In the New Testament there is only one principle or standard of Christian knowledge, character and life—Jesus Christ Himself. All other norms of religious insight, belief and practice are superseded in Him, or if they continue to be valid, it is because they have been taken up into Him, amended, reenacted and completed. In this sense the New Testament on what is really its first page asserts: “No one has at any time seen God; the divine One, the only Son, who is on the Father's breast, has made known the mystery.” All eyes in the New Testament are turned, therefore, towards the Christ who as the Living Word stands above the written word, as Head of the Church stands above the Church, and as Lord of history stands above history. Written word and Church are there, and exist in a relation of mutuality or interdependence; both of them are in subordination to Him who is their informing principle of authority. But this general recognition that Christ is the norm of life, character and thought for His people hardly prepares us for the singular fulness and diversity of the schematic formulations by the aid of which, in the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament, the dependence of Christian life on Jesus is expressed and enforced. Some of these formulations are so sharply defined and featured that a brief reference may be made to them before we pass further on.