and as unexpected as it has ever been to theology. Exactly fifty years
ago Mr. Darwin wrote in dismay to Mr. Hooker that the old theory of
_specific creation_—that God made all species apart, and introduced them
into the world one by one—was melting away before his eyes. He unburdened
the thought, as he says in his letter, almost as if he were confessing
a murder. But _so entirely has the world bowed to the weight of facts
before which_ even Darwin trembled, that one of the last books on
Darwinism by so religious a mind as that of Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace,
contains in its opening chapter these words: ‘The whole scientific and
literary world, _even the whole educated public, accepts as a matter
of common knowledge the origin of the species from the other allied_
species, by the ordinary process of natural birth. _The idea of special
creation, or any other exceptional mode of production, is absolutely
extinct._’”
It would be well if each could read the words of Drummond for himself;
but in brief he says: “It is needless at this time of day to point out
the surpassing grandeur of the new conception [evolution]. How it has
filled the Christian imagination and kindled to enthusiasm the soberest
scientific minds from Darwin downward is known to everyone. For that
_splendid hypothesis we can not be too grateful to science_; and that
theology can only enrich itself which gives it even temporary place in
its doctrine of creation.”
How strange that God failed to make known this stupendous truth (?)
through his Word, and left it for science in the hands of Plato’s
descendants to figure out! “What it needed,” says Drummond, “was a
credible presentation, in view especially of astronomy, geology,
paleontology, and biology. These, as we have said, had made the former
theory simply untenable. _And science has supplied theology with a theory
which the intellect can accept._” Faith has been laid aside. The human
intellect has been exalted. Paganism has cast out Christianity, and our
boys and girls now study the nebular hypothesis, explanatory of the
creation of the worlds, in their astronomy and geography; they dwell upon
the eons of ages consumed in the formation of the geologic strata of the
earth; they study the fossils of the ages past, and from them describe
the evolution of man from a polyp.
[Sidenote: Schools have greatest influence]
Of what use is the preaching of the gospel on one day of the week, while
six days out of seven paganism guides the intellect? Why sit dreaming of
heaven, or spend money to proselyte, while pagan education leads your own
children by the hand, and weaves about their mind a network of theories
which blinds their eyes to spiritual truths? There is weight in the words
of President Harper, of Chicago University, who says: “It is difficult
to prophesy what the result of our present method of educating the youth
will be in fifty years. We are training the mind in our public schools,
but the moral side of the child’s nature is almost entirely neglected.
The Roman Catholic Church insists on remedying this manifest evil, but
our Protestant churches seem to ignore it completely. They expect the
Sunday-school to make good what our public schools leave undone, and the
consequence is that we overlook a danger as real and as great as any we
have had to face.”
VIII
CHRIST THE EDUCATOR OF EDUCATORS
I. THE CHRIST LIFE
To Israel as a nation had been intrusted the sacred gift of teaching; but
the power had departed from this people because they had mingled their
educational ideas with the heathen, and had so far forgotten the commands
of Jehovah that they were sending their children to heathen teachers,
inviting into their midst the prophets of Baal.[45] That nation whose
prophets had more than once warned the kings of the earth of impending
danger, heard no longer the voice of God. For nearly four hundred years
no prophet had arisen in Israel. “Prophecy had become so completely
extinct—the Spirit had so utterly departed from Israel—that it was
apparently assumed by many that a new prophet was an impossibility.” Had
the God who brought their fathers out of Egypt, who had driven out the
nations before their face,—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,—had He
forsaken His people? Often the question was asked, as the family circle
formed around the table. Almost with bated breath mothers awaited the
birth of a child, hoping it might be the chosen of God, but still no
prophet came.
[Sidenote: Israel prior to birth of Christ]
The priests in Israel went on in their formal round of duties; yearly
the nation assembled at Jerusalem for the annual feasts. Thousands of
victims were slain, and the blood ran freely from the altar; but there
was no answering fire, no glow of the Shekinah. Jewish children sat day
after day at the feet of masters in Israel, listening to the repetition
of tradition and the words of the Talmud; but the life had departed from
the instruction, and there was no response in the souls of men. Heaven
waited anxiously for the opening of some soul to the inflow of God’s
Spirit, but the avenues through which it should have come were closed.
Teachers who should have been “under the full control of the Spirit,”
knew not what it was to hear the voice of God; and children, fed only
with physical and mental food, grew to manhood with shriveled spiritual
natures, to become in turn the teachers of the next generation. As
Israel’s governmental prosperity was due to her educational system, as
her land produced abundantly when the children were properly taught, and
as the nations round them bowed in respect to the chosen of God so long
as they adhered to the system of education once offered, it is no wonder
that the year 5 B.C., following centuries of departure from these truths,
found Palestine in the iron grasp of Rome, and its people scarce able to
pay the necessary tribute. Heaven’s eye saw this and more.
[Sidenote: John the Baptist]
Among the priests who ministered in the temple was one who looked for a
deliverer, and to him the angel Gabriel came with the words: “Thy prayer
is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt
call his name John.” Although this man had touched the chord on which
angels sang, and was enabled to feel the pulse-beat of the Eternal,
the angel’s words startled him, and he believed them not. And that the
sounds of earth might for a time be shut out, and Zacharias be enabled to
listen only to the voice of God, the angel laid his hand upon him, and he
remained speechless until the day of the fulfillment of Gabriel’s words.
[Sidenote: The education of the forerunner]
A prophet was born who was to turn the hearts of Israel to their God. He
came in the spirit and power of Elias, preaching repentance. His life was
one of loneliness and poverty. His time was spent away from the cities
and multitudes; for Jerusalem, the appointed leader of nations, no longer
offered an education fitted for her own prophets. And so God trained
John. Of those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist.
[Sidenote: Jesus of Nazareth]
Once more heaven and earth were linked. How small the chain! Only, as it
were, the size of a thread, and the connecting link was the heart of a
woman! But in the town of Nazareth, the lowly and the despised, lived a
young woman, betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter of Galilee. Looking into
the future, little more than dreaming of life and its hopes, she lifted
her eyes, and beheld an angel. The soul longing to be in tune with
God, brings angelic hosts to earth. If that yearning be but a mother’s
longing, heaven bows a listening ear; the throb is felt throughout
creation. So close is God to man! The words, “Hail, highly favored, the
Lord is with thee,” startled Mary, for she had not expected such a quick
response. She was troubled, but the angel said, “Fear not, Mary.” “The
power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy
thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the SON OF GOD.” “The
fullness of time had come.” God, having waited years for Israel to return
to Him, now accomplished the master stroke of the Godhead. Creation
wondered.
The Spirit overshadowed Mary; it thrilled her nerves, and touched to
life the germ of a new being. To humanity was given the power to form a
body for the indwelling of the God of heaven. “A body hast Thou prepared
Me.” The treasure was in an earthen vessel, that the more glory might
abound to God. “Christ set up His tabernacle in the midst of our human
encampment. He pitched His tent by the side of the tents of men, that He
might dwell among us, and make us familiar with His divine character and
life.”[46]
[Sidenote: Early Education of Christ]
The early years of the Christ child found Him sitting _at His mother’s
knee_. From her lips and from the _scrolls of the prophets_, He learned
of heavenly things! _Nature_ was His unwearied teacher; from her He
gathered stores of scientific knowledge. He studied the life of plants
and animals, and the life of man. “The parables by which, during His
ministry, He loved to teach His lessons of truth, show how open His
spirit was to the influences of nature, and how He had gathered the
spiritual teaching from the surroundings of His daily life.” “As the
hart panteth after the waterbrooks,” so panted His soul for spiritual
intercourse with the Father; and that longing which led Him to listen
attentively for the voice of God in nature, developed the highest powers
of His mind.
[Sidenote: The spiritual first in Christ’s education]
His was not a sudden growth, but gradual, as with other children; and
while developing a strong physical body, “the child grew, and waxed
strong in spirit, filled with wisdom.” The secret of the difference
between Jesus and His companions is revealed in this verse. Most children
develop mentally and physically, especially during their first twelve
years; but the spiritual nature of Christ was the leading one and in His
threefold nature the mental and physical were always well balanced by
the spiritual. As Hinsdale says: “The divine mind, the human heart, and
nature are closely united” in Him. _He did not seek instruction in the
rabbinical schools, for they had lost the spirit which to him was life._
[Sidenote: Christ recognized his life work]
At an early age, probably not later than twelve, He recognized His life
work, and henceforth every energy was bent in one direction. His lot was
to reveal the divinity of God, to show the possibilities of the God-man,
to prove to the world that it is possible for God and man to unite and
for the spiritual nature to rule; and proving this, to show that the
heavenly instituted system of education was not a failure, although at
that time it was in disrepute.
[Sidenote: Christ chose the spiritual plane]
The age of twelve was a critical period in the life of a Jewish child,
for it was then that the physical nature was approaching maturity. The
next few years meant much to the youth, for he then had it within his
power to choose for life the plane upon which he expected to live. If
physical strength and the gratification of the natural senses are the
height of ambition, by yielding to temptations of this nature at about
this age the life-habits are fixed. Perhaps in other countries the
development is somewhat slower, owing to climatic influences, but from
twelve to sixteen every youth struggles against tendencies and ambitions
which a few years later cease to be temptations. It was so with Christ;
but as He stood watching the paschal services at the time of His first
visit to the temple, “day by day He saw their meaning more clearly. Every
act seemed to be bound up with His own life. New impulses were awakening
within Him.” For years, that service, established to appeal to the
spiritual nature, had degenerated into the mere slaying of beasts. For
the first time a _soul_ was touched, and heavenly impulses were awakened.
It was then that the temptation to pass a life in physical ease was met
and overcome. Heaven seemed to open to the child’s eyes, and He heard the
call of God to a life with Him. He sought to be alone, and in the silence
His heart caught the vibrations of heavenly beings, and the grosser
physical nature was abandoned forever.
[Sidenote: Christ and the rabbis]
The resolve formed, a new light and power seemed to take possession of
His mind, and entering the school conducted in the temple, He listened
eagerly to hear from the lips of the rabbis some spiritual lesson. “The
doctors turned upon Him with questions, and they were amazed at His
answers.” He manifested such deep piety, and His questions opened to the
minds of His listeners such depths of truth, that wonder filled their
minds. A harp swept by heavenly zephyrs was before them, and the music
fell on untrained ears. _The first work of the heaven-sent teacher had
begun._ “Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?” He
asked, as Joseph and Mary met Him at the temple gate. They saw Him with
physical eyes, and thought Him all their own; but the eye of the child
had pierced the cloud which hung between heaven and earth.
[Sidenote: Manual training in Christ’s life]
From Jerusalem He returned with His parents, and aided them in their life
of toil. “He hid in His own heart the mystery of His mission, waiting
submissively for the appointed time for Him to enter upon His work.”
Those eighteen years were years of toil and study. Each day drew Him
nearer to the time when a voice from heaven should proclaim Him a divine
teacher. He was not impatient, but as a carpenter did thorough work; as a
son, He was obedient; and as a subject, He was law-abiding.
[Sidenote: The age of strongest spirituality]
He never lost sight of the fact that He had a mission, and that it took
a spiritual life to fulfill that mission. He was tempted in all points,
and suffered in the temptation; but each resistance was a round added
in the ladder He was building toward heaven. There was a law in Israel
calling the priests to their sacred office at the age of thirty. This
statute was based upon a law of human nature. The allotted time of man’s
life is divided into two portions. The first forty years is a time of
growth, the last thirty a period of decline. Of the first half we have
the age of physical development, then a time when the intellectual powers
are in the ascendency, and from twenty-five to thirty or thirty-five is
the time of special development in the spiritual nature. Every man has
three chances in life; and the choice made, whether for worldly honor,
for intellectual powers, or a life of faith, _depends wholly upon the
object constantly kept before the child by its educators_. Had Christ
been under the influence of the teachers of His day, the probability
is that He would have chosen to live either on the physical or the
intellectual plane, for this was the choice made by all the pupils of
those schools, but His early training by Mary, who, as a mother, had
yielded herself as the “handmaid of the Lord,” and His close communion
with God through the works of nature, guided Him into right channels, and
at the auspicious moment He voluntarily offered Himself to His Father to
fulfill the mission which it lay in His power to reject. Of His later
struggles the record is silent. There came a period, however, when He
might have posed as an intellectual leader, but His earlier decision led
Him to pass this temptation unsullied. To prove this true, we need only
to study the nature of the temptations presented in the wilderness. That
He remained true to His mission is due to early training. This will not
be controverted, for it is a divine law seen everywhere in nature.[47]
II. THE MINISTRY OF THE GOD-MAN.
[Sidenote: Jesus as a teacher]
One of the gifts of the Spirit is that of teaching, and Christ was a
born teacher. Acquired ability amounts to but little where the spirit
of teaching is wanting. Christ was a teacher both by virtue of His
nationality, since all Jews were called to be teachers, and also by
direct appointment; for He had to accomplish in His own life what the
nation had refused to accomplish. He carried with Him no credentials, no
statement of scholarship signed by the doctors of Israel, for none of
these schools had known Him as a pupil; yet Nicodemus, a master teacher
in Jerusalem, after listening to His words, sought Him in the quiet
evening hours, and addressed Him as _Rabbi_,—TEACHER. In the course of
the conversation this learned man said, “We know that thou art a divine
teacher, for no man can do as Thou except God be with him.” It was as a
teacher, and more, as a divine teacher, that He was known from the very
beginning of His ministry. His ministry was a ministry of _teaching_. He
was known as a teacher, not so much by the words He spoke as by the _life
He lived_, and the works He did.
[Sidenote: As a teacher, success depended upon the life]
The words of Bushnell are true: “We can see for ourselves in the simple
directions and freedom of His teachings, that whatever He advances is
from Himself.” He was giving Himself, and that He had a self, a divine
self, to give is _due to the education of the child and youth_. God’s
image was perfect in Him, and when the time of ministry came, there
shone from Him what previous years had been developing in Him. THIS IS
THE OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. The same author further says: “He
is the high-priest ... of the divine nature, speaking as one that has
come out from God, and _has nothing to borrow from the world_. It is not
to be detected ... that the _human sphere in which He moved imparted
anything to Him_. His teachings are just as full of _divine nature_,
as Shakespeare’s of human.” What a commentary on the two systems of
education, the one choosing _inspiration_ as a basis; the other, the
product of the human brain!
[Sidenote: He taught as one having authority]
Bushnell continues: “In His teaching He does not speculate about God, as
a school professor, drawing out conclusions by a practice on words, and
deeming that the way of proof; He does not build up a frame of evidence
from below, by some constructive process, such as the philosophers
delight in; but He simply speaks of God and spiritual things as one
who has come out from Him, _to tell us what He knows_. And His simple
telling brings us the reality; proves it to us in its own sublime
self-evidence; awakens even the consciousness of it in our own bosom; so
that formal arguments or dialectic proofs _offend us by their coldness_,
and seem, in fact, to be only opaque substances set between us and the
light. Indeed, He makes even the world luminous by His words—fills it
with an immediate and new sense of God, which nothing has ever been able
to expel. The incense of the upper world is brought out in His garments,
and flows abroad, as perfume, on the poisoned air.” And no wonder, for
from a child He had breathed the atmosphere of heaven. _Every child
should have the same privilege._
[Sidenote: Principles of Christ’s education]
When the two teachers, Christ and Nicodemus, the representatives of two
systems of education, the divine and the worldly, met, Christ outlined to
his questioner the principles upon which His system was based:[48]—
1. Its primary object is to prepare its pupils for the kingdom of God, a
spiritual kingdom.
2. The first step is a spiritual birth; for “God is a Spirit: and they
that worship Him must worship in spirit.” “That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
3. This the natural man can not understand, for it is spiritually
discerned. As well might I try to explain it to you, Nicodemus, as to
explain the blowing of the winds; you can see the results, but the truth
can not be grasped by the senses. Do you pose as a teacher in Israel, and
know not these things? “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe
not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” I have but
begun to tell you of the plan of the Father. There are yet many things,
“but ye can not bear them now.”
4. The things I teach are as light in the darkness. “Every one that doeth
evil hateth the light, ... but he that doeth truth cometh to the light.”
It is thus that I distinguish true scholars from the false. When truth
is offered, some believe, and whosoever believes in the Son of man shall
have eternal life.
Nicodemus said: “How _can_ these things be?” He longed for proof, for
demonstration. “_Proof_ is indeed the method of science, including
theology; it has, no doubt, a function in religious teaching; but
_it is not the method of the highest form of religious teaching_. The
fundamental truths of religion are directly revealed to the human
consciousness, and are not argued out or logically established.... _The
greatest religious truths lie deeper than formal reasoning._ This is
the reason why the _greatest religious teachers have worked below the
proposition-and-proof level_; as said before, they have something of the
prophetic gift. It may be added that no preacher [or teacher] who works
mainly on this line will attract the most religious minds; he will not
attract even those who have the piety of the intellect, to say nothing of
the piety of the affections and the will. He may develop logical acumen,
critical ability, and controversial power, but he will prove unequal
to the generation of spirituality.... Such a minister will be sure to
lead his flock into the error that is now far too common,—of assigning a
disproportionate place in religious faith and life to the understanding,
to the partial exclusion of the heart.”[49]
[Sidenote: His pupils]
His actual work as a teacher is seen in His dealings, first, with the
apostles, His immediate followers, who were in training that they in
turn might become teachers; second, with the multitudes who thronged His
way; third, with the children who were brought to Him by mothers, and who
were taught by Him, that mothers and apostles might the better know how
to deal with youthful minds. Primarily, His was a training-school for
workers, and His pupils represented every phase of human disposition.
He chose humble fishermen, because their minds were unprejudiced, and
they had less to unlearn before accepting the truth. “He knew what was
in man.” That is, He had insight into the minds and hearts, and knew
just what was needed to awaken the soul-life of each student. This is a
necessary gift in the successful teacher. How much that is now taught
would be dispensed with if teachers could read the soul conditions
of pupils, and then feed them with only such food as would nourish.
_This, too, is Christian education._ Before the teacher can have such
an experience, however, he must have soul culture, and be in such close
touch with the fountain of truth that he can draw whatever is needed.
The well is deep, _and faith alone can bring the water of life to the
surface_.[50]
[Sidenote: His schoolroom the country.]
With His chosen apostles, Christ “_withdrew from the confusion of the
city to the quiet of the fields and hills_ as more in harmony with the
lessons of self-abnegation he desired to teach them.... Here, surrounded
by the works of his own creation, he could turn the thoughts of his
hearers _from the artificial to the natural_.” Those schools to-day which
are located in some quiet country place afford the best opportunities for
education.
[Sidenote: Text-books]
The books used seem to be two, and only two: _the writings of the
prophets_ and _the great book of nature_. Hinsdale says: “Scripture
furnishes the basis of His teaching.... It is impossible to say how
many distinct recognitions of Scripture are found in His teachings, but
the number and range are both large.... One of the most interesting of
these [methods] is his constant habit of expanding Scripture, or, as we
might say, of reading into it new meanings. He thus treats not merely
prophetic passages, but also dogmatic passages; moreover, His meanings
are sometimes new, not merely to the Jewish teachers, but also to the
authors of the passages themselves.”[51] This was because the teacher was
led by the Spirit of truth, which guides into all truth.
[Sidenote: His system emphasized the practical]