Jews had learned an ardent patriotism, but it was linked, as to its
_alter ego_, with a burning hatred of their country's enemies, never
stronger in Palestine than when Jesus taught there. And this principle
of love to country and hostility to aliens came home, too, into private
life. It was an axiom that men should "love their neighbours and hate
their enemies." Never before were those words clearly uttered upon
earth, "I say unto you, love your enemies." Imperfectly, miserably ill
indeed, as they have been acted on, they have revolutionized human
thought. It was not only "Spare your enemies," not only "Forgive your
enemies," but "Love your enemies." Like everything that He taught,
it was to have its seat deep down in the heart. It was essential to
every Christian that he should from his _heart_ forgive everyone his
brother their trespasses. It has been objected to His teaching that it
undermined the principle of heroic virtue, absorbing active patriotism
in a dreamy philanthropy. But the objection is false. His teaching was
at the farthest possible distance from dreaminess or sickliness. The
benevolence He taught was, like His own, active and energetic, busying
itself, as everything practical must, first on those most easily and
most naturally within its reach, but then extending to every created
being, made by the same God, and loved by the common Father. There did,
indeed, arise a new kind of patriotism, to which I may, perhaps, allude
hereafter; but can anyone read our Lord's lamentations over Jerusalem,
or St. Paul's utterances of his heart's desire for Israel, his almost
wish that he himself might be lost if he could save them, and yet
maintain that patriotism in its truest essence was quenched either in
the heart of Jesus or in the feelings of His most devoted followers?
But whatever else may have been peculiar and exceptional in the
teaching of Christ, that which chiefly distinguishes Him from all
other teachers is this. Moral philosophers like Socrates, ever kept
themselves in the background. It was philosophy that was everything,
Socrates was but the humble tyro, feebly feeling after truth. Prophets
of every religion,--Moses, Zoroaster, Mohammed, all spoke the word
which God put into their mouths. He was all; and they were at the best
His honoured subjects and servants. But Jesus Christ, the meek, the
gentle, the humble, the unselfish, the self-denied, the self-devoted,
not only showed Himself as the Pattern of life, but even propounded
Himself as the Object of faith, hope, love, obedience, loyalty,
devotion, adoration, worship. It is impossible to deny this without
rending to pieces every Christian record. It is argued, I know, that
this was no part of Christ's original teaching, that it grew up after
His death among His devoted followers, who looked back upon Him as a
loved and lost friend and teacher, and who by degrees invested Him
with Divine attributes and paid Him Divine honours; and especially it
is thought that the writings of St. John, or rather writings in the
second century falsely ascribed to St. John, and the later epistles
attributed to St. Paul, fostered this exaggerated belief. I may well
leave the genuineness of these later writings to those who have so ably
and so amply dealt with them before me. All I wish to say now is, that
if St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles had never come down to us,
we should still be just where we are. This special teaching of Christ
by Himself is fully developed in every portion of the three synoptical
Gospels. They are interpenetrated by it from end to end. If it never
came from Christ, the writers of those Gospels have misconceived Him
altogether, and their record is mere fiction and falsehood. And so it
is of every document which we possess--history, letters, traditions,
anecdotes, apocalypses--they all turn the same way, they all speak the
same tongue. Nay; I have often thought that if we had only the three
synoptical Gospels left, though we should suffer terribly indeed by
losing the deep theology of St. John the Divine, we should still have
the clearest possible statements--though of the character sometimes
called undesigned, or more properly indirect and incidental--as to the
Godhead, Kingship, Priesthood of Christ; and that we should have none,
or at most but one or two of those passages which have been thought by
many to be inconsistent with the highest belief in our Lord's supreme,
co-equal, co-eternal Deity. It is in fact in St. John and in St. Paul
that we find the most developed form of the New Testament theology,
but on that very account the appearance, for appearance it is only, of
inconsistency and difficulty.[144]
Let us briefly recall our Lord's words in the first three Gospels.
Constantly He calls Himself _the Son of Man_, meaning--(can we
doubt?)--one who had no ordinary interest in mankind, in manhood, in
all humanity; constantly He confesses Himself, and is confessed to be,
the Son of God; constantly He claims to be King: He demands absolute
obedience, boundless love ("he that loveth father or mother more than
Him is not worthy of Him"); He forgives sins; He has authority over
the Sabbath; He baptizes with the Holy Ghost; He promulgates His own
law even where it seems to contradict Moses' law; He is at least
_represented_ (as I do not assume miracles I must say no more) as
with creative power, multiplying bread, restoring sight, calling the
dead to life, saying to the tempest, "Peace, be still;" He proclaims
Himself the Judge of all the earth, about to sit upon His throne,
with all nations, the dead, small and great, gathered before Him,
and the angels of God waiting to do His pleasure; He pronounces the
sentence, and it runs in words which indicate that the great act of
obedience was waiting on Himself in prison, in sickness, in need, and
in suffering, that the great sin was neglecting Him, Him as represented
by His servants. There is one other scene which seems to me even more
telling than all these. Each of the three Evangelists relate, St.
John alone omits to relate, the institution of the Last Supper. There
distinctly--whatever may be held by differing sects as to its meaning
and its blessing--there distinctly Jesus Christ presents Himself to
our faith as the Power which sustains all spiritual life; pointing to
Himself as the great Sacrifice, the anti-typical Paschal Lamb, and then
professing that His Body and Blood can feed and sustain the souls of
all disciples in all coming time. What is this but, first to proclaim
Himself the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world; and
then to attribute that sustaining, strengthening, life-giving power to
Himself which can be predicated of nothing short of God?
I therefore fearlessly assert that, if our Christian records be in
any way better than waste paper, if they be any records of Christ at
all, we cannot but learn from them that He presented Himself to His
followers, not as Prophet merely, not as Teacher only, but as their
Priest, their King, their God.
Now, observe, first, the perfect originality of this. No one ever
professed anything like it before. All the heathen fables about gods
coming down among men, all their belief or half belief that some men
were the offspring of deity, meant nothing like this. Their gods were
themselves but deified men or personified powers of nature. It was easy
to make mythic stories about their bodily appearance, or about their
earthly loves and their earthly progeny.
Or, to speak of something grander, though perhaps less poetical, the
great pantheistic religions gave ready room for the fancy that there
was a spark of deity in every sentient being, and that it might be
more and more developed into God. In them, indeed, God is but the
general principle of life and intelligence which runs throughout all
the universe; it is duller in one spot and brighter in another; here it
may almost go out in darkness, and there it may burst forth into the
light of heaven and of glory. But it is not a person; at the highest
it is an impersonal power. It may dwell therefore in the Bull Apis,
it may reside in the Lama of Thibet, it may grow to be the highest
intelligence in Buddha. In none of them is it really God. It is but
the embodiment and the kindling up of a spark of Divine Being, but
not a living, thinking, willing maker of the universe and ruler of
all things. But Jesus Christ, when He was upon earth, lived among the
only people on the earth who had a clear conception of one great and
personal God, so one and so personal as each separate man is one and
personal, man having been made in the express likeness of God. Jesus
Christ lived among a people who esteemed that one personal God so great
and so awful that they dared not even speak His name, the name by which
He had specially revealed Himself, for they thought that that name,
if human lips should utter it, would shake heaven and earth. Yet it
was this great, only, incommunicable, unutterable Being, whose Son He
called Himself, whose very essence He claimed for His own.
Let it not be said, that He came at a moment when Jewish hopes were all
centred on some heavenly Messenger to redeem and restore them, that He
only fell into their notions, took advantage of their expectations and
flattered their prejudices. They expected a Messiah, no doubt, with
much in him that was heavenly (if you will, Divine); they expected Him
to redeem their nation, to overthrow their enemies, to advance their
kingdom. But they never thought that their Messiah would claim to be
the Supreme JEHOVAH, they never thought that He was to redeem, not
their bodies, but their souls, by dying as a lamb sacrificed upon the
altar; they never thought that, instead of satisfying their patriotism
and elevating their nation, He would teach them to subordinate
patriotism to universal love of man, and that instead of extending the
earthly kingdom of Israel through the world, He would found a kingdom
which should be wholly moral and spiritual, and which would place
the Greek, the Roman and the Samaritan on the same footing with the
long-favoured children of Abraham. So far were they from any thoughts
like these, that it was because of all this that they crucified their
Christ.
And if all this were original in Jesus, it was as bold as it was
original. The humble, unostentatious, unselfish, Jewish peasant
declares Himself the One Eternal God. If it was assumption only, it
deserved the death which was its consequence.
But just let us consider it for a moment. Was it fanaticism? I have
already pointed to the calmness, self-possession, soberness of Christ.
No character in history exhibits these qualities so markedly. There
is not a symptom of restlessness, excitement, intemperance, of any
kind in one of His discourses. His eloquence--and no one can doubt His
eloquence who has read, "Consider the lilies of the field," who has
heard "Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden"--but His
eloquence, though more heart-thrilling than any human eloquence, was
never rhetorical, never emotional. It carried conviction because it
sounded like _truth uttered by love_. In fact, fanaticism or insanity
are charges that cannot be made against Him on any ground whatever,
except on the ground that He believed what He taught, and that no
reasonable man could believe it. And if so, I think the charge must be
abandoned, for Bacon, Locke, Leibnitz, Newton have believed it, and it
is still believed by the most reasoning minds in Christendom.
Imposture is another charge. I have reminded you that the great
principle of Christ's teaching was truth. If there was one point on
which it could with some colour of probability be said that He was an
enthusiast, it would be in His love of truth, and His scorn for all
that was false and hypocritical. It would be strange indeed that such
a teacher should lay the foundation of His teaching in falsehood. And
be it remembered, that the supposed falsehood was not to please popular
tastes, or to take advantage of popular prejudices, but to run counter
to and offend them all, having apparently no purpose, but the purely
disinterested purpose of mending men's manners against their wills,
and having evidently no earthly end but persecution, suffering, and
death. The fanaticism is the most inexplicable, the imposture the most
improbable ever heard or thought of.
III. And now let us see what the teaching of this so-called fanatic or
impostor has done.
I suppose it will be acknowledged that He lived at a time when the
world was singularly _in want_. Heathenism had failed to satisfy it.
The world had outgrown its infancy, and had tossed away its dolls.
The philosophers derided, even the poets could hardly play with,
their old heathen deities. Society was corrupt to its core. The old
monarchies had sunk one by one,--Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia,
Macedonia--oppressed with their own vices. Rome had indeed reached the
height of power, but it was power to be vile and so to be miserable.
And there was a groan uttered from universal humanity for something to
save it from the utter exhaustion of sensuality hard by suffering, of
moral, social, and political degradation. Judea itself, where still God
was worshipped, was no exception to the general rule, though it had yet
hardly fallen to the depth of imperial Rome. And what of philosophy?
Certainly it could never have had a better trial. The greatest moral
philosophers the world ever knew, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, had
taught at Athens. The sound of their voices reached Rome, and echoed
through all the civilized world. Without doubt, their teaching was
valued, without doubt it was valuable to the thinking few; but the
effect produced upon the many is too truly described by Ovid, "Video
meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor." The salt of society had not been
discovered; for society stank, and was corrupt throughout.
And then Jesus Christ set forth a remedy, and it was HIMSELF. It
cannot be too emphatically said, or too steadily borne in memory, that
CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST. So He taught; so His disciples after Him--not a
law--not a theory--not a code of morals--not a system of casuistry--not
even an elaborate theology--but "they ceased not to teach and to preach
Jesus Christ."
_And this did satisfy human wants._
(1) Moral philosophy never moved more than a few thoughtful minds.
A strong law, like the law of Moses or the laws of Rome, may put a
curb on men's passions and keep them in by bit and bridle, lest they
fall upon you. But there was something vastly more powerful in the
teaching of Christ. He propounded Himself to His followers, as the
one great object of their loyalty and love. Now love and loyalty are
the very groundsprings of noble and disinterested life. The servant
of law lives in obedience to law, because to break law is to incur
its penalties. The moralist trains himself with special reference to
himself. The very necessity of his training turns the moral eye inward,
creates self-consciousness, and produces, perhaps despondency from
failure, perhaps self-confidence from success. The effect of loyalty
is altogether otherwise. The eye, the heart, the hope, are all turned
outwards--and in the case of the Christian--not outwards only but
upwards. The result is, not the calculating morality, which may easily
make a man selfish, but the absorbing love of a master, which makes him
self-devoted. And coincident with the love and loyalty to the Master,
came the brotherhood of all who loved and obeyed that Master; a close
tie of brotherhood towards them, and earnest desire to bring others
into that brotherhood, and so an universal charity to mankind. Thus did
the Great Teacher provide for the wants of man, considered as a _moral
being_.
(2) Let us see how He provided for His wants as _a spiritual being_. It
is the witness of all religious antiquity, that, whilst the soul longed
to look up to, and rest in something above it, it was ever striving to
bring that which was above it down to a level with itself. It could not
grasp infinity, and it was ever trying to make it finite. So it devised
man-gods and idol-gods. So it degraded God to be no higher than man,
nay, "likened its Maker to the grazed ox." What Jesus Christ did was to
bring God down to man, but not to degrade and lower Him by doing so. He
professed not to be a Man-God,--like the Saturn and Jupiter of Latium,
like the Lama of Thibet, or like the Buddha of Ceylon and China; but
the God-Man, God dwelling in human flesh, and manifesting all the
character of infinity in the person of the finite. So He satisfied
the yearnings of the human soul, without lowering the dignity of the
Divine Spirit. It is impossible to remember the fables of heathenism
without feeling that Deity is not only lowered, but utterly lost in
them. But I appeal to your experience and to your hearts, whether the
conception of God conveyed to us through Christ is not raised, rather
than depressed--raised even above the conception of the High and Lofty
One which inhabiteth eternity, as discovered by our reasonings, or as
revealed to our faith, in the theism of the philosopher or the writings
of the Jewish prophets.
(3) Once more, He provided for man's wants _as a social and political
being_. Social polity has ever oscillated between an absolute despotism
and a pure democracy. There are many who say that the only ideal of
good government is either a paternal despotism, or "liberty, equality,
and fraternity." It is most true that our Lord declined persistently
to mingle Himself with earthly politics, or to meddle in the affairs
of earthly kingdoms. But He declared that His mission was to set up in
this world a kingdom not of this world. And the principles, the polity
of that kingdom combined in a marvellous manner the unopposed will
of the Father-King with the fraternal equality of all the people. As
King of the kingdom of God He exacted the most devoted loyalty and the
most unswerving obedience; but to the members of the kingdom He said,
"All ye are brethren." He forbade any to aspire to pre-eminence, or
authority, like the kings of the Gentiles; to those who desired to sit
on His right hand and on His left He only promised that they should
drink of His cup of suffering, and be baptized with His baptism of
blood.
(4) Lastly, He provided for man's natural wants _as a sinful being_.
Every religion witnesses to the anxiety of the religious mind to throw
off a weight from the conscience by austerities, or by sacrifices,
or by gifts. I am aware that I am treading on ground which may lead
me into controversy, and from this I must guard myself. Still I
think every one who reads the Gospels must confess that the Christian
history and the Christian faith culminate in sacrifice. I do not wish
to reason on it; I readily admit its deep mystery, and the great
difficulty of explaining it; I only assert, and I assert without
fear of contradiction, that Christ set forth Himself, and that His
disciples set Him forth to the world as One who suffered for the sins
of that race which He had made His own; that He first bound them
closely to Himself, and then drained off to the dregs that cup which
their sins had prepared for _them_. He came into mankind that He might
carry off the curse which sin had cast into the midst of it. And I
know, indeed, that there are some, and some for whose scruples and
difficulties I feel deep respect, who, acknowledging all the debts due
to Christianity, for raising, ennobling, and purifying human life and
human thought, yet say that they could accept every portion of it save
only its doctrine of atonement and sacrifice. They think it derogatory
to the mercy and to the love of God, and they doubt if the sins of
feeble beings like ourselves can ever be so offensive to His majesty as
to need such an intervention, or to cost so tremendous a price. I say I
respect their scruples, for in some cases I believe they have been the
scruples of men very pure in life and very loving in heart. But of this
I am most certain, that there is nothing in Christianity which has so
commended it to the acceptance of mankind at large. And certainly its
effect, if fully exhibited, is very remarkable. Its effect is first to
enhance our sense of sin, and secondly to enhance our sense of the love
of God. Wellnigh every other system of forgiveness tends to make light
of sin. If repentance be easy, sin cannot be so very hard. Wellnigh
every other system of religion has created a dread of the Sovereign
Ruler of the Universe, and has seldom, if ever, led to devoted love
of Him. Strangely enough, too, all past religions had treated sin,
when great, as inexpiable, and gave no room for repentance, even
though sought carefully and with tears. But the Christian faith in
the atoning love of Christ has deepened, beyond all comparison with
aught besides, our conviction of the darkness and the danger of sin;
has yet assured us that repentance for sin is not impossible, but to
be attained and then certain to be accepted; and, lastly, has been the
one only convincing evidence that, for all the clouds and darkness in
which nature and natural religion have enveloped the Deity, there is
yet a loving Heart in heaven, and that we may, with undoubting, filial
confidence cast our orphan souls upon the Fatherhood of God. And so it
is a fact, which nothing can take away, that, with all its admitted
mystery and deep obscurity, the cross of Christ has been, even more
than all else in His marvellous history, that which has won human
hearts, and which has satisfied human yearnings.
IV. Let us pass to the reception of Christ's teaching in the world.
There is not much that is new to be said about this. First, as to the
mode of its propagation: it was not propagated by force, like the
religion of Mohammed; nor was it a political revolution, as Buddhism
was a great rising against the caste system of the Brahmins, joined
with a modification or so-called reformation of their theological and
philosophical theories. Christ forbade His followers to mix themselves
up in the politics either of the Jews or of the heathens; and, as to
force, He told them, in words which all Christian history since has
verified, that "they who take the sword shall perish with the sword."
In fact, the mode of the propagation of the faith of Christ was the
simplest conceivable: it was merely a proclaiming of Christ as the
Prince and the Saviour of the world. Apostles preached the kingdom of
God, invited men to come into it, declared that Christ was its King,
claimed from His subjects obedience to His sovereignty, and promised
them peace in their hearts here and happiness in His home hereafter. It
is a matter of perfect indifference to my present argument whether you
acknowledge that this preaching was accompanied with miracles or not.
If it was, then _cadit quæstio_. Probably no one in this company will
say, as the Jews said and as some of the heathens said, that those
miracles were due to Satanic agency. If there were miracles therefore,
they were of God. But, if you refuse your assent to miracles, then I
only say the result was all the more miraculous. If there was nothing
but a simple teaching of Christ--if only men narrated the life of the
Jewish carpenter, told of His death, declared him to be their King,
set up His cross as their hope, and claimed submission to Him as
their God; and if thereupon, in the midst of Jerusalem and Rome, and
Athens and Corinth, and Ephesus and Philippi, and Smyrna, and Antioch,
and Alexandria, at a time when art and science, and civilization
and philosophy were at the greatest height ever known; if then and
there, in the space of a single generation, thousands and hundreds of
thousands, of all ages and all classes, bowed their heads and gave up
their hearts to Christ, I ask what was it that gave such magic power to
the so-called "foolishness of preaching?" I answer, It was the force of
truth; and I ask again, Has any other answer ever been given?