To begin in Nazareth with such words as these in my text was
startling enough, but it is in full accord with the whole tone of
our Lord's teaching. If you will carefully search for the most
essential characteristics and outstanding differentia of the words
of Jesus Christ, even if you make all allowance that some make
for the non-historical character of the Gospels, you have this left
as the residuum, that the impression which He made upon the men that
were nearest to Him, and that caught up most fully the spirit of His
teaching, was that the great thing that differentiated it from all
other was His unhesitating persistence in pushing into the very
forefront, His testimony about Himself. I do not think that there is
anything parallel to that anywhere else amongst the men whom the
world recognises as being great religious geniuses or great moral
teachers. What characterises as perfectly unique our Lord's teaching
is not only the blessed things that He said about God or the deep
truths that He said about men and their duty, or the sad things that
He said about men and their destiny, or the radiant hopes that He
unveiled as to men and their possibility, but what He said about
Himself. His message was not so much 'Believe in God and do right,'
as it was 'Believe in Me and follow Me.'
I need only point you to the Sermon on the Mount, which is popularly
supposed to contain very little of Christ's reference to Himself, and to
remind you how there, in that authoritative proclamation of the laws of
the new kingdom, He calmly puts His own utterances as co-ordinate
with--nay! as superior to--the utterances of the ancient law, and sweeps
aside Moses--though recognising Moses' divine mission--with an 'I say
unto you.' I need only remind you, further, how, at the end of that
'compendium of reasonable morality,' He lays down this principle--that
these sayings of 'Mine' are a rock-foundation, on which whoever builds
shall never be put to confusion. This is but a specimen of the golden
thread, if I may call it so, of self-assertion which runs through the
whole of our Lord's teaching.
Now, I venture to say that this undeniable characteristic is only
warranted on the supposition that He is the Son of God, and His work
the salvation of the world. If He is so, if 'He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father,' if the revelation of Himself which He makes
is the Revelation of God, if His death is for the life of the world;
and if, when we honour Him, we honour God; when we trust Him, we
trust God; when we obey Him we obey God; then I can understand His
persistent self-assertion. But otherwise does He not deliberately
intercept emotions which are only rightly directed to God? Does He
not claim prerogatives, such as forgiveness of sins, bestowal of
life, answering of prayer, which are only possessed by the Divine
Being?
I know that many who will not go with me in my intellectual
formularising of the truth about Christ's nature do bow to Him with
unfeigned reverence. But it seems to me, I humbly confess, that
there is no logical basis for such reverence except the full-toned
recognition that the mystery of His self-assertion is explained by
the mystery of His nature, God manifest in the flesh. I, for my
part, do not see how the moral perfectness of Jesus Christ is to be
saved, in view of that unmistakable strand in His teaching, unless
by such admission. Rather, I feel that the recognition of it brings
us face to face with the tremendous alternative, and that the people
who were moved to indignation by His self-assertion because they
recognised not His divine origin, and said 'This man blasphemeth';
'This deceiver said,' have more to say in defence of their
conclusion than those who bow before Him with reverence, and declare
Him to be the pattern of all human perfectness, and yet falter when
they are asked to join in the great confession, 'Thou are the
Christ, the Son of the living God.'