WHAT HE CLAIMS AND DEMANDS.
There is a fact, personal to Jesus, that not only enters vitally into
this argument, but more than any thing else explains the power of his
words on the conscience: what was considered in another relation in
the outset--the perfection of his own character; his sinlessness: his
absolute purity.
A perfect doctrine will no doubt affect the conscience, but a perfect
doctrine uttered by one who lives a holy life has tenfold the power of
the mere statement of doctrine. And it is not simply that the hearer
recoils from a doctrine stated by an inconsistent or insincere man
because he is inconsistent and insincere, but such a man cannot so much
as utter the truth in its fullness; he cannot conceive the truth in its
completeness.
When Jesus utters a truth it lays hold upon the conscience and life
not simply because it is the truth, but because he is the “Truth and
the Life.” His conscience goes with the word and it enters into our
conscience. It was this quality in him, more than aught else, that led
his hearers, when the Sermon on the Mount was ended, to “wonder at his
doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority.” It is living a
truth more than learning about a truth that gives the teacher authority.
An illustrative incident may help us here. The late Mr. Wray was a
Baptist missionary in India. He was a man of known consistency of
religious character. A child who knew him well was asked the question:
“What is holiness?” A man would have done as so many do with lamentable
failure, attempted a “definition;” the child answered: “Holiness is the
way Mr. Wray lives.” The child was nearly, if not quite, at the bottom
of the subject.
The learner in the school of Jesus may find here a truth of first
importance. It is twofold: 1. The best way to learn more truth is to
live the truth he does know. 2. The only way to rightly teach any truth
in morals, in things spiritual, is to live it. Religion, like science,
believes in experiment and teaches by facts. The incarnate truth is
the truth that has life in it. It is said with reverence, but with
confidence, Jesus teaches what spiritual life is more by living it than
by his words. His life expounds his doctrine, and without his life we
could not understand his teachings.
Try the principle by any test of him. For example, he teaches us that
forgiveness is a duty and that revenge is a sin. What does he mean?
What he did. You remember his last prayer: “Father, forgive them; they
know not what they do.” He teaches us to love our enemies. What does he
mean? What he did; always blessing them when he could. He teaches that
we best serve God by doing good to men, and that the best proof and
only proof of loving God is in loving men. What does he mean? What he
did. He was always doing good. And so his life expounds his teachings,
and is the one safe and true commentary upon his words.
Contemplate that life for a moment. Begin at Bethlehem and follow him
to Bethany, where, it is said, he ascended to heaven. That life is
blameless, flawless. He did not lack abuse, denunciation, defamation,
persecutions. Men called him a drunkard and a glutton because he was
not an ascetic; they said he “had a devil” because they could not
understand how any man would do a thing only because it was right. Some
called him a lunatic; “he is beside himself,” they said, because he was
unworldly, was what they considered “unbusinesslike,” because they,
with their selfishness and pride, could not imagine themselves living
as he did unless they had lost their reason. Many hated him then, as
they do now, because he was, as he is, in the way of their self-seeking
and their sins. Bad men cannot be at rest where he is.
No wonder the perfect teaching of a blameless man has power upon the
human conscience. To this hour good men indorse Pilate’s verdict; bad
men can find no error in it.
When we look more closely into his innermost character we will find
qualities that difference him from mere men broadly and unmistakably.
We see in him no fault that we can name as attaching to his life; but
we do see in him two manifestations of all others most marvelous and
out of the range of mere human life. 1. There does not appear in him
any, the very least, consciousness of fault. 2. In his religion there
is no effort.
Now these things appear in no others who are sincere--who know what
they are and what goodness is. The best men and women are conscious of
faults, and the best are most conscious of them. If a man should say,
“I am faultless,” we would question his sincerity, his sanity, or his
knowledge of words, or his conception of goodness. And we would be
right. No sane man, with any high ideal of goodness and knowing the
meaning of words, ever yet used of himself words that fit only Jesus.
It is like a true artist’s ideal: the better artist he is the less
he satisfies his own conception in what he does; so in religion, the
saintliest most realize the distance between them and the Christ. An
unbeliever has said that Mary at the sepulcher idealized him, and so
made Christianity possible! He supposed he had accounted for the most
stupendous fact of all time. Why is it that only Jesus has become the
highest ideal that ever filled the human soul? That nineteen centuries
have added nothing to him--taken nothing from him?
As to men, religion is war with nature. Saint Paul so teaches us. It
was his experience; the holiest men best understand this and most
frankly confess it. Paul’s writings are full of terms that illustrate
religion from agonistic struggles. When Jesus himself urges men to seek
the life of religion he says, “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.”
The word translated strive is the Greek form of our word of pain and
conflict--agonize.
But the religion of Jesus was effortless; there was never in his heart
antagonism to goodness. His religion shines like the sun because it is
full of light; it is a going forth from fountains that, in his inmost
soul, were in spontaneous and perpetual play. He did have conflicts,
but with the evil that was without him; there was none in him.
The story of his temptation does not at all militate against this
statement. The force of the attack from without he felt, for it is
said, “He suffered, being tempted.” But when we read the story we feel
that it was not only right for him to resist, but natural. We see so
clearly that we never doubt; there is in him nothing in sympathy with
the evil to which he was solicited.
What does Jesus say of himself as to these things? What does he claim
for himself? He says to Pilate, “I am the truth;” and it does not shock
us to hear him say this. He says in one place, “I do always the will of
my Father;” and we believe him--not only that he thinks he does, but
that he does. In trying to give to his disciples the one true ideal
of humanity he says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in
heaven is perfect.” Then he offers himself as an example to the human
race, and we are satisfied that he is what he says, for we can “find
no fault in him.” And with it all we recognize perfect sincerity,
simplicity, humility. If a mere man were to say such things to us we
would despise him; the scorn of the world would drive him from the
presence of men. But he says such things and we feel that it is right;
it is the truth; he is what he says.
In the same way we feel that he is entitled to make upon us the most
tremendous claims for human service, devotion, and love ever put into
words. He says, “If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” “He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me.” All must be in abeyance to
his will. We are to forsake lands, homes, parents, children, wives, all
for him. Nothing in the universe must come between him and the loyal,
all-sacrificing love of his disciples. He must be first in our hearts;
whatever comes between him and our love forfeits all claim upon him.
If a mere man made these demands the world would despise him, and the
world would be right.
But he sets up other claims of a sort no sincere and sane man, who is
only a man, can think of for a moment. He claims the right to forgive
sins. His critics were right--assuming him to be only a man. “Why does
this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?”
He not only claims, as no other prophet ever did, to represent the
eternal Father, but he claims a perfect knowledge of God that no mere
man can claim. “All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no
man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” The
night before he died he said to his disciples: “Let not your heart be
troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.”
He says in many ways and in many places that he is, in origin and
character, more than a man; that he is supernatural. He says, “I and my
Father are one.” He says that he is divine--that he is God.
If Jesus was only a man such claims cannot be reconciled with
his sanity or his sincerity. Augustine was right when he reduced
this argument to its last analysis: “_Christus, si non deus, non
bonus_”--Christ, if he be not God, is not good.