208 Jesus, Prophei ofIslam
- Jesus expressly speaks of a God other than himself.
• He accepts his God to be above or over himself.• He asks for perfection since he lacks those super
eminent and infini te perfections which belong only
to God, the Supreme Being.Emlyn felt that these three points had to be elaborated on in a way
which would be understood by the general public. He decried the
practice of those who wrote about the Scriptures in a manner unin
telligible to the people and yet who expected them to believe in the
dogma their writings described. Emlyn expanded these three points
thus:
Firstly, Jesus speaks of another God distinct from him
self. Several times we find him saying, 'My God' of an
other: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?'
(Matthew27: 46); '1 amreturningto my Father andyour
Father, to my God and your God.' (John 20: 17). Surely,
he intended notsaying, 'MySelf, My Self,whyhast thou
forsaken me?' This God was distinct from himself, as
he declares in other places, in John 8: 42, where ilis to be
noted that he does not distinguish himself from Him as
the Father, but as God, and therefore, in all just construc
tion, he cannot be supposed to be the selfsame God, From
whom he distinguished himself '"
Secandly, Jesus owns, not only another than himself
to be God, but also that he is above or over himself,
which is plainly intimated also by hisApostles. He hirn
selfloudlyproclaimshis subjection to the Fatherin many
instances. In general, he declares his Father to be greater
than himself. He says he came not to do anything on his
own, but only in his Father's name and authority. He
soughtnotbis own, butGod's Glory; normadebisown
will, but God's his ruIe. In such a posture of subjection
he came down hom heaven into this earth. Again he
owns bis dependence upon God, even for those tbings,
which it is pretended belong to him, as God, viz., the
power of working miracles, of raising the dead, of ex
ecuting universal judgement: all of wbich ne says, 'of
my own self 1 can do nothing.' (John 5: 30).
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