Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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writers of the New Testament announced "certain historic
events of final and absolute significance, the mighty
acts in which God has visited and redeemed His people."
-i 'God with us' changes the course of individual
human lives and all human history.
Stewart's theology requires equally the historic
Jesus and the contemporary Christ.
On the one hand, Stewart believed that historic
facts are essential to salvation. Truths alone cannot
help men. Not abstract truths, but the space/time events
of Jesus' earthly existence ("unique, unrepeatable,
absolute, final") enable salvation. "History is
admittedly not the final criterion of Gospel truth. But
neither is there any Gospel truth in isolation from
history."'
On the other hand, Stewart felt that history
continually approaches its fulfillment in the present, as
persons acknowledge and appropriate the power in the
Christ events. Man's basic need? "A rediscovery of
Christianity as a vital relationship to a living
Christ." 10 Preaching must proclaim both the 'Jesus of
history' and the 'Christ of faith'.
Though he wrote a much—used book entitled The Life
and Teaching of Jesus Christ, the prior events of Jesus'
life pale in importance, for Stewart, before the
climactic death and resurrection.
For Stewart, the death of Jesus on the cross ("the
central truth of the New Testament"") possessed