JESUS NEITHER THEOLOGIAN NOR ECCLESIASTIC.
Jesus did none of the things a man would do who proposed to establish
and perpetuate any sort of kingdom, or school of beliefs, even in this
world.
He established no institutions with formal constitutions. He did
not draw up a code--not so much as a system of moral philosophy. He
left no “theological institutes,” with precise definitions and exact
limitations. Some of his true friends have done their best at such
work; he did not. Theirs is a man’s way; his was not.
He left no formal creed; he never mentioned such a thing; he did not
seem to think of it at all. It is so much a man’s way to do such things
that we are not yet familiar with the idea that Jesus did not. It comes
to many with a sudden surprise when they discover that Jesus said not
a word about systematic theology, that to many is so precious. In all
his words are no “articles of religion;” not a hint of them. He did not
so much as put into form a doctrine of his own nature and person. Very
often and in many ways he spoke of himself and God, and of his relation
to the eternal Father, but he made no definition. Often he spoke of
himself, of the Father and of the Holy Ghost, but he said not a word of
the “hypostatic union” of three persons in one Godhead; not a word of
the “economic relations” of the Holy Trinity.
Some good people, if they chance to read what is here put down, will be
so certain in their own minds that Jesus did employ some of the methods
of a mere man, in order to preserve his teachings in the world, that
they will suspect the writer of irreverence; at least of indifference,
if not of something they think less of, in what is said concerning
“creeds” and “theologies.” They will be in error, as is common with
them on such questions; the writer is only stating facts that no man
can deny as to what Jesus did and did not do. Some admirable and good
people have not yet learned the difference between arguing for their
Church and pleading for Christianity; between defending their own
notions and expounding the teachings of Jesus. And not a few confound
their notions about God with the fact of his existence, as others
mistake their theory of inspiration for the divine authority of the
Holy Scriptures.
Our way of teaching is a man’s way. If it is the best we can do let us
be content; if not, let us amend our way. But let us not defend our way
by pleading his example; let us follow our way because it is our way,
if there be no better reason. Certain it is that the way Jesus took
of teaching and perpetuating his doctrines was not a man’s way in any
respect whatever.
Jesus wrote no book--not a line. He founded no school or other training
institution; his three years’ loving and painstaking companionship with
his disciples was indeed a training, but it was not an institution.
This does not mean that his friends should not do such things; it is
the only way they can do: but he did not do such things.
He did not so much as establish a Church; the Church grew out of his
life as well as out of his teachings; it was compacted by the sympathy
of men, women, and little children of common beliefs and hopes; above
all, by the sympathy born of a common love for him--this far more, then
as now, than by what they understood or believed of his teachings. He
left for the government of the Church “no rules of order,” no book of
“discipline.” He ordained no form of church government, “with checks
and balances,” whatever. All those things may be good, and order in
government is necessary; but he did not provide them. He left all such
things to the common sense and best judgment, guided by providence
and the Holy Spirit, of his disciples. In Church as well as State the
principle is this: God ordains the power; he does not prescribe the
form; he ordains government, but leaves the form of it to the good
sense and personal preferences of those who are to live under it.
All these things we have mentioned here belong to the works and ways
of men; they are good or bad as they serve the ends of his kingdom.
Moses, though an inspired lawgiver, yet a mere man, gave many forms and
prescribed the order of doing many things; Jesus, the divine man, gave
none.
In nothing is Jesus more unlike men than in his utter disregard of
“forms” in the doing of the duties he enjoined. He has no word about
forms except the terrible words he used concerning the many forms
punctiliously observed by certain Pharisees and hypocrites who were
playing at religion. His life was full of worship, but he left not a
hint as to any forms or attitudes for devotion. That simplest and most
comprehensive of all prayers, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” is not a
form; he said, “After this manner pray ye.” The prayer might take any
form of words, or leave all words unsaid. And this prayer he gave his
disciples in response to a request for a form. Jesus had no forms; he
cared for none.
Nor did Jesus care for the “letter,” except as to the danger that good
men might make a fetish of it. He said of the “letter, it killeth;”
“the Spirit giveth life.” The Spirit is every thing, the letter
nothing. If we were to use of him the language that fits the case of a
man we would feel like saying, Jesus looked upon punctilious eagerness
about “forms” and the “letter” as mere child’s play, that he scorned
such unspiritual folly.
This is certain: the only thing he denounced in a tone that was
almost anger was zealous adherence to the form and to the letter, and
sanctimonious contentment with this poor substitute for religion when
the spirit of worship and service was dead. It will be the plainer to
us that his was very far from being a man’s way when we remember that,
with men, the less of spirit and reality an institution has the more
anxious they are about mere form and letter. A spiritually dead man
will contend more zealously about the form of a duty than the duty
itself. And this is not unnatural; when a Church is dead there is
nothing left but form--a body ready for burial.
What terrific words Jesus used in what he said of such things! Let us
hear him and try to understand how much he means for us of to-day:
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of
mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and
not to leave the other undone.
“Ye blind guides, which strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean
the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of
extortion and excess.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto
whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are
within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Had Jesus been only a man, conceiving vast plans for propagating his
doctrines and perpetuating his kingdom, he would have done all the
things he did not do. He would have relied on force, money, diplomacy,
argument. He would have considered what human selfishness is, and he
would have appealed to it. He would have provided institutions and
have founded schools. There would have been a “propaganda” compassing
the world in its plans, and his agents would have been drilled in
forms and methods after the manner of men. He would, to have been
at all like a man in his plans, have left a system of “ethics” or
“theology.” He would have formulated a “creed”; he would have drawn up
a “constitution” with “bylaws” for his Church, stating in terms every
principle and providing, according to the foresight given him, for
every contingency, as did John Wesley with his Discipline and Legal
Hundred. (Can it be necessary to say this illustration is no reflection
upon the great and good English reformer, who was a mere man?) He would
have set for rigid observance forms and ceremonies of which he had none
and prescribed none, not so much as telling men how they were to do in
the matter of the sacraments--baptism and the memorial supper.
Mere men always do such things. Jesus did not adopt a man’s way in any
of his work or plans, unless we except those who have learned of him
something of the divine art of doing good to the souls and bodies of
men.