The 'justifying' which He expects may refer either to personal
character or to official functional faithfulness. I think it refers to
both, and that we have here, expressed in prophetic outline, not only
the fact of Christ's sinlessness, but the fact of His consciousness of
sinlessness.
The words are the strongest assertion of His absolute freedom from
anything that an adversary could lay hold of on which to found a
charge, and not merely so, but they also dare to assert that the
unerring and all-penetrating eye of the Judge of all will look into His
heart, and find nothing there but the mirrored image of His own
perfection. I do not need to dwell on the fact of Christ's sinlessness,
that He is perfect manhood without stain, without defect. I have had
occasion to touch upon that truth in a former sermon on 'I was not
rebellious.' Here we have to do not so much with sinlessness as with
the consciousness of sinlessness.
Now note that consciousness on Christ's part.
We have to reckon with the fact of it as expressed in His own words: 'I
do always the things that please Him. Which of you convinceth Me of
sin?' 'The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me.'
In Him there is the absence of all trace of sense of sin.
No prayer for forgiveness comes from His lips.
No penitence, no acknowledgment of even weakness is heard from Him.
Even in His baptism, which for others was an acknowledgment of
impurity, He puts His submission to the rite, not on the ground of
needing to be washed from sin, but of 'fulfilling all righteousness.'
Now, unless Christ was sinless, what do we say of these assertions? 'If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us'--are we to apply that canon to Him when He stands before us and
asks, 'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' Surely it augurs small
self-knowledge or a low moral standard if, from the lips of a religious
teacher, there never comes one word to indicate that he has felt the
hold of evil on him. I make bold to say that if Christ were not
sinless, the Apostle Paul stood far above Him, with his 'of whom I am
chief.' What difference would there be between Him and the Pharisees
who called forth His bitterest words by this very absence in them of
consciousness of sin: 'If ye were blind ye would have no sin, but now
ye say, We see, therefore your sin remaineth.'
Singularly enough the world has accepted Him at His own estimate, and
has felt that these lofty assertions of absolute perfection were borne
out by His life, and were consistent with the utmost lowliness of heart.
As to the adversary's failure, I need only recall the close of His
life, which is representative of the whole impression made on the world
by Him. What a wonderful and singular concurrence of testimonies was
borne to His pure and blameless life! After months of hatred and
watching, even the rulers' lynx-eyed jealousy found nothing, and they
had to fall back upon false witnesses. 'Hearest thou not how many
things they witness against Thee?' He stood with unmoved silence, and
the lies fell down dead at His feet. Had He answered, they would have
been preserved and owed their immortality to the Gospels: He held His
peace and they vanished. All attempts failed so signally that at the
last they were fain, in well-simulated holy abhorrence, to base His
condemnation on what He had said in their presence. 'How think ye, ye
have heard the blasphemy?' So all that the adversary, raking through a
life, could find, was that one word. That was His sin; in all else He
was pure. Remember Pilate's acquittal: 'I find no fault in Him,' and
his wife's warning, 'Have thou nothing to do with that just Person.'
Think of Judas, 'I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent
blood.' Listen to the penitent thief's low voice gasping out in his
pangs and almost collapse: 'This man hath done nothing amiss.' Listen
to the Centurion telling the impression made even on his rough nature:
'Truly this was a righteous Man.'
These are the answers to the Servant's challenge, wrung from the lips
of His adversaries; and they but represent the universal judgment of
humanity.
There is one Man whose life has been without stain or spot, whose soul
has never been crossed by a breath of passion, nor dimmed by a speck of
sin, whose will has ever been filled with happy obedience, whose
conscience has been undulled by evil and untaught to speak in
condemnation, whose whole nature has been like some fair marble, pure
in hue, perfect in form, and unstained to the very core. There is one
Man who can front the most hostile scrutiny with the bold challenge,
'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' and His very haters have to
answer, 'I find no fault in Him,' while those that love Him rejoice to
proclaim Him 'holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.'
There is one Man who can front the most rigid Law of Duty and say, 'I
came not to destroy but to fulfil,' and the stony tables seem to glow
with tender light, as of rocky cliffs in morning sunshine, attesting
that He has indeed fulfilled all righteousness. There is one Man who
can stand before God without repentance or confession, and whose claim
'I do always the things that please Him,' the awful voice from the
opening heavens endorses, when it proclaims; 'This is My beloved Son in
whom I am well pleased.' The lowly Servant of God flings out His
challenge to the universe: 'Who will contend with Me?' and that gage
has lain in the lists for nineteen centuries unlifted.