(I) I said just now that Christ's teaching was addressed in the first
place to the Jews of His own day. Yet the note of universality is as
unmistakable as are the local tone and colouring. Christ may speak as
the moment suggests, but His words are never for the moment only, but
for all time. He refused almost sternly to go unto any save unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel; yet the Gospels make it abundantly
plain that in His own thoughts His mission was never limited to the tiny
stage within which, during His earthly years, He confined Himself. "I am
the light of the world," He said; and in His last great commission to
His disciples He bade them carry that light unto the uttermost parts of
the earth. In the great High-Priestly prayer He intercedes not only for
His disciples, but for those who through their word should believe on
Him. "I will build My church," He declared, "and the gates of Hades
shall not prevail against it."
(2) So, again, too, in regard to the form of Christ's sayings; to speak
of their artlessness and homely simplicity is to tell only a small part
of the truth concerning them. They are, indeed and especially those
spoken in Galilee, and reported for the most part in the Synoptists, the
perfection of popular speech. How the short, pithy, sententious sayings
cling to the memory like burs! Let almost any of them be commenced, and
as Dr. Stalker says, the ordinary hearer can without difficulty finish
the sentence. Christ was not afraid of a paradox. When, _e.g._, He said,
"Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,"
He was ready to risk the possibility of being misunderstood by some
prosaic hearer, that He might the more effectually arouse men to a
neglected duty. His language was concrete, not abstract; He taught by
example and illustration; He thought, and taught others to think, in
pictures. How often is the phrase, "The kingdom of heaven is like
unto----" on His lips! Moreover, His illustrations were always such as
common folk could best appreciate. The birds of the air, the lilies of
the field, the lamp on the lamp-stand, the hen with her chickens under
her wings, the servant following the plough, the shepherd tending his
sheep, the fisherman drawing his net, the sower casting his seed into
the furrow, the housewife baking her bread or sweeping her house,--it
was through panes of common window-glass like these that Christ let in
the light upon the heaped-up treasures of the kingdom of God. No wonder
"the common people heard Him gladly"; no wonder they "all hung upon Him
listening"; or that they "came early in the morning to Him in the temple
to hear Him"! Yet, even in the eyes of the multitude the plain homespun
of Christ's speech was shot with gleams of more than earthly lustre.
There mingled--to use another figure--with the sweet music of those
simple sayings a new deep note their ears had never heard before: "the
multitudes were astonished at His teaching; for He taught them as one
having authority, and not as their scribes." It was not the authority of
powerful reasoning over the intellect, reasoning which we cannot choose
but obey; it was the authority of perfect spiritual intuition. Christ
never speaks as one giving the results of long and painful gropings
after truth, but rather as one who is at home in the world to which God
and the things of the spirit belong. He asserts that which He knows, He
declares that which He has seen.
(3) Another quality of Christ's words which helps us to understand their
world-wide influence is their winnowedness, their freedom from the chaff
which, in the words of others, mingles with the wholesome grain. The
attempt is sometimes made to destroy, or, at least, to weaken, our claim
for Christ as the supreme teacher by placing a few selected sayings of
His side by side with the words of some other ancient thinker or
teacher. And if they who make such comparisons would put into their
parallel columns all the words of Jesus and all the words of those with
whom the comparison is made, we should have neither right to complain
nor reason to fear. Wellhausen puts the truth very neatly when he says,
"The Jewish scholars say, 'All that Jesus said is also to be found in
the Talmud.' Yes, all, and a great deal besides."[7] The late Professor
G.J. Romanes has pointed out the contrast in two respects between Christ
and Plato. He speaks of Plato as "the greatest representative of human
reason in the direction of spirituality"; yet he says "Plato is nowhere
in this respect as compared with Christ." While in Plato there are
errors of all kinds, "reaching even to absurdity in respect of reason,
and to sayings shocking to the moral sense," there is, he declares, in
literal truth no reason why any of Christ's words should ever pass away
in the sense of becoming obsolete. And it is this absence from the
biography of Christ of any doctrines which the subsequent growth of
human knowledge--whether in natural science, ethics, political economy,
or elsewhere--has had to discount which seems to him one of the
strongest arguments in favour of Christianity.[8]
(4) One other quality of Christ's words, which specially caught the
attention of His hearers in the synagogue at Nazareth, should not be
overlooked: "All bare Him witness, and wondered at the words of grace
which proceeded out of His mouth." The reference is, as Dr. Bruce
says,[9] rather to the substance of the discourse than to the manner.
That there was a peculiar charm in the Teacher's manner is undoubted,
but it was what He said, rather than the way in which He said it--the
message of grace, rather than the graciousness of the Messenger--which
caused the eyes of all in the synagogue to be fastened on Him. He had
just read the great passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor.
He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
Then, when the reading was finished, and He had given back the roll to
the attendant, and was sat down, He began to say unto them, "To-day hath
this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears." This was His own programme;
this was what He had come into the world to do--to bear the burden of
the weary and the heavy-laden, to give rest unto all who would learn of
Him.
This, then, is the Teacher whose words we are to study together in these
pages. He Himself is saying to us again, "He that hath ears to hear let
him hear." See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh. And again He says,
"Take heed how ye hear." Gracious as He is, this Teacher can be also
very stern. "If any man," He says, "hear My sayings and keep them not, I
judge him not. ... He that receiveth not My sayings hath one that
judgeth him; the word that I speak, the same shall judge him in the last
day." We read of some to whom "good tidings" were preached, whom the
word did not profit. Let us pray that to writer and readers alike it may
prove the word of eternal life.
* * * * *