The chief conviction that Jesus had about Himself was that _in and through and by Him the Kingdom of God was coming_: this it was that constituted Him THE CHRIST. His self-consciousness is the most marvellous phenomenon within the compass of history; there is nothing else comparable with it. The primary element in it seems to have been the knowledge that He was the true man, man as God wishes Him to be, faultless both morally and religiously.[218] Closely connected with this is another element, quite as unparalleled in human experience, a feeling of close kinship to all men, a consciousness of solidarity with the whole race and of personal connection and sympathy with every individual.[219] These two elements of His nature—His perfection as man, and His relationship to the race as a whole—He summed up in the phrase which He used so often to describe Himself, THE SON OF MAN.[220] Correspondent to this double relationship to man stands a double relationship to God: first, He stands in the closest personal kinship to God—the Son with the Father—; so that He alone can reveal God, and God alone can reveal Him;[221] and secondly, He is God’s representative to the human race.[222] This dual relation to God He expressed by calling Himself THE SON OF GOD.[223] The life of a being of this order, standing in great, pregnant relations to God on the one hand and to the human family on the other, would necessarily be of transcendent significance. So we find that He regarded His own words and acts and all the great experiences of His life as of supreme importance in the history of the world:[224] His coming opens a new era;[225] His public life is a wedding feast in the otherwise grey experience of men;[226] His teaching is the final revelation of God;[227] His acts are glimpses of the divine activity;[228] His death, which to the casual observer is but a coarse judicial murder, is the solemn sacrifice that ratifies the establishment of the new relationship between God and man.[229] Since such were the chief convictions Jesus held about Himself and His mission, _authority_ was naturally the chief note of His teaching. His hearers marked that characteristic at the very outset;[230] and a modern student cannot fail to be impressed with it as he reads the Gospels. He states quite frankly that He has come to fulfil the law and the prophets;[231] He sets up His own “I say unto you” not only against the Jewish traditions,[232] but against the definite provisions of the Mosaic law;[233] and over and over again He demands from men such love, faith, submission, obedience, as can be rightly given only to a Divine Master.[234]