"What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?"

— Matt. 22:41.

W. W. Fereday.

It is a sorrowful fact that in these days everything is being called in question. Even the most important truths of Christianity are being assailed, and as a result the minds of many true children of God are being sadly shaken. Many who unfeignedly love our Lord Jesus Christ, who truly desire to do His will, and to hold nothing but the truth, are in perplexity at the present time because of theories that are being circulated around them. I trust we may be enabled to help one another's souls during this Conference, so that we may go hence more firmly established in all "those things which are most surely believed amongst us."

There was a time when the attacks upon the truths of Christianity came from those without, which was no matter of surprise to Christians. Persons who make no religious profession cannot be expected to have any sympathy with the things that are very dear to us. But in these last days Satan has changed his tactics, and his most serious assaults upon the truth are now being made, not by the avowed enemies of Christ, but by those who profess to be the friends of Christ. The most dangerous antagonists of the truth of God to-day are some of the reverend critics.

A few years ago these opponents of God's truth contented themselves with attacking the Book. They raised the most serious questions in regard to some of the things contained therein. Thus, for those who believed them, Moses did not write Deuteronomy and many other parts of the Pentateuch; Isaiah was not the writer of the last twenty-seven chapters of his prophecy; and Jonah never existed. It was feared then by those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ that the time would come when they would push their attacks still further, and assail the holy person of our Lord. For in their statements concerning the Book, they frequently put themselves in direct opposition to Christ Himself. It is certain that He more than once attributed to Moses the very portions of Scripture which they say he never wrote at all; and in regard to Jonah, He most solemnly affirmed him to be a historical personage, and that he was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, even as the Old Testament records.

It was inevitable that sooner or later the critics should assail the Lord Himself, in order to make their own position consistent in the eyes of the public. Thus these unholy traffickers are now speaking of Him as if He were just an ignorant country Jew! If He said Moses wrote Deuteronomy, it was because He did not know better, the modern critics being in a much more advantageous position to pronounce upon such subjects than He! They have invented a doctrine called the Kenosis (a word borrowed from the Greek of Phil. 2:7), by which they mean that our Lord Jesus in becoming a man became limited in knowledge, knowing no more than was generally known in His day, and that therefore His utterances upon some subjects cannot be regarded as authoritative.

It behoves us to look into these things seriously, that our souls may be established in what God has written in His Word. In the passage of Scripture before us, we have the Lord Jesus submitting a test question to the people standing about Him. It happened at the close of a day of questioning. First the Pharisees came to Him raising a query about the tribute money. Then the Sadducees stepped forward and propounded their difficulty about the resurrection of the dead. They were followed by a lawyer, whom the Lord silenced as the others. Then He turned upon them and said (to the Pharisees especially): "What think ye of the Christ? Whose Son is He?" Everything depended on their answer to that question. If they had believed the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Him, and had replied that He was Son of God, though born of the line of David and Abraham, but one course would have been open to them — to fall at His feet in worship, owning Him God manifested in flesh, the true hope of Israel. The crown and the kingdom would then have been His, instead of the cross and the grave.

The test question for that day is the test question for this day also. Everything depends upon the answer that our souls give to it. The Word of God furnishes us with the answer, and every heart that values the Word and bows to its authority is satisfied with what God has said therein.