One of the things I am most enjoying about my research on PT Forsyth is mining the pages that he himself mined, tasting the words that he himself tasted, and chewing on some of the thoughts that gave rise to his own. Of late, I’ve been reading Alexander Bruce’s book, The Humiliation of Christ in its Physical, Ethical and Official Aspects. Along with Dorner and Gore, Bruce had a significant impact in the shaping of Forsyth’s own christology, not least his kenoticism.

Here’s a few words from Bruce to chew on:

‘… if descent into the legal standing of a sinner were at all possible, Christ would gladly make the descent. It was His mind, His bent, His mood, if I may so speak, to go down till He had reached the utmost limits of possibility.’ – Alexander B. Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ In its Physical, Ethical and Official Aspects (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1895), 317.

– [McLeod Campbell] speaks the truth, though it may be in an exaggerated form; for, without a doubt, it was the instinctive impulse of the Redeemer to impute to Himself the world’s sin, and in the light of such imputation, to regard the evils of His earthly lot as a personal participation in the curse pronounced on man for sin. It was a satisfaction to His heart to feel that, in being born into a family whose royal lineage and mean condition, combined, bore expressive witness to the misery that had overtaken Israel for her sins, in being subjected to the necessity of earning His bread by the sweat of His brow, in being exposed to the assaults of Satan, in having to endure the contradiction of sinners, in being nailed to the cross, He was indeed made partaker of our curse in this respect, too, our Brother, and like unto His brethren’. pp. 318-9.

I’m heading off tomorrow for a week up in the northern Highlands and to Orkney so it will be a post- and blog-free week. It is mostly the retracing of a trip that I made many years ago on my own and am now looking forward to taking my family. I’ve promised them that I’ll only fish for a day … or two. I’m taking three books: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Tommy and Me by Ben Stein, and True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey – in the hope that I may get at least half of one of them read