), and to God’s messengers the Holy Angels, that is, the Holy Messengers, the Holy ones sent.  And similarly, in the New Testament, the word [Greek:  angelos] is applied to human messengers in Luke vii. 24, [Greek:  apelthonton de ton angelon Ioannou], also in Luke ix. 52, and James ii. 25.  That the characteristic of the angel is to be “sent” is implied in such common phrases as, “The Lord sent His Angel,” “I will send mine angel,” “Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister?” &c.

Now one of the characteristic expressions of the Fourth Gospel—­we might almost have said the characteristic expression—­respecting Jesus, is that He is “sent.”  To use the noun instead of the verb, He is God’s special messenger, His [Greek:  angelos], sent by Him to declare and to do His will:  but this does not imply that He has, or has assumed, the nature of an angel; just as the application of the same word [Greek:  angelos] to mere human messengers in no way implies that they have any other nature than human nature.  Just as men sent their fellow-men as their [Greek:  angeloi], so God sends One Who, according to Justin, fully partakes of His Nature, to be His [Greek:  angelos].