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THE INCARNATE SAVIOUR.

WORKS BEARING ON THE
person aria SEork of Cfjrist
PUBLISHED BY
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS.

THE CHRIST OF HISTOBY, by John Young  $1.25
THE CHBIST OF GOD, by Horaiius Bonar, D.D  1.26
THE PERSON OF CHBIST, by Rev. A. A. Bonar  0.50
ALL ABOUT JESUS, by Ben. Alex. Dickson  2.00
MY SA VIOUR. by Bev. John East  0.75
DR. HANNA'S Life of Christ, 3 vols  4.50
BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN, by Dr. Macduff.  2.00
IN CHRISTO, by Dr. Macduff.  1.25
CHBIST AND HIS BELIGION, by Rev. John Reid  1.60
DISCOUBSES AND SAYINGS OF OUB LORD, by Dr. Broum. 3.50
THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR, by Dr. Krummachtr  1.60
DB. GUTHRIE cm the Parables of our Lard  1.50
DRUMMOND on the Parables of our Lord  1.75
MEMORIES OF GENNESABET, by Dr. Macduff.  1.50
MEMORIES OF BETHANY, by Dr. Macduff  1.00
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NOONTIDE AT SYCHAB, by Dr. Macduff.  1*25
THE I WILLS OF CHBIST, by Power  L00
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DR. JACOBUS' NOTES ON THE GOSPELS, 2 vols  3.00

THE

Incarnate Saviour

A LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST

REV. W. R. NICOLL, M.A.
Kelso, Scotland

NEW YORK
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS
530 Broadway 1882

1 Many soul longings
Have I had in my day.
Now the hope of my life
Is that tree of triumph,
Ever to turn to.
Mighty my will is
To cleave to the Crucified;
My claim for shelter
Is — right to the Rood"
CvEDmon's "Cross Lay.'

H

53

A 5-f

PREFACE.

The present work is an attempt to narrate, in
a popular form, the chief events in the life of our
Lord, and to show how these bear on the doc
trines of the Incarnation and Atonement. The truth
of the history as contained in the Four Gospels is
assumed, and critical questions are avoided or but
lightly touched. It is hoped that a place for the
work will be found, even although the subject has
been so often and so ably discussed of late. The
object is not to give a full narration, or a series
of critical studies, but to bring out leading infer
ences for those who accept the facts; and I am
not aware of any book covering exactly the same
ground. The essence of the Christian revelation is now
generally conceived by the ablest apologists to he
not in a series of mysterious doctrines supported
by miracles, but in the personal history of Jesus
(v)

vi Preface.
Christ, of whose manifestation miracles are an es
sential part. Hence arises the great interest of the
subject. The life of Christ, however, does not be
come a gospel until it is applied, and such an
application is attempted in the following pages.
Although the plan of the book forbids critical
discussion, allusions to debated questions have been
made with care. While the book is written in the
interests of evangelical orthodoxy, an earnest en
deavor has been made to depart in no place from
the spirit of humility and charity which ought to
pervade such a work. I am painfully aware of the
inadequacy of the discussion; but the phrase, an
"adequate life of Christ,'' appears to me a contra
diction in terms. The substance of the volume was
delivered to my congregation in the ordinary course
of public ministration, and I have not sought to
remove all traces of the endeavor made to lay the
life of Christ alongside of our own.
Should the book meet with any acceptance, I
hope at some future date to follow it with another
on the Theology of Christ. Many who in this ao-e of
unsettled opinions are unable to acquiesce in tradi
tional systems, profess themselves ready to accept

Preface. vii
a theology which can fairly be made out from the
life and teachings of Christ, apart from all other
writings; and such might welcome an honest attempt
to discover this.
It remains that I should express my obligations to
some of the many writers from whom I have derived
assistance. Bishop Goodwin's valuable Hulsean lec
ture, "The Glory of the Only Begotten of the Father
seen in the Manhood of Christ," more nearly ap
proaches the plan of this book than any other with
which I am acquainted, but my task was almost
completed before I met with it. The narrative is
nowhere more vividly told than in Canon Farrar's
well-known book. Several lines of thought have
been derived from Aquinas Be Incarnatione. Very
valuable suggestions have been afforded by the
writings of Canon Liddon, Dr. Maclaren, and Dr.
Parker, who have all made important contributions
to Christology. Amongst many others to whom I
am indebted more or less may be mentioned Bishop
Alexander, Dean Church, and Dr. Bruce. Various
magazine articles in the Church Quarterly Review,
and elsewhere, have been useful. The commentaries
chiefly employed are those of Meyer and Canon

viii Preface.
Westcott's invaluable work on John. I have also
been thankful to learn much from writers whose
standpoint is very different from my own, especially
Keim, and amongst Roman Catholic writers, Dr.
Ward and Father Coleridge. As the plan does not
admit of many footnotes, this general acknowledg
ment must suffice. It would be affectation to deny
that I believe the book is in a measure original,
yet, to use the language of one of the most rever
ent writers of the day, "Wherever it can be shown
that we are not original, so much the better; our
desire should be to enter the circle of the great
dependence of all things, secure that there is no
independence of heart or mind on any other terms.
Only with all saints can we comprehend what is
the depth and length of that which is presented
to us in Christ Jesus."
My best thanks are due to my friend, the Rev.
W. A. Gray, who kindly read much of the book in
proof, and favored me with valuable suggestions.
Kelso, December, 1880.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction, ....

II

I.

The Birth and Infancy of Christ,

20

II.

Jesus as a Child,

36

III.

The Silent Years of Jesus,

Si

IV.

John Baptist and the Baptism,

66

V.

The Temptation,

82

VI.

The Object and Claims of Christ,

97

VII.

The Miracles of Christ,

m

VIII.

The Teaching of Christ,

135

IX.

The Apostles, ....

iSi

X.

Christ's Intercourse with God, .

1 65

XI.

Christ dealing with Inquirers, . :

183

XII.

Christ's Replies to His Enemies,

201

XIII.

Christ's Toil for Men, .

211

XIV.

The Transfiguration of Christ,

223

XV.

The Prevision of the Cross,
(9)

234

X

Contents.

PAGB
XVI. Judas Iscariot, . . . . .247
XVII. Gethsemane, ..... 259
XVIII. The Trial of Christ, . . . .271
XIX. The Seven Words on the Cross, . . 286
XX. The Burial and Resurrection of Christ, . 302
XXI. The Resurrection Life of Christ, . . 319
XXII. The Ascension of Christ, . . . 331
XXIII. The Character of Christ, . . . 345
Notes, ... . . . . 359

THE INCARNATE SAVIOUR.
INTRODUCTION.
ALTHOUGH it is true that there will always
be fresh occasion for writing the life of
Christ, the subject being exhaustless, and cease
less gravitation of human thought thereto one of
the most impressive proofs of the divinity of the
original, yet I should not have thought of writ
ing this book merely as another narration and
grouping of the outward facts. The scenery of
Palestine, the customs of the changeless East, the
idioms of Oriental speech, the literary phenomena
of the gospel history, and the modes of contem
porary thought, — these have been set forth lately
with the highest skill and learning. There is a
place, doubtless, for all these things, for Jesus
Christ belongs to human history. But He is liv
ing still, and the events of His life are not sepa
rated from us by eighteen hundred years of the
sorrowful experiences of humanity. While they
have their place in time, they yet transcend it,
rill

12 The Incarnate Saviour.
and are of everlasting significance. To that in
ward significance we turn our thoughts in the
following pages, and it was at first designed to
call the volume "The Inner Life of Christ." The
objection to this was, that the inner life of Christ
cannot be satisfactorily treated of without to a
certain extent narrating its outward course. But
the narrative here will not be sufficient for those
who are not already familiar with it. It is given
only in so far as it seems to bear upon the propo
sitions which this work aims to illustrate. Before
the life of Christ there is prophecy, and after
it explanation, — both prophecy and explanation
being inspired. At present we do not deal di
rectly either with what goes before or comes
after; but it is believed that the propositions
advanced are in harmony with the words of
prophets and apostles.
We endeavor to illustrate three main proposi
tions in the following pages. First, Jesus Christ
was God and man in two distinct natures and
one person. His humanity was true and proper,
but through it we see continually gleams of the
Godhead. As the Apostle John says in the pref
ace to his Gospel, "The Word was made flesh,
and dwelt among us, awl we belwld Sis glory."

Introduction. 1 3
This glory, as we understand the- words, was not
merely beheld by the apostle in such great and
signal manifestations as the transfiguration, the
resurrection, and the ascension, — it was beheld
more or less clearly even in the lowly actions and
the ordinary tenor of His common life and speech.
For example, we are told that after one of His
miracles the disciples put the question, "What
manner of man is this ? " That He was a man
they never doubted, yet ever and anon there was
something which suggested He was more. The
look in His face, the tone in His voice, the work
of His hands, constantly startled them, — made
their hearts burn, and called them to reverence
and homage. He was near them, and yet there
was an infinite separateness ; between the last
touch of familiarity and Himself, a look, a tone
parted them. When they began to feel almost
on a level with Him, some question would humble
them, and open the depths of their ignorance;
some word coming out of eternity made them
wonder if, after all, He was the son of Joseph.
To use a familiar illustration, — A company of men
are gathered together talking without restraint,
and amongst them one higher than themselves
is introduced disguised. The disguise outwardly

14 The Incarnate Saviour.
is complete, and for a time undetected. It is
not long, however, before it is penetrated. And
what discovers it is little — a tone, a glance may
be enough. Even this might prompt the ques
tion, "What manner of man is this?"
We shall find illustrations innumerable as we
proceed. In His first miracle He made wine, and
yet it was not the wine which other men made;
neither was it made after their measure. The
master of the feast, mistakenly speaking to the
bridegroom, gave all unconsciously the true key
note to the life of Christ, when he said, Every
man — but thou. Every man — that is one side,
that is the way of humanity; but thou — every
thing that thou doest, though the same, is yet
infinitely different. And to take one incident
from the end, we read that before His death
He washed the disciples' feet. He took the
towel, and stooped low to this mean act of
service. But side by side with this humbling
of Himself we see the light of His divine glory,
for He took the towel knowing that He was
from God, and going to God. In the supreme
exaltation of His consciousness of divinity He
bent to lowly service, and thus glorified it for
ever; and, were our discernment deep and clear

Introduction. 1 5
enough, we should see about every act Christ
did, and every word Christ spoke, some mark
of divinity, some subtle property that does not
and cannot belong to man. We go over the
beautiful story of His humanity, saying at every
point, " Lo ! this is our God ; we have waited for
Him, and He will save us." Only our blindness
will keep us from seeing in every incident, in
every word, the broad arrow of the kingdom of
heaven, the image and superscription of the Son
of God.
Secondly, we further aim at showing that
Jesus Christ came to suffer in order that He
might save. His life did not begin at Bethle
hem, — He was from eternity. He came into the
world with His life-plan foretold, and moved in
obedience to old and sacred words of prophecy.
His purpose did not gradually lay hold of Him,
it was a complete thought from the first. Many
men grope from littleness step by step into great
ness; but He came into the world with a plan
He never amended. To us each day comes as a
new surprise, and we are at the mercy of events.
To Him nothing came suddenly, and all the seem
ingly unrelated events of His life go together to

1 6 The Incarnate Saviour.
form -one vast unity. We see this most impres
sively when we consider that He came to die.
Other men have their lives interrupted by death,
— other men begin their careers of reform with
hopes of victory and coronation, and though
death often comes to destroy their hopes, it is
a death all undreamt of in their earlier hours.
But to this man death, though it came with all
the accompaniments of horror, was not a surprise
nor an interruption, but the very work which
He came into the world to do. He foretold His
own death in all its circumstances. The state
ment may be passed over unthinkingly, but the
more we ponder it, the more its mystery will
grow upon us. It is the tritest of commonplaces
that no man knows the day of his own death.
Even when it is clear that life is near its close,
the most experienced skill will be baffled in try
ing to foretell the hour of its end. What shall
we say of Him who from the beginning saw
clear before Him that cross upon which He was
to be lifted up, and who, instead of mourning
over that cross as the symbol of the extinction
and defeat of all His hopes and works, o-loried
in it as the sign under which He was to con
quer and to lead His followers on to victory.

Introduction. 17
We shall show in the following pages how
the shadow of this cross lies over all His life, —
how it is impossible to understand that life apart
from it, — how it touches the very cradle of His
childhood, and is never anywhere absent, — how
His whole progress through life is a progress to
the cross. " Where," runs an old Rabbinical say
ing, — "where is the true Messiah to be found?
Sitting at the gate of Rome " (the symbol of the
Gentile world) "among the lepers, binding and
bandaging His wounds." The sign-manual of the
Messiah is that He should suffer.
Thirdly, we endeavor to show the sweet and
perfect accord of Christ's words, works, and
thoughts. We take His preaching, and ask
whether He lived as He preached. We take
His works, and ask whether they were the mere
tricks and feats of a deft conjurer, or whether
they were true impressions of His soul. We fol
low Him into the solitude of the mountain, the si
lence of the garden, the hush of the upper cham
ber, and listen to His communings with God; we
watch all His words, and mark those rare and
precious revealings of His inner nature, which
come from Him now in a strain of sorrow, and

1 8 The Incarnate Saviour.
again in the confidence of sympathy. Into these
windows we gaze to see the working of His
heart. Most reverently, yet most jealously, we
scrutinize all, and we come to see in the end
that all is of one piece. Every other life has
notes that ring harshly. Every disguise men have
ever worn has sometimes slipped off; every mask
has sometimes shown the truth behind it. But
He could have worn no disguise, for with all
our scrutiny we must confess that we cannot con
vince Him of sin, and that only one key will open
the lock of His life. In other words, what He
was in any one place at any one time, He was
always and everywhere; so that though the mir
ror of the gospel history be broken in a thousand
fragments, every fragment yields the same image
of the God-man, the Redeemer of the world.
These points, though not minutely insisted
upon, have been borne in mind all through; and
although this book assumes the truth of the gos
pel history, and is thus not directly addressed to
unbelievers, yet there is an argument, and that
of the most weighty kind, contained in the very
harmony and simplicity of the character traced
in it. Whence came He? What imagination
gave Him birth? Did He rise out of the dis-

Introduction. 19
harmony of a Jewish peasant household? Was
He the product of that eastern soil? or was He
what He claimed to be ? Those who do not admit
the true doctrine of His person and work, are
continually brought to a standstill by astonish
ment. We, too, marvel, but with us the mys
teries are not many. They have been reduced
to one, — God was manifest in the flesh. " Rabbi,
Thou art the Son of God; Rabbi, Thou a,rt the
King of Israel."

CHAPTER I.
W&i Btrtfj atttj ffttfancg of Christ.

'Unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given."

"A child He was, and had not learned to speak,
Who with His words the world before did make;
His mother's arms Him bare, He was so weak,
Who with His hands the vault of heaven could shake.
See how small room my infant Lord doth take,
Whom all the world is not enough to hold;
Who of His years as of His age hath told,
Never such age so young, never a child so old."
(ttt.-f.s Fletchek.
A VILLAGE maiden, of whose previous his
tory we know almost nothing, had the
homely tenor of her life one day strangely broken
by the descent of the angel Gabriel, and his sal
utation, "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the
Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among wom
en." In the midst of her troubled surmisings as
to what the meaning of this salutation might
be, he announced to her that she was to bear
the promised Messiah. She was thus called to
the most awful charge ever laid upon a mortal
(20)

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 21
creature. The call was as overwhelming as it
was sudden and startling. From the privacy of
her obscure life, she was summoned to be the
instrument of the fulfilment of God's greatest
purpose and the accomplishment of God's most
amazing work. She was to be the last link in
the long chain of chosen souls through whom
God's purpose had advanced, and in her it was
to be consummated. In her, man and God were to
be brought into the most inexpressible closeness.
She was to be the human mother of the eternal
Son.1 What consequences were to be involved
in this election none could dream; only, as the
call was great, there must be much to endure,
to surrender, to anticipate. It is idle to try to
imagine what the state of the soul of the maiden
must have been when she heard of the place she
was to fill in the eternal plan. What tides of
fear and rapture, of shame and wonder, swept
through the gentle heart we cannot even dream;
but her answer was one of profound and humble
obedience. She was betrothed to Joseph, and
standing on the brink of a new life at a time
when, if ever, the heart flutters on wide-spread
wings of hope and fear, and excited words rush
1 See Church's Human Life, p. 172.

22 The Incarnate Saviour.
to the lips; but before the holy angel, and with
her heart filled by his great message, there was
neither dejection nor exultation. He came and
went, and she remained in her sweet humility
waiting the fulfilment of the word of the Lord.
That her character was singularly pure, simple,
and religious, is quite apparent. The very fact
of her being chosen to be the mother of the Mes
siah, is proof in itself of that. But it appears also
from the unconsciousness and the gentle greatness
of trust with which she accepted the overwhelm
ing honor that was put upon her. In the thought
of God's presence with her, in the thought of ac
complishing His purpose, all hopes and fears and
loves of her own little life went clean out of
sight. The Lord had magnified her, she was
His handmaid; He might do with her in all
things as He willed.
We read next of her going to Elizabeth, who
was soon to obtain the dearest wish of a Jewish
woman, in having a son. When she stood on
the threshold of her kinswoman's house, she was
received by a joyful salutation, which confirmed
to her the angel's message. Elizabeth's words
of blessing went beyond those of the angel.
Being filled with the Holy Ghost, she said,

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 23
" Blessed art thou among women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb." Thus the angel's
message was confirmed by human voice. What
she had hidden in the deep silence of her trustful
heart, what she had believed, and yet trembled
to believe, was made real by another, and that
repressed still spirit broke forth in words of
song, in which she poured out her praise to
God who had shown His mercy to the humble.
"All generations," she sings in her gladness,
"shall call me blessed," — a true woman's thought
of happiness — blessedness in blessing others. Her
song is the last word of the old covenant and the
opening utterance of the gospel. While retain
ing the form and color of the old Hebrew
poetry, it quivers tremulously with the great
and partially disclosed revelation about to be
given. The hymn, like others that stand near
it, could not have been sung earlier or later.
" Such sunlit mountain-tops in the distance, with
such mists over the paths that lead to them, such
a firm grasp of salvation and redemption, such
a clear view of its character, and such silence
as to its details, can only belong to the thin
border line of a period neither quite Jewish
nor quite Christian. A little less, and these

24 The Incarnate Saviour.
songs would be purely Jewish; a little more,
and they would be purely Christian."1 After
this song was sung, she returned to feel the
beginning of the pain and sorrow that were
to come along with the great honor which
was hers by the divine election. Joseph was
minded to put her away privily. Angels in
heaven, sisters on earth, had been singing her
praise, and how sharp the contrast must have
been of the suspicion under which she now fell
of vulgar sin ! The very tenderness of her be
trothed husband must have made the wound
sharper, but, whatever that wound was, we hear
nothing of it. She yielded herself to the stream
of the divine will, and was guided on by the
current, nor did she depart at all from the spirit
in which she first received her commission: "Be
hold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me
according to Thy word."
Her child was conceived of the Holy Ghost.
"A virgin," it had been written of old, "shall
conceive and bear a son." This miraculous con
ception must form the beginning of any true
estimate of the life of Christ. Either it is fact
i See Bishop Alexander's Leading Ideas of ike Gospels, p. 107
and Mill's Pantheistic Theories of the Gospels.

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 25
or falsehood. If it be falsehood, let it be utterly
repudiated as a baseless and blasphemous su
perstition ; if it be truth, let us recognize it
as a truth of such importance that it is quite
idle to study the life of Christ without taking
it into constant account. For, first, it signifies
that Jesus Christ was more than man. He was
the child of the Holy Ghost. His pedigree is
given to us, and in the long line of His ances
tors we mark the famous, the unknown, the in
famous, bright and dark commingled, but none
of all escaped the universal taint of sin. For
all those years the tyrannical tradition of evil
had never been broken. The sin of our first par
ents had passed on from generation to genera
tion, and each of the millions of mankind had
to say, " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and
in sin did my mother conceive me." Each ful
filled in his life all too truly the sad promise of
his birth. How was this tradition to be broken,
and yet broken by one who really belonged to
the race ? The instinct of man has foreshadowed
the truth. Stories of a virgin birth, here and
there discernible in Paganism, show the deep in
tuition of the human race which was realized
in Christ. He came into the world to fight with

26 The Incarnate Saviour.
sin; He came to redeem a race steeped in a
terrible heritage of evil, and that He might re
deem them He Himself was free from the evil.
Besides, His immaculate conception points to the
fact that He did not come into being then, but
that He was merely manifested. He had existed
from eternity, and now entered into the sphere
of sense and time. How could the entrance of
such a being be marked ? It was marked by
the suspension of the law of nature. He entered
into the world a true man, and yet by a way
never used before or since.
Again, this child was born into the world with
a distinct mission. Before He came He was
named by the angel, "Jesus." His name was
called Jesus, because He was to save His peo
ple from their sins. When He lay in the cradle
His destiny was written upon His brow. Other
children are mysterious enigmas, to be solved
by the progress of time. It is a bold thing to
foretell any child's future. Children of the rich
have died poor; children of many prayers have
become earthly, sensual, devilish. But this child
was born to fight with sin, and to conquer it.
All that He spoke, all that He did, was to relate

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 27
to sin. He thus challenges our intensest scrutiny
from the first; and, knowing the issues that de
pend on His behavior, we may well gaze on
it with an agony of earnestness. For He must
not only come untainted into the world, but,
from the time He draws His first breath to the
hour when He commends His spirit to the Father,
He must resist every assault, escape every pol
lution of evil. One evil thought dimming but
for an instant the crystal clearness of His soul,
and all is lost. The Saviour from sin must be in
all battles, great and small, the conqueror of sin.
We read that Joseph and Mary were summoned
by an edict of the Emperor Augustus to travel
the hundred miles that lay between Nazareth and
Bethlehem, to register their names. Though peas
ants, they were of the city of David, and belonged
to Bethlehem. When they reached the inn, after
their long journey, they found it crowded, and
were fain to take refuge in a corner of the inn
yard, that would otherwise have been occupied
by beasts. At the period of her life when even
poverty strains itself to provide its utmost of com
fort and even luxury, in her hour of trial, in the
midst of strangers, and without womanly hand
to help her, the virgin mother brought forth her

28 The Incarnate Saviour.
first-born son, and wrapped Him in swaddling-
clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there
was no room for them in the inn. The noise and
bustle of the world surged on around them, and
none but Joseph and Mary knew that the Messiah,
the Saviour of the world, had been born of the
carpenter's bride.
But the revelation was soon given from heaven,
and given to some humble, simple souls, spirit
ually akin to the virgin. The angels told the
glad tidings of great joy to a company of shep
herds on the plains of Bethlehem : '• Unto you is
born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be the
sign unto you: You shall find Him wrapped in
swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger." The
deep token of the divine presence was not a
glory in earth or heaven, — for God's thoughts are
not as our thoughts, — it was a helpless babe and
a manger cradle. Nor is this out of analogy with
the rest of His life. He came to identify Him
self with the race of simple, fallen, straying men.
He came to put on our nature, not in its orna
ments or embellishments of rank, or wealth, or
culture, but as it was in its poorest and humblest
experience and conditions. So it was fit that He

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 29
should come in such a fashion that none are
poorer, none humbler, none less noble after the
flesh than He. The earthly conditions were of
the lowliest. It was the mark of the Messiah
that they should be so; yet through all the low
liness the glory shines.
For to that humble cradle and that young child
there came not the shepherds alone. It had been
foretold that kings should come to the bright
ness of His rising, and this word was fulfilled
in the coming of the wise men from the East.
They toiled across the desert to adore Him. Their
homes were probably in Parthia, and they be
longed to the caste of Magi, who represented
the wisdom of the Eastern world. They were
looking for a deliverer, as men were at the
time, from the East, and, like all sincere and
humble seekers, they were favored with divine
guidance. They were led across the long space
by a star, which they gazed at and followed day
by day and night by night, till at length they
found themselves in the sacred city Jerusalem.
From Jerusalem they were guided to Bethlehem
by a star, which went before them till it came and
stood where the young child was. In their trust
ful simplicity they were not repelled by the appar

30 The Incarnate Saviour.
ent lowliness of the King. They believed in Him,
and worshipped Him, and gave gold, frankincense,
and myrrh. They fell down, not examining their
Lord curiously as an intellectual puzzle, but feel
ing that they had reached in Him the very centre
and source of being. He had come, not only to
be the glory of His people Israel, but to be a
light to lighten the Gentiles, and these Gentiles
who came to Him in His cradle were first of all
the long line of the nations that were to receive
His illumination.
These righteous, waiting souls are the type of
those who, true to the light they have, and seek
ing more, are not denied the boon. Like Cor
nelius and the eunuch of Ethiopia, they were,
as it has been phrased, flowing gently along in
the channel where they were overtaken by the
waters of grace.1 Those who follow the lights,
the stars, of God, find that they brighten, and
do not cease till they have guided to the Sun.
They are also a type of the kings, not of
earthly descent only, but as well of mind and
heart, who are drawn to Christ. Jesus Christ is
the true "Master of those who know"; and if
He has found many of His best and steadiest
1 J. E. B. in the Patience of Hope.

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 31
friends amongst the humble, as He did among
the shepherds, He has drawn also from the wis
est and the most noble. Poetry, eloquence, learn
ing, have been devoted to His service; nor has
He missed some tribute of the precious things
of the earth. The gold, frankincense, and myrrh,
and more especially the undoubting simple wor
ship, were a grateful earnest of the offerings to be.
On the eighth day after His birth He was cir
cumcised, — made under the law, entering into the
covenant, and having His name inscribed in the
roll of the nation. Soon after, He was taken to
the Temple. There was nothing to the super
ficial observer in the sight; but when the Lord
of the Temple suddenly came to His house,
He did not miss a welcome. Poor people have
brought the offering of pigeons and doves. An
old man and woman, who seem to have over
passed the period of useful service, and to be
fit only for death, come forward to receive Him.
This is all the world sees, and it negligently
passes on. But to the eye of faith there is here
the coming of the rightful heir, in disguise of a
stranger, to visit His own house; and His aged
saints have been waiting long to receive Him.

32 The Incarnate Saviour.
Simeon, the aged man, has received the promise
that he should not see death till he has seen the
Lord's Christ. If he received the promise early,
what a strange, charmed, expectant life he must
have led ! He could not die, no matter what dan
ger threatened, till Christ had been seen. But
the years passed, and his hair grew white, and
his step tottered as he entered the Temple, and
his companions dropped at his side, and he won
dered why he was so long kept out of heaven.1
Anna, the prophetess, had dwelt in the Temple
nearly all her long life, departing not from it
night nor day. One thing she had desired of the
Lord, that did she seek after, that she might
dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of
her life, to behold the beauty of the L,ord, and to
inquire in His Temple; and she did behold the
beauty of the Lord at last, when the young child
was carried in. It was revealed to the aged pair
that this was the Messiah, and they lifted up
their voices in praise, and felt that now they had
nothing to do but die. Happy souls that saw
Him thus, and passed away before the years of
trial came!— happy souls, whose dream was not
¦ It is a fair inference from the narrative that Simeon was
an aged man.

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 33
broken by the storm and tragedy of His later
life ! Taught by the Spirit, they may have had
a deeper and truer fore-glimpse of Christ than
many; yet to foresee and to bear are different
things, even when the sight is clearest; and they
may well be counted happy, who, with the assur
ance that Christ was come, and fresh from the
joy of holding Him, fell asleep, " spared the trial
of finding Him at last unfold to a form at vari
ance with their dream." Others were to live, and
the sword was to pierce their hearts: they died
unwounded. " A sword," said Simeon, speaking by the Holy
Ghost to the young mother, "shall pierce through
thy own soul also." It was not long before she
felt its keenness. Herod, the pi'ince of the coun
try, then in his old age, tortured with disease
and remorse, had heard that Jesus was born,
and sought to find from the Magi where He
was. Warned of God in a dream, they did not
return to tell him, and in his fury he sent his
soldiers to murder the babes in Bethlehem, but
Jesus was gone. He had been taken down into
Egypt by the command of God, to be there until
the danger was over.

34 The Incarnate Saviour.
We see already, then, the mingled humility
and greatness of Christ, His Godhead, and His
manhood ; we see already the shadow of the cross
lying over' the cradle. We see Him set for the
fall as well as for the rising of men, and for a
sign that shall be spoken against. He comes
into the world as God emptied of His glory so
far as that could be, and yet with His divinity
clearly manifested. The wise men adore Him ; He
has to flee into Egypt. He comes to suffer, and
the suffering begins with His life. The chastise
ment of our peace is upon Him from the very
first. The flight to Egypt not only saved Him front
the murderous malice of Herod, but also served
to secure the true human development of His
life. If He had remained in an atmosphere of
portent and wonder, a true natural growth would
have been impossible; but by this break, what
ever there was of wonder or surmise had time to
die down, and, when Joseph after Herod's death
returned to dwell at Nazareth, all was forgotten,
and He grew up in the humble home as the *
child of the carpenter and his wife.1
This is not the mere history of the past; it
1 See Note A.

The Birth and Infancy of Christ. 35
touches us livingly. A mediaeval preacher1 be
gins a sermon from the text, " Unto us a child
is born; unto us a son is given:" — "And thus it
is that we know Him to be born, because He is
given. For His birth would avail us nothing
unless He were also our own; and He would in
vain be made the Son of man unless it were
given to us to become the sons of God. Behold
how Jesus is offered to us; hasten to meet Him;
stretch forth your hands, make ready your affec
tions, prove your devotion by acts as well as
words." The kingdom of heaven could not be
set up among men without affecting profoundly
and radically their whole circumstances. Since
He came, and spoke, and died, the world has
had to reckon with a new agent, that is to dis
turb as well as calm, to cast down as well as
raise. Joseph and Mary are disquieted; Herod
trembles on his throne; the babes of Bethlehem
die, and the air is rent with their mothers' cries.
Such are the prefigurations of the revolution made
in the world by the coming of Jesus Christ.
1 Guaric.

CHAPTER II.
Stsus as a CJjito.

"I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy
testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the an
cients, because I keep Thy precepts."

"Good father,
Which of the angels do they miss in heaven?
Ofttimes at mass I press him close, and tremble,
To the sweet voice, lest at ' in excelsis '
He should remember, and go back.'- Sydney Dobell.
THE records of Christ's childhood are tanta-
lizingly brief, and the efforts which have
been made to supplement them are useful mainly
as a foil to them, showing how unequal is the
human imagination to such a task. Jesus grew
up in a humble home. He shared the lot of His
reputed father Joseph and His mother Mary.
They dwelt in Nazareth, an obscure and petty
village, inhabited by a wild and rough people.
We have already traced faintly the beauties of
the character of Mary, and Joseph in his humility
and righteousness was a fit husband to such a
wife. There were other inmates in the home,—
(36)

Jesus as a Child. 37
Jesus had brothers and sisters. He grew up,
therefore, under the most healthful influences.
In a soft atmosphere of love He received the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. He was
not learned, — not a proficient in the studies of
the Scribes. But the Old Testament was familiar
to Him ; He knew it in Hebrew, as we find from
His after quotations. The language which He
spoke was either Aramaic, a provincial and north
country dialect, or Greek, the language of educa
tion, and the vehicle of the greatest uninspired
thought of the world. And although Nazareth
was so little favored in its inhabitants, it was a
place favored with the choicest influences of
nature. There is.no place in Palestine even yet
that is haunted by flowers as Nazareth is. It lies
in a dell surrounded by hills, and one hill, of some
five hundred feet high above the village, gives
one of the most magnificent spectacles in the
world, — a spectacle on which the eyes of Jesus
must often have rested with rapture. We may
suppose also that Joseph taught his reputed son
the rudiments of his trade, and thus the quiet
years wore on.
Jesus Christ might have come into the world

38 The Incarnate Saviour.
as a man full grown, but He condescended to
come as a child, and to undergo the endearing
changes by which the. infant passes into a child,
the child into a youth, and the youth into a man.
There was in Him a changeless element that was
divinely faultless, but there was also a changing
element by which He was developed. As has
been remarked, we have ' no stories of His pre
cocity, and the imagination of man has failed to
conceive any that can be accepted as even pos
sible. An acute thinker has observed that our
anxiety to have anecdotes of the childhood of
great men, rises from our desire to be confirmed
in the belief that great achievements come from
great gifts, and are not possible except to those
who have been exceptionally endowed from the
beginning. However that may be, we are told
nothing of the childhood of Jesus, save the inci
dent we are now to consider. He grew in knowl
edge, His knowledge not being of many books,
but of one book. He also grew in wisdom, a
very different thing from knowledge.
"Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection; knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men-
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.

Jesus as a Child. . 39
Knowledge, — a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds, —
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber when it should enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more."'
Thus the days passed, and found Him increas
ingly in favor with God and man.
When He was twelve years of age, the sole
recorded incident of His childhood occurred. His
parents went up to the Temple. They left their
homes to go to Jerusalem and offer the paschal
sacrifice. They had no fear to leave all behind,
for enemies were kept from the land while they
were away. Neither were they afraid of Arche-
laus, in spite of the memories of the murderous
intent of Herod. They resolved to go, and to
take Jesus with them. Women were not actually
bound to go, but devout women like Hannah and
Mary would count it a privilege and not a bur
den, and would be all the more willing to render
the service because it was not actually enjoined.
We can perhaps conceive something of the
feelings of Jesus in view of the feast. He had
1 Cowper.

40 The Incarnate Saviour.
been brought up in that humble village; His
view of human nature, although clear, would be
restricted, and there would be in Him a noble
curiosity to see human life in a great centre.
His mind was just opening, far from being dulled
as yet to the wonders and the great surprises of
living ; and we may conceive how this child would
anticipate the sight of men,— the sight of places
with whose history He had been long familiar,
and, above all, the sight of that Temple which
was the house of God. At twelve, like other
Jewish boys at the same age, He entered on a
new division of life. He became a child of the
precept, and, after being examined in the sacred
books, was bound to a man's obedience of the
law. We are able to follow the pilgrims in imagin
ation. Their road was haunted by wild beasts
and banditti. For defence they kept together,
and as they journeyed they sang, their songs
being probably the fifteen psalms after the 119th.
They would sing among the Arab tribes, "Woe
is me that I sojourn in Mesech, and dwell in
the tents of Kedar." When they escaped the
troops of their foes, they would sing, "My soul
has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the

Jesus as a Child. 41
fowler.'' When they were journeying in cheer
ful accord, they sang, "Behold how good and
pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell to
gether in unity." Jesus would take part in the
songs, and understand their meaning; and we
can imagine how His soul was thrilled with mem
ories, when He saw the Jordan and these other
scenes that made the stories on which His child
hood had been nourished so real. But above all,
when Jerusalem came in sight, and the pilgrims
shouted, " I will lift up mine eyes to the hills
whence my help cometh" — when the mass of
the great temple, white on its uplifted rock, fell
upon His eyes, what must His feelings have
been ! Never was any city of earth loved so
dearly as Jerusalem, whose name is thus fitly
applied to the city on high, which is the mother
of us all. And when He arrived at Jerusalem,
He would not merely be impressed by the nat
ural sights, but He would feel His soul drawn
out by the sight of the great multitude of dif
ferent countries who thronged the streets of the
city. Hundreds of other nations had become
proselytes to the Jewish religion, and were
gathered there to render homage to the one
God. How would the Son of man feel, behold-

42 The Incarnate Saviour.
ing for the first time this realization, broken and
imperfect though it was, of the unity of human
ity in God ! How must He feel in the conscious
ness that in Him the sundered hearts were to be
gathered into one !
In Jerusalem, some who came up to keep the
Passover were accommodated in private houses,
and paid as the price of the accommodation, the
skin of the lamb and the utensils they employed
in cooking. Often, however, every place being
crowded, they had to dwell in tents outside th»
walls of the city. If so, Joseph would have gone
probably with Jesus to the Temple to kill his
Passover lamb. Jesus would see the blood gush
ing into the golden cup, and thrown at the foot
of the altar of burnt-offering. Then came the
return to the tent with the carcass of the lamb
and the preparation of supper, at which at least
ten people had to be present. First the lamb
was roasted, being thrust through with skewers
of pomegranate wood, and then put into the midst
of a red-hot oven. Afterwards would be placed
near at hand a plate of unleavened bread, an
other of bitter herbs, and a vessel containing a
thick sauce made like clay, to remind them of
the brick-making in Egypt. Before the lamb was

Jesus as a Child. 43
eaten, Joseph would take the cup of red wine,
of which all drank. The lamb was then placed
before Him. The second cup of wine was filled,
and some child — it might have been Jesus —
asked the head of the house, "What mean ye
by this service?" The story was then told of
the deliverance from Egypt. The bitter herbs
were a remembrance of the bitter bondage, and
the unleavened bread of the haste in which the
nation was thrust out. The 113th and the 114th
Psalms were then sung. Then the lamb was
carved and eaten. Wine was partaken of once
more, and the 115th, 117th, and 118th Psalms
were then sung. What must the Lamb of God
have felt, listening and looking on in the pres
ence of all this !
When all was accomplished, and they had re
turned home, it was found that Jesus was lost.
It was customary for all the men to travel by
themselves in one company, and all the women
in another, the boys travelling either with father
or mother. This may explain why He was lost.
Or it may be explained by supposing that such
confidence was put in Him, that it was not
thought needful to seek Him, or be troubled
about His absence at first. He had gone to the

44 The Incarnate Saviour.
Temple, and was found there among the doctors,
both hearing and asking them questions. It was
not wonderful that He should be there. The
seven days of the paschal feast were not enough
for Him. He began to burn with that zeal for
God's house which afterwards consumed Him.
One day in these courts was better than all the
thousands that had gone by in Nazareth. He
was led to the Temple by His love for knowl
edge, and made acquaintance there with the
great movements of thought. Ideas existing in
germ burst then into flower. We need not sup
pose that there was sudden and disturbing de
velopment. The child grew, and the language
in which He speaks to His father and mother
is not that which would follow upon a sudden
thought, but rather upon one long familiar. But
He would learn in the Temple not merely from
the words spoken, but by the sights He saw, and
by the songs in His ears. The Temple music, the
Temple service, would remind Him of His true
home in heaven, where praises arise continually,
and where worship is continually offered. The
chord struck in His nature vibrated sweetly and
solemnly. He felt that this, and not the cottage
of the carpenter, was His Father's house.

Jesus as a Child. 45
The crises, if we may so call them, of the de
velopment of Christ's thoughts and plans cannot,
I think, be decided with the materials at our dis
posal. This much we may say with some confi
dence, that there was nothing to disturb His true
humanity. We do not suppose that He became
conscious in the Temple for the first time of His
sonship and of His commission, for there is a tone
of recollection in the words He speaks; and, be
sides, there would be something inconsistent with
a normal development in so sudden and startling
a revelation. Neither do we suppose that as a
babe on His mother's breast He was conscious of
all that He had come into the world to do, for
that also would be to violate a true conception of
His nature and of ordinary development. Noth
ing more can be said, than that He grew in wis
dom and stature, and in favor with God and
man ; that the germ was there at the first,
and steadily grew to its fulfilment.
His father and mother sought Him among His
kinsfolk and acquaintance. Says Bishop Hall:
"The parents of Christ knew Him well to be of
a disposition not strange, nor sullen and Stoical,
but sweet and sociable; and therefore they sup
posed He had spent the time on the way in com-

46 The Incarnate Saviour.
pany of their friends and neighbors. They did
not suspect Him wandered into the solitary fields,
but when evening came they go to seek Him
among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. If He
had not wonted to converse formerly with them,
He had not now been sought amongst them
Neither as God nor man does He take pleasure in
a stern, froward austerity and wild retiredness
but in a mild affableness and amiable conversa
tion." He was different from His kinsman John
the Baptist, who was nourished in the desert till
the day of his showing forth unto Israel. He
grew up in the home — in the shop with His
father, in the house with His mother, in the
neighbors' cottages winning their hearts — sweet
and sociable as a child, even as He was when a
man. We find Him in after life mixing freely
with people of all classes and conditions, frequent
alike in scenes of joy and sorrow, and the child
was father to the man.
After three days they found Plim. Even as
He was lost three days at the end, so it was at
the beginning. And He was found at last among
the doctors. The pure and eager young face had
been seen among the circle of the sages. He
had been asking them questions, for He was

Jesus as a Child. 47
anxious to learn. What kind of questions they
were we may conjecture readily. He was asking
them about the meaning of that word to whose
mysteries they professed to have the key; but
He was teaching them, waking new trains of
thought, throwing new gleams of light among
those old students; as it is written, "I have
more understanding than all my teachers, for
Thy testimonies are my meditation. I under
stand more than the ancients, because I keep
Thy precepts." He had meditated, He had kept
the word, and so those grey-bearded listeners
were thunderstruck at His understanding and
answers. "I have learned," said one, "much
from the Rabbis my teachers; I have learned
more from the Rabbis my colleagues; I have
learned most of all from my disciples."1 When
His parents came in, the child would move to
them, and it is noticeable that His mother speaks
first. He belonged to her rather than to Joseph,
and she says, " Why hast thou thus dealt with
us? Thy father and I have sought thee sorrow
ing," or rather, "tormented." The sword of proph*
ecy was again piercing her heart, — the sword that
she had felt when she had to hasten with Him to
1 See Plumptre's Christ and Christendom, p. 100.

48 The Incarnate Saviour.
Egypt, but whose sharpness she had time in those
tranquil years to forget. She feels it in all its
keenness: they were tormented, tortured with
anxiety. " How is it," He replies, "that ye sought
me? Wist ye not that I must be in my Father's
house?" There is no regret, not even sympathy
with their anxiety, but rather a mild rebuke that
they did not know, as they might have done,
where He was to be found. " Wist ye not that
I must be in my Father's house ? " 1 — a gentle
reminder also that Joseph was not His father,
but that God was. This question shows of what
nature the unrecorded questions must have been.
He says in effect, You might have known that I
would not be found admiring the outward show,
that I would not have sought the haunts of pleas
ure, that I would not have deserted you for
any place but this. How early the keynote of His
life was struck ! How different was His childhood
from other childhoods ! What pathos there is in
the thought that He took hold of realities so soon,
having little space for laughter and for joys, and
beginning His Father's work at twelve years of
age ! Of our childhood we may all say,
1 That this is the true rendering, is forcibly argued by Dr.
Field in a note in Farrar's Gospel of St. Luke, p. 368.

Jesus as a Child. 49
"Unthinking, idle, wild, and young,
I talked and laughed, and danced and sung."
But how soon the awful shadow fell upon His
brow! And yet, although His parents did not
understand Him, and although He had gained
full comprehension of His destiny, He went down
into Nazareth, and was subject unto them. He
went their messages, did their work, humbled
Himself, as if this episode at Jerusalem had
never been. Between His mother and Himself
there was the true love that is built upon rever
ence. She reverenced Him. " She kept all those
things, and pondered them in her heart." She
knew the awful secret of His birth ; and although
the thought of His greatness had been somewhat
obscured by her long ministrations to the weak
ness and helplessness of His childhood, it could
not be forgotten again; it had been brought to
mind too sharply for that. After this crisis in His
history He went home, and lived in peaceful soli
tude in the silence of the retired village,
"Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone."
The great use of this incident is to teach that
Jesus Christ from His earliest years was conscious
of His purpose. Without such a record as this

50 The Incarnate Saviour.
we might have fancied that the consciousness of
His life-work began with its execution. We are
taught that it was not so, and that the years of
silence were spent in consciousness of those
powers which were to be exercised in the brief,
intense years of His public ministry. He was
developed by the influences of home, of nature,
of the Holy Scriptures, and, above all, by the
Spirit of His Father working in Him.

CHAPTER III.
Wift Silent gears of Sesus, ano ttje Silent
Builoing of tlje temple.

"There was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard
in the house, while it was in building."

" There is a day in spring,
When under all the earth the secret germs
Begin to stir and glow before they bud;
The wealth and festal pomps of midsummer
Lie in the heart of that inglorious day,
Which no man -names with blessing, though its work
Is blest by all the world." M. S.
THERE are no fewer than eighteen years of
the life of Christ of which we have no
record, except what is contained in the words,
" Is not this the carpenter ? " It was said in His
public life, "Never man spake like this man;"
but we, with the Temple story fresh in our mem
ory, may well say, " Never man kept silence like
this man." We know what He could do, and how
He could teach, and yet the whole history of His
(51)

52 The Incarnate Saviour.
doings and teachings for these long years is
summed up in the one word "carpenter." This
strange silence reminds us of another strange si
lence. When the Temple of Solomon was being
built, it grew silently: from the hands of the
workmen who were gathered together, not a
sound was heard. The Temple rose
"As Ilion like a mist rose into towers."
Jesus Christ likened Himself to the Temple. He
spake of the Temple being destroyed and raised
in three days, meaning thereby the temple of His
body that was to fall in death, but to be built
again fairer in the resurrection. And it is written
in ancient prophecy, that He should sit a priest
upon His throne, and build a temple to the Lord.
So perhaps we may connect the two silences, —
the silent growing of Solomon's Temple, and the
silent years of Jesus. Perhaps the old builders,
who had so much reverence in them, if we may
judge from their work, thought that the noise and
hammering, that might be fit enough for ordi
nary work, did not beseem the building of a
holy temple to the Lord, which should grow, like
the works of God's own building, in solemn silence.
The great thought then before us is that Jesus

The Silent Years of Jesus. 53
grew in silence. Not merely the eighteen years,
but we may say the whole thirty years, was a
time of profound, hardly-broken silence. God's
house was being built there, down at Nazareth,
in the stillness.
We may consider the silence in three aspects.
It was a time of restraint, a time of growth, and
a time of preparation.
1. It was a time of restraint. We might have
said suffering, for in one sense the word would
be true, but the other word perhaps expresses
the truth more nearly, — a time of self-denial, a
time of obedience, manifesting itself in various
ways. And, first of all, it manifested itself in the
poverty of Jesus. Joseph was a carpenter in a
provincial village, and Jesus shared his lot in life.
They did not live in abject poverty; still they
were poor, with nothing to spare for luxuries
and superfluities, and nothing, probably, to store
up for the future. Jesus in His after life looked
a sterner poverty in the face, but He was poor
now. There is a peculiar fitness about this. Je
sus Christ came to save the world, and, under
any conceivable condition of things, poverty must
be the lot of the great majority of human beings.
It is so now; it probably must be so forever.

54 The Incarnate Saviour.
In Israel, the poor had a recognized standing
in the national system. They were never to
cease out of the land. "The poor ye have with
you always." It is not needful that men should
be abjectly, miserably poor. Most, if they will,
may escape from that, but the rich must always
be few; and so for the great mass, it is much
to be able to go back to the home at Nazareth,
and to remember that Christ and His relations
were poor people, with the associations, the
habits, the feelings, and the sympathies of the
poor. He learned from actual experience what
the limited dull life, lived day after day with
little change until the last change of death,
means, and by this He was prepared for the
great work which He came to do. The motto
of His ministry, read in the synagogue at Naz
areth, was : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because He hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor." When He went into the
synagogue, He had the roll of Isaiah delivered to
Him, and, disregarding the lesson for the day,
as He had a right to do, He unwound the roll
from the cylinder until this passage appeared.
He read it, and then declared that that day the
Scripture had been fulfilled in their ears. The

The Silent Years of Jesus. 55
Galilean peasants who formed the listeners were
of that class, and His words were for them.
Poor men were His first disciples, and the grace
of His example is specially seen in this, that
"though He was rich, yet for our sakes He be
came poor, that we through His poverty might
become rich." Those years at Nazareth would
teach Him the needs of the poor. He would
learn their sore struggles, their many tempta
tions. He would know how hard it is for those
whose strength is spent in the endeavor to gain
bread, to think much of things unseen. He
would perceive also how almost inevitably self-
respect tends to disappear under the hard, bru
talizing conditions in which many led their life.
Nazareth, small though it was, seems to have
been notoriously wicked, and from the very be
ginning He would have opportunities of observ
ing closely the misery, the ruin, and the shame
of sin. He would learn also the proclamation
of religion which poor people need, — as a relig
ion which must satisfy the heart, and not make
too great a demand on the understanding. The
poor need religion, not as a material for specula
tive enterprise, but as a friend which can help
them along the road of life and through the

56 The Incarnate Saviour.
great change beyond it.1 "For them life is al
ways real, — its hopes, its misgivings, its joys, its
heart-aches, its catastrophes, its dim sense of the
seriousness of being where and what we are, and
of the possibilities before us, are quickened by
poverty. The poor man, if religious at all, must
believe in One who is no less an object of affec
tion and obedience than the most awful and sub
lime of intellectual truths." He learned the les
son well, for the common people heard Him
gladly. The poor had the gospel preached unto
them, and received it. The Church of the apos
tles was the Church of the poor. It was, as has
been said, the reproach and the glory of apos
tolic Christendom, that it first won its victories
and then lavished its blessings chiefly among
the poor. To win the poor, Jesus spoke in par
ables and in simple sayings, and with deep sym
pathy; and if there is in the Christian Church
now a want of feeling for the poor in their de
pressed multitudinousness, — in the great mass
where the individual seems lost, — there has been
a departure from the example and spirit of Christ.
Again, He was a laboring man, working, as
the majority must always do, with His hands. It
1 See Liddon, University Sermons, ii. 283.

The Silent Years of Jesus. 57
is quite impossible to evade the conclusion that
He was a carpenter; and it is very probable
that He must by His labor have earned the liv
ing of the humble household. Joseph seems to
have died early; and Christ, as the oldest in the
household,1 would take upon Himself the burden
of their maintenance. So He toiled there pa
tiently at the carpenter's bench for many years.
Why He chose this particular trade we cannot
explain, further than to say that it was natural
for Him to follow the occupation of Joseph.
Allegorizers have suggested that in that labor
He had continual occasion to ply the rule to
judge what was right and straight, and that He
was thus prepared for laying judgment to the
line, and righteousness to the plummet. But
the suggestion seems far-fetched. More impor
tant it is to note that He glorified common toil,
and that He made mean the contempt in which
the idle and those who work with the brain
are too prone to regard those who labor with
their hands.
Once more, He was obscure. The more fame is
the object of ambition, the greater must be the
1 Not necessarily the oldest, but there is a considerable prob
ability. See Plumptre, Epistle of St. James, p. 14 and foil.

58 The Incarnate Saviour.
number of those who are excluded from it. From
its very nature, eminence can belong to but few,
and the rest must live simple, hidden and unno
ticed lives. He was content to live in that way,
and so gives comfort to those who have no con
spicuous position, who reached their place early,
and who will never rise above it, and whose
names will never travel beyond the very limited
sphere of their home and work. He taught us
that a great and noble life may be lived in ob
scurity, unnoticed and unpraised in the busy
world. There is a lesson for those who seek to
do great things and who despise little things.
To do little things well may be to do great things.
At least many who can do the great fail in the
little. Peter said he could die for the Lord, but
he could not keep awake for Him in the garden.
Quiet things are those that in the long run win,
and the quiet things done in obscurity and pov
erty may be ennobled and consecrated by the
example of Jesus Christ. There are some who
are so impatient of their obscurity, that if they
cannot have fame they will have notoriety. But
how different He was ! How He restrained Him
self! lie saw everything going wrong. Amidst
the scene .of evil He would see passions running

The Silent Years of Jesus. 59
wild, and men's lives wrecked by their sin. He
would hear God's word and God's mind misinter
preted, yet He kept silent till God's time came.
He waited for the call; and though He grew in
favor with men, and wound Himself in a strange
fashion round their hearts, it is a singular thing
that He was not marked as different from others.
His brethren did not believe in Him. He was not
even known as the strange son of the carpenter.
He lived as others did; and when He came for
ward to do His work, those who had been all His
life familiar with Him wondered as much as the
strangers. They said, "Is not this the carpen
ter?" We must remember that in these things
He is more immediately our example than He is
in the rest of His life. We cannot do the work
of His public ministry, — we cannot speak His
words, do His miracles, or endure His sufferings;
but we are called upon to follow Him in quiet,
toiling, humble, unconspicuous lives. So we miss
much, if, in the thought of the public life of
Christ, we forget the private life, which is a les
son for us even more, because it comes nearer us.
2. This period was a time of growth. As has
been said, there are no materials in Scripture for

60 The Incarnate Saviour.
very definite propositions as to the development
of Christ. We know that there was an element
which could not change, and another that was
mutable. The growth was not an apparent de
velopment, but a real development. The point
we specially note, however, is that He grew in
silence. There is noise in building, but silence
in growth. He grew as the flower grows, that
turns its face to the sun, and travels all the arc
after the light, and lets the rays pour into it till
its broad disc grows broader and broader. He
drank in the sunlight of God's presence — of His
countenance. Ears of fairy fineness have been
fabled to hear the flowers growing at midnight,
but this is but fable, for we never heard growth.
The great works of God grow in silence. Jesus
grew as the old Temple grew, in silence of fitted
stones. As the new building fitly framed to
gether groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord,
so He grew in silence. We may learn that if
we are to grow in grace we must be silent. If
the Church is to grow, it must be without boast
ing and contention, by drinking in quietly the
light of the face of God. In the glaring publicity
given to the affairs of churches — the parades of
statistics and the clatter of machinery  there can-

The Silent Years of Jesus. 61
not be much true growth. When we hear loud
noise and ostentatious boasting, we may remem
ber that the kingdom of God cometh not with
observation, and that for the most part true prog
ress does not come in that way. Hankerings after
great demonstrations, to which the world will
turn its eyes, show a misapprehension of true life;
and what is true about the Church is true about
the individual. Not in publicity, but in retire
ment and silence — in desert places — the spirit
and teaching of Christ must be drunk in, if there
is to rise a spiritual building of a holy life hid
with Christ in God. Jesus Christ grew strong
amidst that silence; and if we feel that we are
not growing, let us ask ourselves whether we
need rest and quiet, and whether waiting upon
God would not renew the weakened and ebbing
life. 3. This time was a time of preparation. The
body and the mind were being prepared. Con
sider how the body must have been strengthened
for the work He had to do under the sweet in
fluences of nature, and the pure and healthy life
that He lived. He was being fitted for the awful
strain of His three years' ministry. When we

62 The Incarnate Saviour.
remember how He toiled, we see that only a
pure and uncontamiuated body could have borne
the weight of the effort. In these thirty years
at Nazareth He was made strong for all that
He had to do and endure. "Virtue," He said,
when the woman touched Him, "hath gone out
of me." For three years strength was continually
going out of Him; but for this expenditure He
was prepared by the long season of repose. Not
only was His body prepared, but His soul also.
He learned the word of God so thoroughly that
it became part of Himself. He learned the ways
of men, for He must have been observant at all
times. He increased in wisdom and in favor
with God and man. At last, when the long
time of preparation was over, the summons found
Him ready, and His readiness is proved by the
whole record of His ministry. " What a long
foreground you must have had for such a start!"
said one writer to another who had published
his first book late in life. So there was a long
foreground, but it was a foreground for the three
years' ministry.
These eighteen years of silence must have been
lived, for they could not have been imagined.
Exactly the reverse would have been the pro-

The Silent Years of Jesus. 63
duct of human imagination. He who had so
wondrously impressed the teachers of Jerusalem,
would remain there, and take, sooner than any
had ever done, the highest place amongst the
sages. He would work wonders, and His life
would be filled with memorable deeds and words.
That is how we should have imagined it, but
God's plan was that He should wait eighteen
years in a wise passiveness.
It was a time of preparation, and we are able
to trace what He prepared for; but if we do not,
we need not suppose that the time was lost.
Many seem, so far as we can see, to prepare all
their lives for the uttering of one sentence — the
doing of one deed; and others — a far more nu
merous class — seem to prepare all their lives for
a work that never comes. Through slow, dull
years they toil on, and die without having an
opportunity for doing any great deed, or speak
ing any life-giving word. Has the time of prep
aration been lost ? No, because there is an
eternity beyond. Had Moses died away in Mid-
ian, would his life have been thrown away ? No,
for there is an eternity to work in. Many will
die, and their life will have been a time of prep
aration for higher service which never came,

64 The Incarnate Saviour.
and we are inclined to say life is lost. But so
long as there is a whole eternity in which to de
velop the preparation of time, that should never
be said. A deep lesson for life to most of us is,
that the great achievements are to be done not
on this side, but on the other side of death.
Nowhere does faith show itself more clear and
victorious, than in one who goes on to the very
end laboriously cultivating every power, although
no outlet for exercise is visible. To be irritably
and fretfully anxious for a field in which to dis
play one's talent, is to fail in trust. The calm,
unsoliedtous endeavor after the perfection of our
nature, and the committal to God of the instru
ment when it has been tempered, to use where
and when He pleases, is a noble achievement of
faith. And so, if we are relegated to obscurity,
or compelled to be passive when we are willing
to be active, and when we think our instruments
are ready, let us spend the time not in fretting
but in preparing, — in strengthening our wills,
kindling our inspirations, cultivating our facul
ties, — and then, when the word falls upon our
listening ears, we shall be ready to say, "Here
am I; Thou hast called me at last, and I am be
fore Thee with all my powers and my oppor-

The Silent Years of Jesus. 65
tunities." Jesus Christ spent eighteen years at
Nazareth in silence. The result of them was, —
"a few years of action, but of action concen
trated, intense, infinite. Not one word, not one
deed, which did not tell, and which will not tell,
upon the universe forever. Eighteen years of
silence, and then the regeneration of the world
accomplished, His Father's business done!"

CHAPTER IV.
3olm Baptist ana tfje Baptism of Cfjrist

"Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a
greater than John the Baptist: nevertheless he that is least in the
kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

"He the last star of parting night,
And we the children of the dawn."
WE are justly suspicious of summary judg
ments on so complex a thing as a man's
life and work. Human life and character are so
mixed and mysterious, that we do not care to
have the secret of a man's history packed into a
neat epigram. But of John the Baptist we have
a brief judgment passed by the Master and the
Judge of souls. "Among them that are born of
women," said He, "there hath not risen a greater
than John the Baptist: nevertheless he that is
least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than
he." Here we have an anticipation of the judg
ment-seat, and here we have also some justification
of our suspicion of human judgments, for neither
in one part of the judgment nor in the other do
(66)

John Baptist and the Baptism, of Christ. 6j
we find what we should have expected to find.
There are men in history whom we should be
inclined to place higher than John ; and certainly
we should shrink from saying that the least and
humblest believer was greater than he. But the
judgment of Christ is our unerring guide, and,
after glancing at the history, we shall dwell upon
what it tells us of the greatness and littleness of
John the Baptist.
In the first period of John's life we find him in
the wilderness, weary of the hollowness and un
truth of the world. He went into the desert to
commune with his own soul. During that period
his mind had intimate converse with the prophets
of the old covenant. The marks of their influence
and that of the desert scenery appear prominently
in his after teaching. He was not alone in the
desert in vain. Away from the deceit of man, he
found truth at last. The whole truth was not
disclosed to him, but a message was given which
he might with certainty communicate to his gen
eration. The message once gained, he could not
waste it on the desert air. He had to pay the
debt he owed to his kind. The word burned
within him; he was weary of forbearing, and
could not stay; and, without taking time to adapt

68 The Incarnate Saviour.
his ways and speech to the polished uses of so
ciety, this strong son of the desert presented him
self before the startled Jews, and proclaimed that
he was the forerunner of the /Messiah, and that
the Messiah was near at hand — even at the door.
It is in accordance with the way of God to
guide history by a gradual process, — to give men
indications of His coming work and will. Streaks
herald the dawn, and the dawn the day. The
long line of prophets had foretold the coming
of Jesus, but still the day lingered, and their
voices had become silent. Time, however, had
not ceased to flow, and time brought with it the
coming of Christ. When He was near, John was
appointed to give warning, and to tell them that
the Saviour, whom -they had long looked for, was
at last nigh.
He had to tell them, further, that they were
not ready for His coming. Their life, unreal and
sinful, must be thoroughly reformed before they
could meet the King with welcome. The King
was coming to lay His axe to the old Jewish
tree. He came with His fan in His hand thor
oughly to purge His floor, and to cast the chaff
into the fire. " Repent ! " was the message of. this
stern prophet,— a message not addressed to one.

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ. 6g
or to a class, but to all, — a message which urged
a reform that went much deeper than the out
side, and involved, indeed, an entire revolution
of the inner nature; "Repent, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand."
Most men who can speak directly and sincerely
to heart and conscience, find an unhoped-for read
iness of response, and that often in the most un
likely quarters. To one like John, whose sin
cerity Was so undeniable, who had won the
truth he taught with such earnest struggle, a
welcome was given so enthusiastic that it must
have surprised himself. His uncompromising de
nunciations of sin did not awake hostility, but
drew around him even the proud Scribes and
Pharisees. He did not lower his message for his
hearers, but urged upon those who thought they
had touched perfection in their obedience to the
law, their need to flee from the wrath to come.
Hollow sick hearts found him, as they always find
a man who is content to speak the true word of
God ; and how deep the heart-sickness was which
then oppressed the nation, may be judged from
the fact that the whole region went out to the
desert to him, confessing their sins. Many would
have been drawn by the news of the approaching

70

The Incarnate Saviour.

footfalls of the Messiah, but besides that, there
was the deep sense of sjn and unworthiness which
he had awakened in their spirits.
But though he could indicate the disease and
make it felt, he could not cure it. He could only
say, "Repent!" He baptized, indeed, but his
baptism was with water. He could not reach
down to the inmost defilement and take it away.
The water was a fit emblem of the cold, un
satisfying, ineffectual character of his ministry,
just as the fire with which Jesus Christ baptized
was an emblem of the warming, searching char
acter of His. After Jesus came, John proclaimed,
" Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the
sin of the world." That these words have a ref
erence to the Old Testament idea of the suffering
Servant of God, cannot reasonably be disputed.1
After the intense agony of the wilderness, Christ's
appearance, as well as the story of His self-abne
gation, would bring to mind the afflicted Servant
of the 53d chapter of Isaiah. But the words were
a special inspiration in special circumstances; and
it is clear from the subsequent narrative that the
two conceptions of Christ; — as the sufferer and
the judge— were never harmoniously adjusted in
i See Reynolds' John the Baptist, p. 376, and Westcott in loc.

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ. 71
the Baptist's mind. This witness to the atoning
Lamb he was not long allowed to bear. He was
the herald of the dawn, but the new kingdom to
which he pointed he did not enter, and he could
not fully comprehend.
In the last period of John's life we find him
in the court of Herod. Here he underwent the
real trial of his life. In the air of the desert,
amid the free winds of heaven, and beneath the
open sky, he might well bear an undaunted wit
ness; but when his chain less spirit was taken
into the enervating atmosphere of a court, his
dangers greatly increased. Will he, we ask, turn
out a mere court preacher, like those with whom
history has made us only too familiar? Will he
trim and abate his message to suit kingly ears?
Will he wink hard at kingly vices ? Nay, verily ;
to Herod he was like an incarnate conscience.
The vicious, weak, dissolute king, not yet un-
visited by better impulses and higher promptings,
viewed him as a just man and a holy, and ob
served many of his injunctions. One darling vice,
however, he could not surrender. He was liv
ing in an incestuous connection with his brother
Philip's wife, and the voice of the stern preacher
would not cease saying, "It is not lawful for

72 The Incarnate Saviour.
thee to have her." Systematically to disobey
conscience in one injunction, is to disobey in
all, and the words, "It is not lawful for thee
to have her," ringing constantly in the ears of
Herod and his guilty paramour, made life un
bearable. So he did what many a one has done
before and since, he tried to muffle his conscience,
— not, at first, to extinguish it entirely. He put
John into a dungeon, where his protest could
not be heard in the banqueting halls of the
castle. Still, muffled though the voice was, it
sometimes made its way into the ears of the
guilty sinners. Just as conscience comes some
times to an abandoned man in breaks and pauses
of revelry, and speaks then more stingingly than
it used to do when he talked with it hourly, so
Herod would, in spite of himself, be drawn some
times down the dismal stairs to where the prophet
was lying, and come back with his heart pained .
and trembling, as never before,. — come back with
a gloom that reflected itself in his guilty consort,
till at length she resolved that this voice should
be silenced forever. So in one night of mad
revelry the king promised to give to a dancing
girl whatever she asked, even to the half of his
kingdom. At her mother's prompting she asked

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ. 73
the prophet's head, and the king, though he was
exceeding sorry, — for no man murders his con
science willingly, his conscience being part of
himself, and the murder a suicide, — yet never
theless he gave consent, and John was beheaded
in the dungeon. The maiden brought her fright
ful gift under the glaring lights: Herod gazed
on the accusing face, and knew that he had
killed his conscience. Henceforth he was not
troubled, except by spectral fears. He could
meet Jesus without a blush, and ask Him about
many things. But to Herod Jesus observed a
boding, fateful silence, for to those who have
slain their conscience the lips of the Incarnate
Word are forever locked.
The greatness of John the Baptist is announced
in striking and emphatic words by our Saviour.
None of all that went before was greater than
he. His greatness appears mainly in his cour
age. There is no virtue so popular as courage.
No men win the heart of a nation as do its de
fenders by land and sea. Names like Wellington
and Nelson stir the blood of the people as the
names of statesmen and men of letters never can.
This admiration is often misplaced. Courage —

74 The Incarnate Saviour.
mere courage — is frequently nothing more than
brute insensibility to danger, — an insensibility
which refined natures often do not possess. Still,
overrated as the virtue may be, the popular in
stinct is not wrong, for true courage reposes
upon very deep qualities. John's courage ap
peared in his championship of truth. He did
not palter with the truth to gain the hearts of
men. He did not shrink from telling the most
self-righteous of his hearers that they were a
generation of vipers. To king and to Pharisee
alike he called "Repent!" and to both he asserted
the sovereignty of God's immutable law. He was
true in pointing on to Christ. He himself was
not the Christ, but a voice that announced His
coming. Men were not to look upon him and
see in him a pretender to faultless virtue. They
were to give heed to the message, looking away
from the imperfect messenger, who was not
worthy to unloose the shoe latchet of the Per
fect One who was coming. In spite of all temp
tation to arrogate to himself more than was
rightfully his due, John continued to deny that
he was the Christ, and to affirm that he was not
fit to be compared with the Christ.
This courage reposed, first of all, upon faith.

Joh?t Baptist and the Baptisjn of Christ. 75
The Lord Jesus, summing up His life, emphasized
this. "John," He said, "was not a reed shaken
by the wind," — the stormy wind of popular fury,
or the milder but not less dangerous breezes of
popular applause. His belief was not a hearsay
creed: his soul built upon real truths. He knew
that Christ was before him, and that Christ was
to come as the perfect and accredited messenger
of God. He knew that all men before Christ
were guilty, and that all needed to repent. From
these faiths nothing could move him away.
Again, his courage reposed on independence.
To be dependent on the world is to be afraid of
the world; but he was content to live on what
the desert could afford him. From man he
needed nothing, and sought nothing. He was,
our Lord says, not luxurious, —not a wearer of
soft clothing, — but a hardy child of nature. He
owed the world nothing but the truth, and fully
and boldly did he pay that debt.
And yet more, he was disinterested. He might
have reaped earthly fruits of his work, but he
did not seek to do so. He might have founded
a school, and his disciples were disappointed that
he did not. He might have asserted with a par
tial and temporary measure of success his claims

yQ The Incarnate Saviour.
against the rising ascendency of Christ, but his
words were, "He must increase, but I must de
crease." He was a prophet, and more than a
prophet, for he was a baptizer. Still he knew
that his preaching and baptism were unsatisfying
and incomplete, and he pointed on to One who
could baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
This deep, well-grounded, dauntless courage and
disinterestedness won the warm admiration of
Christ, who declared that of all the great ser
vants of God that had gone before, none was
greater than this prisoner of Herod.
If we were puzzled by the first part of the
judgment, much more are we perplexed by the
second : " He that is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he." " What ! " we say,
"is it possible that the weakest Christian in the
Church — and how weak such an one may be
each may know — is greater than John the Bap
tist?" "Yes," we must reply, for this is not a
question of nature but one of grace. The life
of the new kingdom is such that it infinitely
ennobles the receiver. John was the last star of
the departing night. We are the children of the
dawn, and the dawn has made us greater than

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ, fj
he. He could point men on, but he could not
enable them to attain. His system was terror,
but terror is transitory while the evil day lingers.
He was always outside of the kingdom, rejoicing
in- its coming, but never entering it.
He wanted the life of the new kingdom. His
life is a very sunless one. There are few lives
that inspire a deeper compassion. He was, like
Moses, led to the threshold, and died there.
At the last he sent the question to Christ: "Art
Thou He that should come, or do we look for
another ? " The question was more than the
mere result of despondency. It is true that
the child of the desert was confined, and that a
morbid weariness may have had much to do with
it. But Christ's grave reply shows that there was
something more. There was a radical misconcep
tion of the nature of Christ's kingdom. The king
dom, as preached by Christ, was good news; as
preached by John, it was awful news. John
spoke of a Judge coming to discriminate and pun
ish ; Jesus, of a Father who was ready to receive
and pardon the guiltiest. John missed in Christ
the axe and the fan of which he had spoken.
He looked for Christ to do the work of aveng
ing and judging, and lo! no weapons were seen

78 The Incarnate Saviour.
in His hands, and His voice was not one of termor.
Therefore it was that John asked whether He
was the Messiah ; and therefore it was that Christ
recited His gentle works, and declared of John
that the least in the kingdom was greater than he.
The life of the kingdom, as we have said, en
nobles the least member of it. A statue may
be polished with consummate skill, till the marble
seems nigh to breathing; but the most shapeless
product in the kingdom of life is greater than the
greatest achievement of the sculptor. So the least
Christian who has received the life of the king
dom of heaven is greater than John.
Besides, he wanted the power of the new king
dom. He did no miracles, — he did no outward
miracle, and no inward miracle. He could not
change the heart,- or baptize with the Spirit.
Greater things than outward miracles could the
disciples in the kingdom of heaven do through
the power that rested on them, but that power
did not come to him.
If John cannot be compared with the least in
the kingdom of heaven, much less can he be com
pared with the Master of that kingdom. The two
come together in a very striking way. What
their relations were in early years we cannot tell.

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ. 79
It is probable that John knew Jesus, though he
may not have met Him for many years. John
was baptizing by the river, and when Jesus ap
proached him a voice within whispered who this
peasant was, and he saw in an instant how wide
was the gulf between Him and the others who
came to be baptized, — nay, between Him and the
baptizer. But Jesus made His purpose knowD,
and said He would be baptized, because it be
came Him to fulfil all righteousness. He did not
disclaim the homage that John paid Him, — He
never disclaimed homage, however great, — but
He declared that the head and representative of
the people should prepare their way. He was to
die for them, and to bear the weight of their
sins, and He would identify Himself with them
in their most humble experiences. So He went
down into the water, — not, indeed, to be cleansed
by it, — rather as an old writer says, to cleanse
it;1 and the divine voice declared: "This is my
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He
descended into the water, just as He submitted
in His early years to the Jewish law. His be
ing baptized was part of His humiliation. Jesus
pledged Himself to the fulfilment of all righteous-
1 See Keim, ii. 274-276, and Note B.

80 The Incarnate Saviour.
ness on behalf of the race whom He had come
to save, and the divine Spirit was given to Him
to prepare Him for the rest of the work. He
had the spirit before. Here it was given to Him
with a new richness to equip Him for the new
functions He was now to perform, and in His
strength He went forward.
It might be pointed out that Christ is com
plete, while John was incomplete. Christ was
the centre of truth, yea, the truth beyond which
we cannot advance. John was but the vestibule
into the temple. John was conscious of imper
fection, and pointed from the messenger who was
human, to the message that was divine. Jesus
came not merely to preach the gospel, but to be
the gospel, and challenged the strictest scrutiny,
both of Himself and of His message. John, for
all His unfaltering boldness, erred and doubted.
Christ made no mistake — no retractation. John
died as a victim — the victim of a lustful woman.
Jesus died as a priest; no man took His life
from Him. John's death did nothing for the
race; Christ's death saved the race. There was
no story of the resurrection of John. His grave
was the end of his school. When the disciples
laid in the tomb his awful and headless dust.

John Baptist and the Baptism of Christ. 81
they gradually disorganized. Jesus died and
rose again, and by His resurrection drew His
disciples together. All are unsatisfying and in
complete save Christ. We ascend till Ave come
to Him; further we cannot go.
Such a life and death as John's cannot be ex
plained without the faith of immortality. His
life, viewed from an earthly standpoint, was a
complete and dreary failure. But his death was
an escape from the twofold prison — the prison
of Herod and the prison of his own doubts —
into wide and utter liberty. It was an entrance
into the kingdom of heaven, where that king
dom is realized in its purity and completeness.

CHAPTER V.
®f)e temptation of Cijrist

"To him that over cometh will I grant to sit with me in my
throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father
in His throne."

"The day when he, Pride's lord and man's,
Showed all earth's kingdoms at a glance
To Him before whose countenance
The years recede, the years advance." Rossettx
THE temptation of Christ followed His bap
tism, and must be viewed in connection
with it. When God gives armor, He soon puts
it to the proof, and so the strength given at the
baptism was soon tested in the wilderness. The
first Adam fell from the garden into the wilder
ness, and so in the wilderness the second Adam
takes up and wins the battle. He was led by
the Spirit into the wilderness — led by the good
Spirit to be tempted of the evil. "The spirit,"
says Mark, "driveth Him into the wilderness," —
an expression we may fairly take as showing how
(82)

The Temptation of Christ. 83
great is the pain of temptation, and how Christ
shrank from it. Temptation is not to be avoided
by flying into solitude, for there the Lord met
with the evil spirit.
Into some difficulties connected with this sub
ject we do not intend to enter, simply because it
does not appear that there are materials for the
solution of these problems. That there is a per
sonal devil, and that he was the agent in the
temptation, we assume as the plain teaching of
Scripture, confirmed by many mysterious passages
of life. It has been well said that though the
devil may be expelled from theology, he cannot
be got out of the world, so marred by traces of
his work. We do not attempt to explain how
the sinless Christ could be tempted. We assume
that a sinless manhood can be tempted, and fur
ther, that to a sinless nature temptation must
come from the outside, and not from within; and
thus we find it here.
1. The first temptation, "If Thou be the Son
of God, command that these stones be made
bread," was addressed to Jesus after forty days
of fasting. During these days He had been sus
tained, not by the power of His divine nature,

84 The Incarnate Saviour.
but by the great rapture of spiritual gladness
which upbore Him. When these had passed, He
was torn by the pangs of hunger, and here the
temptation of Satan comes in.
" If Thou be the Son of God." After the man
ner of the tempter, he makes the truth problem
atical. He disparages the Sonship of the Saviour.
As in Paradise he had said, " Yea, hath God said,"
so now to the hungry, weary Christ he says, " If
Thou be the Son of God, command that these
stones be made bread." The stones to the sick
eyes of a hungry man had the shape of loaves,
and one word from Him would have turned them
to food. Why was the word not spoken? Be
cause, if He had spoken it, He would have undone
His incarnation, by drawing back from the lot of
the race with which He had identified Himself.
He would also have shown a want of trust in
the divine providence, that was able to feed Him
without His using any miraculous energy. "Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by everything
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He
did not care to assert His Godship then. " Man"
he says, " shall not live by bread alone." Bread
can feed man, because God made it so ; but if God
pleased, He might make the bare wind of the

The Temptation of Christ. 85
desert a banquet. Jesus has meat to eat that
the tempter knows not of.
We may view these separate temptations, first,
as illustrating the identity of Christ with His
brethren; and, secondly, as showing the nature
of the temptations wherewith He was assailed all
His life. Leaving the second use to be considered
afterwards, let us see how this first temptation is
presented to us by the tempter in our own lives.
To make bread may be called the life-work of
most, and in the effort we are assailed continually
by satanic suggestions. Thus, if I give up my
convictions, it will open the way to a lucrative
position. Tricks of trade would help me; my
rivals use them, and if I do not I must perish.
I must live. The answer is, There is no need that
a man should live, but there is need that he should
be righteous. He will not die if he trusts in God.
Man lives by everything that proceedeth from
God's mouth. The old answer of Jesus Christ
is enough for us in the hour of temptation, which
comes, we may say, to all. Again, man is some
times destroyed by his very blessings. Bread is
abundant, and he needs nothing more. That staff
is broken; and instead of being destroyed he is
saved, for it is then, and not till then, that he

86 The Incarnate Saviour.
begins to live upon God. We may even extend
this, aiid say that this temptation illustrates all
those that come under the description of the
apostle, "the lust of the flesh."
2. He was taken next to the holy city, as Mat
thew describes it, the city so dear to the Jews,
and to the most sacred place there, — to the Tem
ple, and to the pinnacle of the Temple. It was a
masterpiece of Satan to take him there. If He
had yielded there, it would have been a defeat
indeed. We learn to take care of places that seem
secure. This was the most unlikely place for
temptation, and yet there the enemy was busy.
With steady foot and wary eye, and the heart
braced for conflict, do we need to tread even in
those places where we expect Satan least.
He was tempted to presumption : " If Thou be
the Son of God, cast Thyself down." The tempter,
as if he had learned a lesson from Christ's quota
tion of Scripture, quotes Scripture himself. " Cast
Thyself down," he says, "and Thou shalt drop
into the soft arms of waiting angels who have
charge to keep Thee." He left out the words,
" In all thy ways." The way downward from
the Temple was not a way of God, and in that
way there was no promise that He should be

The Temptation of Christ. 87
kept. Arguments from Scripture are the best or
the worst of arguments; and how we should use
Scripture, we are taught by Jesus when He says,
" It is written — It is written again." By com
parison and balancing we learn the truth. " Thou
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God; " which means,
Thou shalt not idly put God's friendship to the
proof; Thou shalt not rush needlessly into dan
ger; Thou shalt not rashly undertake great en
terprises before thou art sent. " Cast thyself
down ! " There is no sin that is not voluntary.
The tempter could bring Christ to the pinnacle
of the Temple but he could not cast Him down.
Jesns would not tempt the Lord His God. He
withstood in the evil day, and having done all
He stood. This temptation is illustrated in our
experience by our frequent incitements to pre
sumption, to foolish hazarding, and to needless
testing of God's promises. When it was pro
posed some years ago to test the reality of God's
answer to prayer in the healing of the sick, the
Lord our God was tempted. Men apparently find
it difficult to see the sin as it applies to God.
They can understand it very well in the lower
planes of human life. When one friend puts the
friendship of another to needless and cruel tests

88 The Incarnate Saviour.
and strains, such conduct is justly resented. And
why? Because it shows a want of faith in the
friendship. A friendship really trusted would not
be so tried. All these experiments on God, these
rash misreadings of His promises, spring at bot
tom from a want of faith. Calm trust in God
does not need nervously to prove Him; it rests
in settled peace.
3. The last temptation was the worst of all.
The two stood together on a lofty peak, with
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory
of them spread beneath them. Satan, arrayed,
we may conjecture, like an angel of light, stood
in his majesty beside the worn and weary Christ,
and pointed to the glittering glories around, —
all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of
them ; and all were to be His if He would kneel
for a moment and worship, — one touch of the
knees upon the snow, and the power would be
His own. We do not understand this tempta
tion if we suppose that Christ was attracted by
the outward glitter and show. He saw from the
mountain the misery of the world, — hearts beat
ing under the sway of the evil prince, to whom
the world had been delivered. God's love was
abused or unknown, God's best gifts were work-

The Temptation of Christ. 89
ing evil. And Satan said, " This is in my power,
for these things are delivered unto me." He
does not dare to say more than the truth. He
was not prince of the world by victory — only by
sufferance. This influence he held by the tenure
of God's will. And now he says to Christ, "If
thou wilt worship me, Thou shalt have the rule.
Thou shalt stanch all wounds, dry all tears, heal
all suffering, repair what I have done so much
to waste and ruin; and more, Thou shalt have
all this sway in a moment." Christ sought this
dominion. He was to die to gain this dominion ;
but instead of the sorrowful way of the cross, a
new road that would bring Him instantly to the
end is pointed out. This was the strongest and
the most wicked of the temptations, and was re
pelled with awful violence: "Get thee behind
me, Satan." There is no argument here; the
moment was too terrible a one for fencing. The
attack is made and repelled, and the temptation
is over.
For Christ the way to kinghood lay through a
deep valley. The shortest way to the kingdom
is not the best. Through much tribulation we
must enter the kingdom of God.
The lesson for us is, that influence for good

90 The Incarnate Saviour.
may be bought too dear. The desire to have
more power to wield for God in this world —
nay, to reach out with longing to the time when
we shall sit on the right hand of the Son of God —
is not base but noble. Only to these great things
we must ascend by God's own ladder, and to climb
any other way is to change the lofty ambition to
a vile appetite. The happiness of any heaven
must, it has been well said, consist in certain
inner voices. Wherever conscience is compro
mised with for any gain whatever, the gain turns
out worthless. An eternity of usefulness bought
by one moment of sin is bought too dear. Many
acquire wealth unlawfully, and seek to wipe away
the sin by a noble beneficence. Others gain rep
utation by dishonest means, and try to quiet their
consciences by using the influence for Christ.
But it is in vain. They have fallen down to
Satan to gain the kingdom, and so the kingdom
is valueless. The temptation is a very subtle one,
and it must be repelled with absolute and instant
rejection, as Ave see that Christ repelled it.
The devil leaveth Him for a season. His fiery
darts were all quenched and blunted, and the
adversary fled. What is the force of these words,

The Temptation of Christ. 91
— for a season ? Some consider that they signify
the assault at the close of His ministry, when He
was tempted in the garden. But it is far more
in accordance with the facts of His life to read
the words as referring to the continual battle of
His life. He Himself, as we have often occasion
to remark, lets a deep silence brood for the most
part over His own inward experience; and thus
it was necessary, perhaps, that we should have
two such distinct and strongly-marked scenes of
temptation as the conflicts in the Avilderness and
in Gethsemane. But in one of the deeply instruc
tive revealings of His inner life, He says to His
disciples, " Ye are they who have continued with
me in my temptations." "My temptations:" that
is the description of His life. There was not a
temptation at the beginning and at the end, and
a clear space betAveen, but the battle was fought
all through His life. And if there be proof, or
rather record, awanting of it, that does not make
it less terrible, for mortal struggles are waged
often in grim silence. His last word, " I have
overcome the world," tells how sharp the strife
had been, which is remembered even in heaven,
as He speaks to His militant Church, and tells
them that they shall overcome " even as I also

92 The Incarnate Saviour.
overcame." "As on some battle-field, whence all
traces of the agony and fury have passed away,
the harvests wave and the larks sing where blood
ran and men groaned their lives out, some grave
stone raised by the victors remains, and only the
trophy tells of the forgotten fight, so the monu
mental word, ' I have OA^ercome,' stands to all
ages as the record of the silent, life-long conflict."
We may trace, although imperfectly, how the
devil returned and plied Him with the same
temptations all His life through.
1. He was tempted all His life by bodily pain
and privation. Imaginative reverence tends to
soften the sharp angles of truth, and makes us
forget that Jesus Christ was poor. He had noth
ing that He could call His own, and when He
died He left nothing behind Him but His seam
less robe. He had said, " Lay not up for yourselves
treasures on earth," and He had obeyed His own
precepts. There was no secret hoard hidden from
the keen eye of Judas the treasurer. He was
hungry, and sought to feed Himself from a fig-
tree by the way. He was tired, and He slept in
the fishing-boat. He had nothing to pay His
tribute with. And when He was to reply to the

The Temptation of Christ. 93
captious question of the Pharisee, He said, "Bring
me a penny." He had nowhere to lay His head
in life or in death. It was a borrowed grave in
which He took His short sleep. He Avas there
fore plied incessantly with the temptation to make
Himself rich amidst all those treasures which a
word from His lips could have unlocked. But He
never did so. In His poverty He did not cease
to be God. The very examples of His poverty
which we haA^e quoted, have definite and strange
marks of His divinity. He stilled the storm from
the boat Avhere He had been sleeping, with the
wooden pillow beneath His head. He burst the
bonds of death, and came out of the borrowed
grave a conqueror over the last enemy. But
provide for Himself He did not, and He would
not. As a commander iii a famine-stricken city
refuses exemption from the lot of his fellow-
soldiers, so our Leader and Commander refuses
to listen to the solicitudes of His need, and hved
and died poor. A great thinker, we are told,1
was especially pitiful to those who sinned from
the pangs of poverty and hunger. Such sin might
be excused if any sin could be. We could un
derstand that, and the more easily in the case
1 Foster.

94 The Incarnate Saviour.
of one who had once been rich. He was rich
once — with an amplitude of wealth we cannot
comprehend. He needed not ever to have been
poor. Stones would have turned into bread at a
word from Him. But for our sakes He became
poor, and remained poor, that we through His
poverty might become rich.
2. Again, there was a temptation to use His
supernatural power. He had taken the resolution
neither to court danger in reliance upon superhu
man power, nor needlessly to free Himself from it.
And we find instances of this in the sequel. For
example, when His enemies sought to kill Him,
He quietly departed. He did not suffer them to
touch Him. And how merciful was this, for, had
they touched Him before the time, they would have
fallen dead as they did Avho profanely handled the
ark of God. No one could take His life from Him ;
but when His time came, He surrendered Himself
to the human Avills that so blindly destroyed Him.
But until then He was safe ; yet not safe by undue
use of His divine poAver. When Peter took Him
aside, and said, "Be it far from Thee, Lord: this
shall not be unto Thee," He replied, " Get thee
behind me, Satan," treating the Avoids of the apos
tle as another suggestion of the baffled spirit.

The Temptation of Christ. 95
3. Again, He rejected a false Messiahship, ac
cordant with the worldly spirit of Judaism, in
favor of an inward kingdom to be developed by
the power of the divine Spirit. All the kingdoms
of the world, and all the glory of them, were to
be His at last, but He would not grasp His scep
tre too soon. When they sought to make Him a
king by force, He left them and went into soli
tude. It was better to be alone than to be the
creature of such creatures. He would not please
His disciples by taking a temporal kingship,
which they should share in Jerusalem. He be
comes King by dying. His cross is His throne.
His cross was at once the intense superlative of
all temptations and the final answer to the tempter.
When He died, His feet like fine brass bruised the
head of the great enemy of mankind.
In conclusion, Ave do not forget that He had to
wrestle with the evil one at the end. The strug
gle was one of peculiar intensity. He was tried
by pain, as He had been aforetime by pleasure.
His consistency was tested by agony of body and
mind. But as He had OA^ercome the tempter at
the first, so He overcame him at the last. Still
this does not lead us to forget that He Himself
describes the space between the wilderness temp-

96 The Incarnate Saviour.
tation and the temptation at the end as "my
temptations." Not "my sorrows," "my difficul
ties," "my pains," but "my temptations." His
virtue was not cloistered and untried. It was
subjected to the hottest fire of the struggle, and
came out unscathed. He was victorious in the
end; and yet how significant it is, that when
He describes His life, it should come before Him
as " my temptations " ! l
1 See Note C.

CHAPTER VI.
Elje ©oject ano Claims of €\fxist

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

"He did not come to judge the world, He did not come to
blame;
He did not only come to seek, — it was to save He came:
And when we call Him Saviour, then we call Him by His
name. " Doka Gbeenweli,.
THE object of Christ was defined in different
ways by Himself, but ultimately is per
haps most fully expressed in the saying : " The
Son of man is come to seek and to save that
which was lost." In the apostolic Church the
saying was current in this form: "Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners." Who first
expressed it so we cannot tell. Like many of the
most beautiful things and thoughts, it is the
work of an unknown soul. It immediately found
welcome, and was passed from mouth to mouth,
and lodged in memory after memory. At last
the apostle took it up and indorsed it with his
W)

98 The Incarnate Saviour.
authority, declaring it to be a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation. We take it as an in
fallible guide in teaching us the purpose of the
eternal God, entering into time and submitting
to the bonds of flesh.
The description of man, as lost, claims our at
tention first. Lost means lost to God. God had
lost man, and He was grieved by the loss, — how
deeply grieved we should not have dared to im
agine, had not the Saviour Himself explained it
in three of His most touching parables. Man was
missed by God as a shepherd misses one sheep
out of a hundred — as a woman misses one silver
piece out of a little hoard of ten;1 or, to put
it more adequately, as a father misses his younger
son in a house where there are but two. Man's
fall is God's loss. In another aspect man's fall
is man's sin. The sin of man in wandering from
God is depicted in the very darkest hues. It is
a mark of a revelation from God that it does not
extenuate the guilt of sin, or minimize the awful-
ness of its consequences. He who came to save
sinners was He who spake the most terrible
things of sin. Further, this wandering from God
1 The small intrinsic value makes the emblems a better type
of the despised publicans and sinners.

The Object and Claims of Christ. 99
not only involved God in loss, but also the soul
in loss. To be absent from God was to be dead.
That was not hfe which was lived away from
righteousness, truth, purity, and all high influ
ences that flow from heaven. Such a life might
be quick and energetic so far as earthly interests
and aims were concerned, but this very activity
only served to throw into darker relief its dead-
ness to all great ends and issues. Man had
sinned, man was lost, man was dead in tres
passes and sins.
But, strict as His judgment of sin was, and
fiery His indignation against it, He did not
give a despairing view of it. He taught that
deep as were the misery and ruin into which
man was plunged by sin, he might neverthe
less be saved from them, — yea, brought to the
very height of purity and perfection. He might
vrin all that he had ever lost, and more. There
is nothing more striking than the way in which
the Bible describes the disease and shame of
sin, and then calmly fronts the question how a
being so marred and degraded can be restored.
Further, He taught that it was worth while to
save man whatever the expenditure might be;
for man, however far he had wandered, had still

100 The Incarnate Saviour.
the image of God. As one may read the sacred
writing of an old manuscript beneath all the
disfiguring inscriptions of later days, so Jesus
saw in the soul of the meanest Syrian slave,
through all erasures and blots, the stamp of
God. He never shared in the view, to which
there is so much to incline us, that man is too
sinful and too insignificant to be Avorth the pains
and the effort of God. The lost thing was pre
cious enough to bring Him down from heaven
that He might save it. He came to seek and
to save that which was lost. He came into the
world that the world through Him might be
saved. Accordingly He gave no place to the
distinctions of race. As He Himself stood above
the national and secular peculiarities of His place
and time, as He wras a foreigner in no land, but
a citizen of every tongue and kindred, — the Son
of man, — His heart was not bounded by any of
the separating walls which confine us. Rank and
wealth were nothing to Him. Before His eyes
nothing was common and unclean. He came not
to save a particular race, but a Avorld. So large a
thought conceived and expressed at a time when
great ideas were unfamiliar, and little provinces
of human love and trust were rigorously mapped

The Object and Claims of Christ. 101
out, — such a thought was divine. The father
seeks the salvation of the family, the citizen of
the city, the patriot of the country; but the Son
of man came to seek and to save the whole world.
This largeness of sympathy was fully consistent
with the most loving individual regard. He did
not love the world without caring for the indi
viduals of the world. He loved man because He
loved men. He had special friendships. He as
sociated Himself with special members of guilty
and degraded classes. His love was the aggre
gate of personal attachments, and each object of
His love is regarded with a solitary affection as
true and as heedful as though there were none
other in all the world to share it.
When He addressed Himself to the salvation of
the lost, He did not do so by ignoring the great
problem which had to be solved. He did not con
tent Himself with improving the condition of
society. Nothing has done so much to raise so
ciety as the work of Christ. But that taken
alone was not His object. He did not lower the
standard of divine holiness; indeed, He elevated
it far higher than ever it had been raised; and
yet He did not repel men by its exhibition, but
so showed it as to make men enamored of good-

102 The Incarnate Saviour.
ness. He did not address Himself to the cul
tivation of mind, for the highest enlightenment
may be present along with entire spiritual ruin.
Nor was He content even with improved conduct
and better feeling. Nothing would satisfy him
short of the weakening and the ultimate expul
sion of the power of sin. The plague of the
heart, the one real evil and deep disease of hu
manity, the rebellion against our Lord and God,
— these He dealt with; and the expulsion of them,
and the subjugation of the will to Himself, was
the aim short of which He could not be satisfied.
The bound Avill had to be liberated from its
chains, and made to obey Him who was its right
ful King. This great surrender was faith in
Himself. The soul that once trusted Him was
back in the old true way. It had ceased from
straying, and was returned to the Shepherd and
Bishop of souls.
Before this union could be accomplished, — be
fore His purpose of mercy to the race could be
realized, — He had to die. It is this which sepa
rates Christ so widely from every human teacher.
Death comes to all men as the mark of weakness,
failure, and guilt. But how could it come to Him
who was the Son of God ? Death comes to other

The Object and Claims of Christ. 103
workers to end their work, but to Him it came
as His work. We shall miss entirely the whole
meaning of the life and death of Christ, if we
take His death as an incident which might have
been averted, and which He hoped to avert.
He came into the world to save sinners, and for
their salvation it was needful that He should die.
Men were to be saved by faith in Him, but the
object of their faith was to be the Son of man
lifted up. He- was not torn in pieces, by ventur
ing in a rash moment too near the whirling wheel
of the world's evil. He saw the end before Him
from the beginning, and might have shunned it
had He so pleased; but to shun it would have
been to leave to their doom sinful, straying men.
This has always been an enigma to the world.
When the Jews saAv Him nailed to the cross and
in the hold of death, they judged His claim to be
practically settled. Even His own disciples, when
they saw Him in the tomb, abandoned their
hopes. "We trusted," said they, "that it had
been He who should have redeemed Israel." He
Himself shrank from death with all the natural
shrinking of a pure and vigorous human nature;
but He distinctly recognized that not to die was
to be barren,— to abide alone, — and that death

104 The Incarnate Saviour.
would be as the falling of a corn of wheat into
the ground, which, dying, bringeth forth much
fruit. How His death was to be thus fruitful, we do
not at present attempt to explain. The fact to be
insisted on is, that He freely willed to die for us.
His life was not taken from Him whether He
would or not, but by the free will of His love and
pity He gave Himself up that we might be re
deemed. Further, He declared Himself to be the only
source of life. He did not stand side by side Avith
other ministers and channels of grace. He did
not allow His teaching to take a place as one form
out of many, but declared that He had a monop
oly of truth, that He had the secret of salvation,
that there was salvation in none other, that
though human modes might affect the fate of
man in this world, nothing could really influence
for good the hereafter, save faith in Him. The
high charity that brought Him down to give
light to them in the shadow of death, made Him
declare that His light was the true light, and that
all others would fail and go out; that to save man
Avas to restore him to God in this life, and to
begin that purification which would be completed

The Object and Claims of Christ. 105
in the other life when God would be seen face to
face. To be lost to God was a state which greAv
steadily darker and more painful amongst the
eternal issues beyond the grave. To be won to
God was to enter a state of happiness Avhich would
broaden and deepen into eternal bliss. Men were
to be won to this state by all that He said and
did, but the great instrument of their gaining was
to be the Cross. So we may say indifferently, the
Son of man came to save sinners, or the Son of
man came to die for sinners. How near the sal
vation of men was to His heart, may be seen from
His Avhole behavior. His rare joys rise from see
ing this end in some measure accomplished.
Much of the shadow of His life falls from the un
belief of men. The immense and fatal abuse of
God's love and gift, — the great and affecting fail
ures to obtain salvation, — wring from Him often
cries and bursts of pain. "Many are called, but
few chosen." " Strait is the gate and narroAv the
way that leadeth to life, and few there be that
find it."
We come next to speak of the claims of Christ.
These are manifold. We select a few for com
ment. He claimed first of all to be equal Avith
God. The ground on which He was condemned

106 The Incarnate Saviour.
to die was His assertion that He was the Son of
God. He claimed to be the Son of God in a
unique sense, and this claim was deliberately re
peated when He knew that death would be the
penalty of making it. The blindest arrogance has
never risen to such an audacity of blasphemy as
that; for blasphemy it is if it is not truth. He
claimed the attributes of God, — the power to for
give sins. In speaking to Simon the Pharisee,
He claims to be the creditor to whom all debts
are owing. Pharisee and Magdalene alike were
in debt to Him, and by Him alone could they be
forgiven. He said, " My Father worketh hitherto,
and I work," thus claiming to share with the Fa
ther His world-sustaining energy. He claimed to
be of one essence with the Father. " I and my
Father," said He, "are one." He declared, "Be
fore Abraham was, / am ; " not " Before Abraham
was, I was." To Nicodemus He declared Himself
as the Son of God who came down from heaven,
and was in heaven even while talking with him.
He declared that He would ascend up where He
was before. He spoke of an hour when all should
hear His voice and live. He condemned the cities
of Chorazin and Bethsaida for rejecting Himself.
He proclaimed Himself the Emperor of the future

The Object and Claims of Christ. 107
world and the realm of the dead. He turned upon
the Pharisees, and denounced them in language
Avhich could fitly come only from the purity and
power of God. He declared that He had the
power of judgment, of redemption, and of fellow
ship with the Father.1
The old and awful name of God, " I Am," was
taken by Jesus Christ and filled up. God re
vealed Himself to Moses as "I Am that 1 Am."
Jesus says more. He takes all the symbols of
strength, sufficiency, tenderness, adds them to that
name, and claims it for His own. He is not only
true, but He is the Truth. He is not only light,
He is the Light. He is the Door, the Bread, the
Water, the Good Shepherd. Whatever the human
spirit can need, that He claims to supply. In
Him, if His words are true, all fulness dwells.
These names can be used by others only in a sec
ondary and incomplete sense. He Himself alone
can use them in the full integrity of their
meaning.2 He invites men to come to Him, and He will
give them rest. " Come unto me, all ye that
1 See Westcott on John, Introduction, p. 84.
2 His claim to sinlessness will be found discussed in the
concluding chapter.

108 The Incarnate Saviour.
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest." The words were spoken at first to a little
knot of forgotten JeAVS, but they were made over
to the weary generations of men. He confronts
all the coming races with their burdens, and de
clares Himself able and willing to give rest to
them all. Can this be the claim of a man?
Further we notice that in His intercourse with
men He claims all. He never disclaims any ex
pression of affection and adoration as too great.
It is not, "Worship God, I am of thy fellow-
servants," but " Ye call me Master and Lord,
and ye say well, for so I am." He claims the
homage of men, — a homage as complete as can be
rendered to His Father. When the woman came
to Him with the box of spikenard, He did not
say, "It is too much, I must not have it all,"
but He took it as His by right. A mere man
would have said, "You are poor; it is too great
a gift for your slender means." He rarely used
courtesies of speech common with us: it was not
His place to make request, but to give command
ments. Men Avere to break away at His word
from the most sacred ties. Whosoever loved fa
ther or mother more than Him, was not worthy
of Him. Without taking time to obey even the

The Object and Claims of Christ. 109
most pressing claims of humanity, men were at
His word to follow Him. Although they did not
see His ultimate intention, men were to take
His plans without questioning and doubting.
To doubt or question was to sin.
The immediate success or failure of His work
. made no difference in His self-estimate. He did
not lower his claims when men left Him, nor
raise them in the elation of popularity. Men
came and went; He remained serenely the same.
The tribute might not be rendered now, but it
would be His at last. In the darkest hour of His
fortunes He could calmly anticipate the time that
He should be acknowledged as King of kings.
Beginning His work in a peasant's garb, with
almost no following, He anticipated the time
when His religion should become fashionable, —
when men should call Him " Lord, Lord! " and He
would not know them; when His name, hardly
known, or known to be despised, should become
the spring of power — the well-head of great and
sweet utterances, — the name above every name, as
Paul calls it, — the beautiful name, as even the
stern Apostle James says, with the rare, deep
tenderness of a rugged nature. Such were His
claims. None other made such claims; none other

HO The Incarnate Saviour.
claimed to stand so high, or to give so much. If
these claims are untrue, can His character stand
stainless? We are shut up to the old dilemma.
Either He is God or He is not good.
His divinity and humanity both appear in His
claims and in His work. He was never afraid of
lowering Himself. Standing on the very verge
of time, with the millenniums of glory stretching
on before, He paused and stooped to wash the
disciples' feet. He was ready always with all the
help which a man may claim from his brother.
Never dazzled by earthly splendors, He was never
humbled by earthly lowliness. What explanation
can there be of this but the old one, — He pro
ceeded forth and came from God?

CHAPTER VII.
©fje piracies of ©rjrtsh

'Greater works than these shall ye do.'

"Thousands of things do Thee employ
In ruling all
This spacious globe: angels must have their joy,
Devils their rod, the sea his shore,
The winds their stmt; and yet when I did call,
Thou heard' st my call and more." Geoege Heebeet.
IT hardly accords with the plan of this work
to discuss the philosophy of miracles. That
miracles are possible is no question with those
who believe in a personal God; that they have
occurred is no question with those who believe
in a divine Christ. A satisfactory philosophical
foundation for miracles is to be found in the facts
that God is free, and that His power is not ex
hausted in the creation and in the upholding
of the universe. We go further, and say that
miracles are probable, because the original order
of the universe has been broken by sin. The
(ill)

112 The Incarnate Saviour.
perverted use of man's free will has corrupted the
world, and to restore it needs the interposition
of God. Christ came to restore the moral order,
and in performing this miracle He had to perform
many others. The end of the universe is the
glory of God in the salvation of man, and every
thing is made to subserve that. This delivers us
from being crushed by material magnitude. It
supplies an answer to the question : What are we
— mere specks in the immensity of things ? What
are we — shut in and lost amidst these frightful
wastes of space which Pascal shuddered at, en
compassed by flaming and unknown worlds ? The
reply is: We are the Church of God, which He
hath purchased with His own blood. For us the
course of nature exists, and if miracles are needed
for our sakes they will not be refused. All that
we demand about the Christian miracles is that
they fulfil certain conditions. First, we may ask
that they should be — not mere feats and wonders;
they should have a moral meaning and end. If
they are mere feats, we may suspect that they
are nothing but the works of a juggler. The
tricks may baffle and surprise us like many con
jurers' tricks, but even although unable to ex
plain them we shall still remain unconvinced,

The Miracles of Christ. 113
and declare that the worker may be nothing
more than the cleverest of the host of enchanters.
We shall ask that the miracles have a moral and
spiritual meaning. They must be not only what
they have been called, a tolling of the great
bell of the universe to call the inhabitants to
listen to God's sermon, but also part of the ser
mon. They must be not only " a great belt round
the furthest sun," but also part of the sun. Fur
ther, we shall ask that these miracles be done
with ease. There must be no effort and no osten
tation. Man performing a miracle may be ex
hausted in the work, and boastful when it is
accomplished. If God does it, it will be nothing
to Him, for He will not rise up to it, but descend
upon it. He will not have a special class of
feats; He will not prepare Himself for the effort;
He will not exult over the work when it is
achieved. Further, He will do the work com
pletely. The miracle will not be partial, but
total. These conditions, then — first, that the mir
acle have a moral and spiritual end; secondly,
that it be done with ease and Avithout surprise;
thirdly, that it be done completely — are condi
tions such as we may fairly expect to see fulfilled
in the Christian miracles. We shall, after ex-

114 The Incarnate Saviour.
amining in detail the first miracle, and the classes
into which miracles may be divided, ask how
far this expectation is realized.
I. — The BEGiiraiNG of Mikaclbs.
When our Lord looked over His life from the
high tree of His cross, He pronounced "It is
finished." By this He meant that the will of
the Father had been done without defect or flaw.
He was born at the right time, was silent at the
right time, spoke at the right time, and in the
right way wrought in deeds the perfect Avill of
the Supreme. The more we study His life, the
more we shall see that there is in it a calm
ness and an order, and a gentle taking up of
events. This miracle at Cana is, we are told very
expressly, the beginning of miracles. Here He
tolled for the first time the great bell of the uni
verse that summoned men to listen to His ser
mon. We must read the miracle under that light,
and when we do so we shall find that it illus
trates both what went before and what was to
come after in the life of Christ. The first miracle
might be expected to be the least glorious. We

The Miracles of Christ. 115
might also hope to see in it some light thrown
upon the past, and, considering how it committed
Him to a divine course, we might expect to see in
it how He breaks Avith those quiet, uneventful
years. Considering also how greatly the stormy
and tragic future was to differ from that peace
ful past, we might expect to see how He looks
forward to that future; and, besides, recognizing
the harmony of His life, we might expect this
miracle to rule the rest, as the keynote rules the
strain. These points we shall illustrate in order.
First, Christ's revelation of Himself and of God
was progressive. He grew up before God like a
tender plant. He did not start into a sudden
fulness and splendor of beauty, but had His life
nurtured day by day; and so, in revealing the
brightness of God, the light and the glory of
His words and deeds constantly increased. So
here we have a view of the mind and heart of
God, as shoAvn towards man before the stain of
sin came upon the world. God, as a bountiful
benefactor, here provides for His creatures' hap
piness. It is not good for man to be alone, and
so He sanctions marriage; and as marriage is a
season of gladness, He provides fit accompani
ment, — provides it of the best, and in such large

116 The Incarnate Saviour.
measure as has amazed and alarmed timid mor
alists. The quality and greatness of the gift were
worthy of God ; and we see the generosity all the
more clearly, when we remember that this bounti
ful Creator had a little before refused to create
bread to save Himself from the pangs of hunger,
while here He provides wine to minister to the
joy and prevent the shame of the young couple at
whose nuptials He did not disdain to be present.
The miracles wrought after this were for the
most part miracles of healing, cures, and recov
eries, — amongst these recoveries being three rais
ings from the dead. Had man kept pure in soul,
he would have remained pure in body; but sin,
which destroyed the soul, destroyed the body, and
became the fruitful mother of disease and death
to humanity. So, then, in these miracles we have
a revelation of God showing intense sympathy
with man in the distress and ruin wrought by
sin. We see Him repairing the waste, and in
this there is a more glorious and comforting rev
elation of God in His pity than we have in the
first miracle, where He is revealed merely in His
bounty, and where, so to speak, sin is not recog
nized at all. But it was at the end, when the
swift eventful years of His work were past, that

The Miracles of Christ. 117
the most glorious revelation of God was given in
miracle, when He was being led to His death, —
not surrounded, as at the marriage feast, by
smiling faces, but by frowning, threatening foes.
One of His servants took his sword and cut off
the servant of the high priest's ear. His sun was
sinking into its sea, and shone brightest at its
setting. " Suffer ye thus far," He said. He asked
for the use of His bound hands, and, having ob
tained His request, He touched his ear and healed
him; and though in their furious hate His ene
mies were all unmoved by this strange mark of
love and power, — love manifested to His enemies
in their supreme madness, power manifested when
He seemed to be weakest, — we have leisure to
mark the deed and to see the revelation which
for us is highest and most welcome, — the reve
lation of a God showing mercy to sinners in the
height of their sin. If we are ever to have mercy,
we must have it as Malchus had, seeing we have
had our part like him in the crucifixion of the
Son of God. We see, then, in the beginning
of miracles the dawn of that revelation of God
which continually waxed in brightness till the
end.

118 The Incarnate Saviour.
Secondly, the beginning of miracles throws a
light upon that past life at Nazareth with which
He now broke so completely. What, we have
often asked, did they do at Nazareth? How did
He behave at home ? Too daring imaginations of
old have tried to fill the void, but in vain. We
go back to the brief fragments of revelation, and
are fain to content ourselves with these. But let
us not neglect what we have here. Who knew
His life better than His own mother ? She knew
that Pie came from God. In her heart were stored
up all the mysterious revelations and manifesta
tions of His Godhead. She had watched Him as
child, boy, and man, — in His uncomplaining toil,
in His constant devotion, in His true submission
to the will of the Father. She had seen Him by
day and night for thirty years, and she can best
tell what manner of man He is. What is her
testimony? "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do
it." Here we have a biography in a sentence. It
was as if she said, "I have watched Him all those
years, and have never seen Him err. He was sub
ject unto us, but we were gladly subject unto
Him. His look commanded us, let it command
you. He is born to be the leader and the com
mander of men. ' Whatsoever He saith unto you,

The Miracles of Christ. 119
do it.'" This word of His mother's lightens up
strangely all the darkness of His life while He
had a home. Besides, there is a very revealing
glimpse into the past contained in the word begin
ning. The imaginations of men had naturally
pictured these Nazareth years as full of Avonders.
But it was not so. There was no miracle till the
hour struck, and God's hour did not strike till
now. The miracle at Cana was the beginning
of miracles.
Thirdly, that past there is over, and, as we
might expect, we see here how He breaks with
it. " What have I to do with thee ? " He says to
His mother. After all the attempts that have
been made to soften the apparent harshness of
this speech, it remains true that there is some
thing in it — as there is in the subsequent record
of His relations with His mother — which cannot
be explained unless we remember that Jesus was
the Son of God. He was subject unto her be
fore, but now the fleshly ties were broken — He
was obedient no more ; a higher voice called Him,
and He must go. It was part of the cross of
Christ, as it has been part of the cross of many
of His people, that the work of God severed His

120 The Incarnate Saviour.
earthly ties. His mother must have been excep
tionally near and dear to Him. That loving
heart could not have but clung to the compan
ions of early years. It could not but have been
a pang to Him to repel His mother's advances
and remonstrances in His public work. Even
we are touched with the patient fidelity that
clung to Him, and refused to believe in the re
buffs or to accept the fact that the old tie of
mother and son was broken. Few words of the
Bible go so straight to the heart as those which
tell that there was by the cross of Jesus His
mother, clinging to the last, present with Him
in His last agony, the pain of which, if in one
way it might have been lightened, was in an
other way increased by the anguish of her look.
He had to tell her — He does tell her here — that
the earthly bonds exist no more ; that others may
come as near Him as she; that whosoever shall
do the will of God, the same is His brother, and
sister, and mother.
We seem to perceive here not only a back
ward look on the past, but also a look to the
future. " What have I to do with thee ? Mine
hour is not yet come." These last words have

The Miracles of Christ. 121
perplexed interpreters so much, that a recent
writer says that they cannot be explained either
by Protestants or Roman Catholics.1 But may
we not see in it something of the feeling of one
who was Himself about to take a decisive step
from a life of peace into a life of conflict and
gloom that Avas to darken into death ? Is it
not the cry of a sleeper awakened on the morn
ing of a day which is to end in a terrible trage
dy? Surely, He says, the day is not yet come;
surely there are some hours to run before it be
gins. So Jesus shrank as He opened His eyes
on the gray and awful dawn of that day, where
of the midnight was to be so black and all the
hours so bitter. He had loved Nazareth. He
had been happy in the holy and beautiful morn
ing of His life. The name Jesus of Nazareth,
which His foes hammered over His dying head,
was a name He never was ashamed of. It was
the name He used long after, when He spoke
out of heaven to Saul lying blind on the daz
zling road. He had loved the journey on the
smooth sward, and now it had come to an end;
and He sees before Him the road of flints, at every
step of which His blood will run. So He shrinks
1 Dr. W. G. Ward in his Essays. See Note D.

122 The Incarnate Saviour.
back for the moment: "Mine hour is not yet
come." But instantly He recalls Himself, and
goes on to the work.
"What is it thou buriest so softly and still?
Oh, this is the grave of my own proud will:
I bid it sleep softly in this little room,
And my hopes, too, I bury with it in the tomb."
He had no proud, rebellious will to break and
bury, and yet there was a struggle. In this pas
sion before the Passion we see that shrinking
which we often trace later, and at the same time
that steadfast purpose which mastered it, and
carried Him on to the decease that He should
accomplish at Jerusalem. So He put His hand
to the work. The bell was rung for the first
time, and He never drew back.
Then, lastly, this miracle rules the rest, as the
keynote rules the strain. He manifested His
glory. There Avas also a revelation of the glory
of God ; but the miracles of Christ were singular
in this respect, that they manifested His glory.
Moses manifested God's glory, and sinned when
he forgot that that was all he could do; but the
miracles of Christ are all expressions and reve
lations of His own glory. We see in them His

The Miracles of Christ. 123
heart, His power, His will to work and to suffer
for our sakes. The revelation made at the be
ginning is, as we shall see, continued through
the rest. Having regard to the symbolic char
acter of John's Gospel, we can hardly err in see
ing here besides a sign of the nature of the work
of Christ, which was to take natural homely things
and enrich and transfigure them. His work was
to turn the water of earth into the wine of heaven.
We thus perceive that in the beginning of mira
cles there is the beginning of a revelation of God.
There is a light thrown on the Saviour's past,
there is a breaking with that past, there is a for
ward looking to the future, and there is the key
note given which was to rule the miracles that
were to come. II. — The Kinds op Miracles.
The miracles of Christ are a complete revealing
of His power and nature, so far as everything
known to man is concerned. We find them in
cluding examples of His power over nature, His
power over external objects, His power over man's
bodily frame, His power over man's mind, His
power over death and him that hath the power
of death, that is, the devil.

124 The Incarnate Saviour.
1. His power over external nature is illustrated
by His stilling the, waves of the sea. On one
occasion He was with His disciples crossing the
stormy Sea of Galilee, and in the hinder part of
the ship He was sleeping on the pillow. He had
not where to lay His head. But the weary head
is not hard to please with a pillow, and He was
very weary. The sleep of the laboring man is
sweet, and He was sleeping the sleep of one
Avearied in teaching, and helping, and saving
man, — a heavy, dreamless slumber, undisturbed
by the tumult of wind and waves. The disciples
did not waken Him till the last moment. They
waited as long as they could. " The ship was
filling," says one evangelist, giving the view of
one on board. "It was now covered with the
waAres," says another, describing it as seen by
somebody standing on the shore. But Avhen it
came to that, they turned to Him, saying, " Mas
ter, carest Thou not that we perish ? " Two
things Avere contending, — on the one hand trust,
and on the other the old world-nature. But the
trust was uppermost, for they came to Him,
saying, "Master." We are all equal up to a
certain point. For a time there is no difference
between us, but in great crises of life the- deliv-

The Miracles of Christ. 125
erer is sought out and found in a moment. It
was an impossible thing that He should not care
for their perishing, and so their fears and their
faith drove them to the stern where the sleeping
Christ was lying. That cry — half faith, half fear
— brought Him to His feet; and He made answer,
" Why are ye fearful, 0 ye of little faith ? " His
calm soul brought calm. He rebuked the Avind,
and said unto the sea, "Peace, be still." His Avord
produced an instant effect on the tumult outside.
There was a great calm. After a storm comes a
swell; after this storm came a calm. And with
what perfect ease was the miracle wrought ! The
wearied Man who had laid Himself down to rest
rouses Himself up, awakened by the complaint
of the disciples, and in a moment tames and sub
dues the power of nature. The two thoughts
coupled together — of the sleeping Christ and the
awakened Christ — give us the image and thought
of Him in Avhom we must trust — with all the
weakness of humanity that brings us so near
Him, and at the same time with all the great
power of God.
2. His power over external objects is illustrated
by the miracle already discussed, the turning of
water into wine. It appears also in that miracle

126 The Incarnate Saviour.
which excited so great a commotion, and which
He made the text of His sermon on the bread of
life — The Feeding of the Five Thousand. This is
the one miracle narrated by all four evangelists.
The multitude had assembled, pressing upon Je
sus. He had sought quiet, but they would not al
low Him to find it. After preaching to them,
Jesus had compassion upon their necessities, and
asked the disciples whence bread could be pro
cured that they might eat. A lad had four barley
loaves and two fishes, barley loaves being the
ordinary black bread of the Galilean peasants.
But what were they among so many ? They con
fessed themselves baffled by so great a difficulty,
and so Jesus commanded the disciples to arrange
the people in ranks upon the grass. The miracle
must have occurred early in the year, for in that
country the grass is burnt and brown before the
end of April. That so huge a multitude should
have arranged themselves so obediently, shows
that they had that faith Avithout which, in all
likelihood, the miracle would not have been
wrought. They ranged themselves rank after
rank. And what expectancy there must have
been as the order was gradually formed, and
Christ faced them calmly with the slight provi-

The Miracles of Christ. 127
sion He was so marvellously to multiply! They
were seated on the grass like rows of flowers, to
use the picturesque word of one of the evange
lists, — which refers probably to their bright East
ern dresses,1 — all gazing wistfully, and expecting
they knew not what. Often men have to prepare
when there is no sign of anything, — to dig ditches
for the rain beneath a blue, blazing sky, to build
barns for a harvest not begun to grow. So it was
here. He faced them with no dismay, — with a
great pity, and the full consciousness that He had
power to indulge that pity. So, when all was
ready, the bread was broken and distributed to
the multitude. All had a share; and after all
were provided there was a surplus, which Avas
carefully gathered for future needs. This miracle
produced a deep impression, and roused the peo
ple to enthusiasm, inducing them to resolve to
crown Him as their king. This miracle — in some
respects the most remarkable of all in the Gospels,
one which modern theorists find particularly re
fractory — shows not only the ease and complete
ness with which Christ could perform His mira
cles, but also the reserve, the economy with which
He used His power. Though a word created all
1 Kod dvexedov Ttpadiai itpa6iai, Mark vi. 40.

128 The Incarnate Saviour.
that vast store, the fragments had to be gathered
so that nothing should be lost. It was but sel
dom that Christ miraculously afforded provision
for man's physical necessities; and the reason
doubtless is, that He feared to corrupt them by
putting them beyond the need of honest labor.
Indiscriminate charity has done much to demoral
ize the poor; but His charity was carefully ac
commodated to their actual necessities and their
true welfare.
3. Most of His miracles manifested His poAvcr
over man's bodily frame. He healed diseases.
Diseases, frequently of repulsive form, Avere com
mon then in Palestine, and the Healer had
brought to Him crowds of sufferers, none of
whom came in vain. So pressing were the claims
of the sick and their importunate friends, that
He had often to tell those who Avere healed not
to spread the news abroad. His miracles of
healing were often performed on leprosy. Lepro
sy was a type of sin, and it is notable that He
never paused when a leper cried to Him. He
gave also recovery of sight to them that were
blind. Blindness, as now, was sadly common in
Eastern lands. He healed those who were sick
of the fever, and His healing left them not weak

The Miracles of Christ. 129
and weary, but strong and vigorous. The main
points to be noticed in His treatment of disease
are such as these: He Avas no specialist — every
class of disease Avas amenable to His Avill; He
never had to ask for time or for helps; before
seeing the disease He undertook to cure it; His
cures were never gradual recoveries — they were
always complete.
4. His poAver over man's mind is shown by His
knowledge of what was in man. From the be
ginning He knew Avho should betray Him.
When Nathanael was under the fig-tree He saw
him; when Simon was cherishing the unchari
table thought in his heart, He knew Avhat was
passing in his mind. Naked and open Avere all
men to the eyes of Him with whom they had
to do.
5. His sovereignty over death was manifested
three times, as well as in His own resurrection.
He raised Jairus' daughter, the widow's son, and
Lazarus. These three times are, so far as we
know, the only occasions in which He ever came
in contact Avith death. Jarius' daughter Avas just
dead, the Avidow's son was being carried to his
grave a few hours after death, Lazarus was dead
four days. But these differences were nothing.

130 The Incarnate Saviour.
With equal ease they were all called forth and
restored to their old life. Their restoration was
in each case out of sympathy for those who be
wailed their loss. Jairus, the ruler of the syna
gogue, rushed out from the house where his little
daughter lay at the point of death, and broke in
on Christ seated with the publicans and sinners
at the table of that despised one whom probably
Jairus had himself scourged out of the synagogue.
He made his appeal, and the Master went with
him like a servant. Their journey to the house
was broken by the woman who touched the hem
of His garment and was made whole. And when
they reached the house, Jairus' daughter was
gone. But He said, "She is not dead, but sleep-
eth." It was not His manner to magnify His
miracles. He did not say, "She is sevenfold
dead," but, "She sleepeth." And with tender
words He called her from her short slumber.
When He saw the widowed mother weeping for
her only son, He had compassion on her, and
touched the bier, and said, "Young man, I say
to thee, Arise." When He came to the grave of
Lazarus, His friend, and saw the two sisters whom
He loved deep in grief, and the company of the
Jews weeping with them, His heart was moved

The Miracles of Christ. 131
with trouble and anger at the victory of sin, and
in pure sympathy for their tears He wept, and
cried, "Lazarus, come forth." His cheeks were
wet with the tears of sympathy, and yet His word
was shot into the darkness of the tomb, and the
dull, cold ear of Death, and he who had been dead
came forth in his grave-clothes with shrouded
face. As Augustine says remarkably, " He calls
him by name lest He should bring forth all the
dead." In each of these cases He completes the
miracle. He is not flushed or agitated by His
triumph. As soon as the dead man sits up and
begins to speak, He delivers him to his mother.
When the young maiden is raised, with delicate
consideration He commands that something shall
be given her to eat. When He sees the bound
face and feet and hands of Lazarus, He reminds
those who stand by petrified with astonishment
to loose him and let him go. He does all things
beautifully well.1
6. His power is shown also over him that hath
the power of death, that is, the devil. There were
diseases in the time of Christ which were solemn
ly attributed by their Healer to the power of un
clean spirits. Evil at that time was permitted to
1 KaX<3i, Mark vii. 37.

132 The Incarnate Saviour.
manifest itself with terrible distinctness, that it
might be met by the mightiest manifestation of
good. He conquered in every case where He en
countered it. One case, decidedly the most terri
ble of all, may be referred to. A man who had
been long possessed, who wore no clothes, and
dwelt in no house, but abode in the tombs, cried
out when he saw Jesus, " What have I to do with
Thee, Thou Son of God most high ! " There was
something in the look of Christ that was troubling
the hidden devils. He expelled them, and the
man out of whom the devils departed sat at the
feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.
Beautiful in its suffused calm is this picture of
the restored man, when it is put in contrast with
the paroxysm of madness and misery from which
he had been delivered. He was sitting. That
was wonderful, for the terrible restlessness of his
malady had made him incapable of a moment's
rest. Now the tension has collapsed. He is mas
ter of himself, sitting. He is clothed. Chains
could not hold him before, but now he is restored
to a consciousness of the decencies of life. And
the explanation of it all is that he is at the feet
of Jesus. Jesus has brought him into quiet, and
sanity, and decency; and the man, in strange

The Miracles of Christ. 133
contrast with those who prayed that Christ would
depart out of their coasts, implores Plim that he
may be with Him, lest the old evil power should
surge over his spirit once more.
These narratives and the rest seem to satisfy all
the conditions which we may lawfully demand in
the miracles of Christ. They are done with infi
nite ease, with an exuberance of power. They
are not great efforts, but repeated again and
again. There is no sign of exhaustion. The mul
titude are astonished, but He is not astonished.
Then they are not done recklessly or lawlessly.
While there is great ease there is great reserve,
and every particle of power is accounted for.
When the woman touches Him, He knows that
virtue has gone out of Him, and demands who
it was that drew Him. Again, the miracles are
complete. Nothing has to be added to them — ¦
no one can amend them. And they are all preg
nant with revelations of God's nature and pur
poses. Some are, in all probability, symbolical
of definite spiritual truths; all are distinct reve
lations of the mind and heart of God. This be
ing so, we are justified in placing them on a
different platform from all other miracles.

134 The hicarnate Saviour.
He Himself never rated His miracles highly.
" Greater works than these shall ye do," He said
to His disciples. But He never said, "Greater
words than these shall ye speak," or " Greater
thoughts than these shall ye think." He knew
that the needs supplied for the moment would
recur, that the sicknesses would come back worse,
and that the bitterness of death was not past.
But it was natural that He should do miracles.
Would He have been God manifest in the flesh
if He had journeyed deaf, and bound, and help
less through the evils and distresses of humanity?
This was impossible, and therefore miracles were
done. But signs and idle wonders He indig
nantly declined to perform. Of works of mercy
there was a plenitude, but He refused to work
wonders which would merely gratify a vacant or
transient curiosity. To create belief, not to raise
astonishment, was His object; and the works He
did were enough to make unbelief without excuse.
It is incomplete to say that the miracles justify
belief in Christ, and it is equally incomplete to say
that it is belief in Christ that makes miracles cred
ible. Christ comes before us as a whole — His per
son and His work. It is impossible to separate the
two, and we believe in the whole — that is, in both.

CHAPTER VIII.
K\ft Eeactjing of Cfjrist,

"Never man spake like this man.'

"0 holy Truth, whene'er Thy voice is heard,
A thousand echoes answer to the call;
Though oft inaudible Thy gentle word,
While we regard not. Take me from the thrall
Of passionate Hopes, be Thou my All in All;
So may Obedience lead me by the hand
Into Thine inner shrine and secret hall." Isaac Williams.
A POINT always noticed by our Lord's hear
ers was, that His teaching differed from
that of all others: "Never man spake like this
man." He spoke like a man, and yet no man
ever spoke like Him. The criticism of those
who left Him after hearing one of His sermons
was, "Not as the Scribes." Whether the teach
ing was good or evil they might not be able to
say, but of this at least they were sure, that it
was different from the teaching they had been
accustomed to hear. (135)

136 The Incarnate Saviour.
The double thread of divinity and humanity
is to be traced also in the teaching of Christ.
He spake with authority. It was this that
first struck the people as marking Him out as
different from the Scribes. The Scribes always
made appeals to others. They quoted traditional
interpretations, and sought to win the assent of
their hearers by appealing to those who had gone
before. But Jesus appealed to His own authority :
"7 say unto you." The Scribes were aware of
the opposition their statements might excite, and
of the silent resistance with which men are always
prone to meet any unfamiliar truth, and they took
the usual means to anticipate and master that
resistance. They employed authority, argument;
and if these failed, the fortress might be captured
by appeals to passion. But with Jesus it was
different. He appealed to no prejudice; He made
no concession to passion. He spoke as one who
knew that He possessed the truth, and that the
truth had a Avelcome prepared for it from of old
Avithin obedient hearts. For the most part He
did not argue; and although it is true that an
Eastern discourse is generally a collection of
loosely connected sayings, resembling in its en-

The Teaching of Christ. 137
tirety not a living organism, but a heap of jewels,
each beautiful in itself, and that this is so with
Christ's, yet that is not the whole. When He
says, "Believe in me," "Follow me," "I am the
truth," "Verily, verily, I say unto you," He is
speaking with the sublime certainty of one Avho
knows that, as a divine teacher, He has a right
to the empire and assent of every soul of man.
It is true that He refers to the Bible ; but in His
references He, as it Avere, stands above it, and
sets His seal upon it, even when He has claimed
its sanction for His OAvn words. The prophets
effaced themselves by appealing to God, Avhose
witnesses they were, and prefaced their words
by "Thus saith the Lord." He spoke the most
startling truths, and offered no certificate but
that of His own authority. And as He was the
authoritative teacher, so He was the commander
of men. He never gave adA'ice. He did not say,
"If you please: " His words were imperative; they
were law; they were guarded by the most aAvful
sanctions; to disobey them was to incur the risk
of eternal ruin. The difference between laAV and
advice is one appreciable measure of the difference
between Christ and human teachers. This was
what men needed then, and need now. Those who

138 The Incarnate Saviour.
believed in Him first were weary of debating ; they
were not sure of their own power to thread laby
rinths of reasoning, or resist appeals to passion,
and they craved for a solid foundation on which
they might build the hopes that were dear as
life. So it is still. In the time of health and
prosperity, men may delight in speculation and
inquiry; but when the great shocks and over
throws of life come, men seek something that
will uphold them, that Avill enlighten them as to
what lies beyond the deep darkness of the grave.
The search for truth, so fascinating once, becomes
weary when men have little time and no heart
to pursue it, and the eternal realities are near.
Then the truth itself is sought, — the truth that
knows its responsibilities, its frontiers, its conse
quences. Doubts only make a man impatient,
while he is met and satisfied by the vast claims
of Him who asserted that Himself was the Christ.
Instead of chafing at the immense assumption
involved, he is thankful then that the words
of Christ are so calmly assumed, so sublimely
imperative. Yet Jesus spoke as a man, for
with all these claims He fell back upon God's
word. He did not profess to be able to dis
pense with it, but fed upon it, put His trust

The Teaching of Christ. 139
in it, and drank out of it as from an ever-living
spring. He spoke with full and intimate knowledge of
the ways of men, and yet as one who was en
tirely above them. His parables are full of proofs
that He had observed human work and ways with
a close and kindly scrutiny. The woman putting
the leaven into the meal, the children playing
in the market-place, the soAver soAving the seed,
— these and many other homely scenes of life
did not escape Him. He kneAV human nature
thoroughly in all its best and worst phases. A
singular illustration of this is His story of the
two sons, or, as it is usually called, the story
of the Prodigal Son. How, we ask, will one who
has never known wickedness, whose mind has
never been sullied, whose lips have never been
polluted by any drop of the cup of evil, under
stand the bitter and tortuous Avays of sin ? How
will He, who has hardly been away from His
mother's side, describe the course of one Avho
has left his home and gone to the far country,
and wasted there his substance with riotous liv
ing ? Let this story answer. With what su
preme truth the whole miserable history is told.

140 The Incarnate Saviour.
There are tAvo sons, and it is the younger son,
who had latest received the ministries of love,
who first forgets them. Indulged, probably, he
wearies even of the golden chains, and asks for
his portion, gathers all together, and takes his
journey into a far country. He gathers all to
gether, for he has no thought of return; and he
takes his journey into a far country, for his idea
of happiness is to be as remote from his father
as possible. For a time all goes well; but when
the money is spent, a mighty famine arises in
the land. Can we be wrong in thinking that
there is a reference here to the mighty famine
which a prodigal who has spent all his money
always finds around him ? So long as he was
rich, doors and purses were open to him. But
whenever he came to want, those who had helped
him to scatter his father's savings had nothing
to give him. No man gave unto him. The most
terrible indictment of human nature ever written.
And yet nature's sternest painter is the best.
These were no true friends — only boon compan
ions; and so he Avas driven in his despair to an
occupation the very mention of which would have
sent a shudder through our Lord's hearers. He
Avas sent into the fields to feed swine. And then,

The Teaching of Christ. 141
in his dire extremity, he turned fatherwards and
homewards. Or rather, it was not his father he
saw, but the well-provisioned house, — the house
where even the hired servants had bread enough
and to spare. The bare fields and the stripped
trees look drearier than ever, and he says, " I
will be done Avith all this." And he rises, re
membering that' he is not worthy of the least
mercy. He frames his confession; and what
tears, Avhat burning shame there are in it: "Fa
ther, I have sinned against Heaven, and in thy
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son: make me as one of thy hired servants."
The speech is never uttered; it is cut in twain
by a geart burst of forgiving love. His father
runs to meet him, kisses his trembling lips into
silence, seats him at the board, and the house
rings with welcome, because the dead is living,
and the lost is found. And with what a sure
hand does our Lord describe what may be called
the respectable vices ! He understands profligacy
and the grosser forms of sin, but the picture
of the elder brother, with its delicate touches,
shows that He understood sins less recognized,
but as deadly. Every word tells. When the
elder brother sees the red lights flushing the

142 The Incarnate Saviour.
window, and hears the unwonted joy, he begins
his complaint without saying "Father." He speaks
of his many years of servitude as one for whom
the time had moved with leaden feet. "Neither
transgressed I at any time thy commandments,"
— one who had given a loveless obedience, but
no more. "Thou never gavest me a kid that I
might make merry with my friends," — an un
loving soul that had never called forth any warm
token of love. " Thy son who hath devoured his
living with harlots," — a hasty and uncharitable
inference. And the same patient love includes
and forgives the two. It is a humbling fact,
that men who have proclaimed God's truth with
great results, have been themselves full of envy,
jealousy, — have known the conflict of the Avorst
passions, and have too often yielded to their
power. The very fact of their knowing these
malign emotions, the experimental evidence that
they were struggling Avith them, has made them
better able to speak to men like-minded, than
those cast in another mould, whose souls have
been less vexed with these stormy wdnds. And
yet the fact that they have yielded to sin has
weakened and almost paralyzed them while de
nouncing it. Jesus combined the two things, —

The Teaching of Christ. 143
perfect knowledge of sin, and perfect freedom
from sin, — and therefore spoke Avith double poAver.
He never illustrates from His own life, but finds
weapons to pierce the conscience in the history
of human hearts, whose baseness He knew to the
very uttermost.
He observed external nature, and said exquisite
things about it. His calm eyes saw through the
pretence and gaudiness of man's attempts at dec
oration, and He said of the quiet lilies in the
field, that Solomon in all his glory was not ar
rayed like one of these. Yet He did not linger
upon nature lovingly, as many of our poets have
done. It would not be correct to say, with Dr.
Watts, that "He glides along by mortal things
without a thought of love;" but we need not be
afraid to speak of His admiration for nature, for
His glances at nature, though heedful, are not
close and passionate. He speaks as one who
stands far above it, whose eyes are familiar with
far fairer scenes. He is utterly above the prej
udices both of rich and poor. The poor had
the gospel preached to them. He Avent about
amidst the villages and lanes of Galilee doing
justice to their long-neglected claims, but He did
nothing unworthy to win favor amongst them.

144 The Incarnate Saviour.
He held out to them no prospect of earthly re
ward, and His way of giving happiness to them
was very different from what they imagined.
He was the Christ of the people, not in the
democratic sense of selecting a particular class
for His favor, for His message was one meant as
much for the rich as for the poor. He never
sought to gain the rich, and indeed went counter
to all the views current amongst them. In short,
He was far above rich and poor alike, — far above
the whole atmosphere of His time. We feel that
all His words are spoken from a commanding
standpoint, — -from an elevation to which no mere
man can ever climb; and yet with all this they
show the clearest intelligence of man's ways and
needs, as well as the closest sympathy.
His teaching was new, and yet it attached it
self to all truth that had been revealed before.
It was original. Nothing has been more dis
tinctly brought out by recent investigation, than
the absolute originality of our Lord's teaching.
The few and remote analogies that have been
discovered with the teaching of the day, have
only served to present this in a clearer light.
But He was not original in the sense of being

The Teaching of Christ. 145
destructive. His teaching was not built upon the
ruins of old systems. It is easy to destroy, hard
to build, but most difficult to develop. The last
was His Avork. He took the law and precepts of
the old JeAvish religion, set up His new divine
ideal of conduct, and connected the tAvo. He
declared that not one jot or tittle of the law
should fail; that He came not to destroy but to
fulfil; and set Himself, especially on the Sermon
on the Mount, to show how His teaching attached
itself to and transcended Old Testament teach
ing. He took the commandments, affirmed them,
and explained that they related not merely to
acts, but to desires. He carried them into regions
of which the old law knew nothing. Going be
yond the highest reach of human wisdom, He
declared- that men were to love one another as
He had loved them. He overturned the tradi
tional maxims, which had in society more force
perhaps than the laws of God, and declared that
what was highly esteemed among men was abomi
nable in the eyes of God. In short, He undertook
the most difficult of all tasks, — to meet the people
upon a common platform, and to lift them up by
showing that His teaching, while new, was yet a
true development of the old revelation of God.

146 The Incarnate Saviour.
His teaching was characterized at once by sim
plicity and profundity. His sayings were simple
in form, — so much so that the common people
heard Him gladly. They felt that they under
stood what He had said, and wished to hear
more. But soon they perceived that there was
more in these sayings than they had imagined.
They had another meaning and another, and
seemed to grow deeper with deepening life.
They were like clear wells, into Avhich one may
gaze without seeing the bottom. They were like
sea-shells sounding Avith the immeasurable depth.
Every word had in it the echo of eternity. Or,
to use another illustration, they were like that
bread which appeared scarcely sufficient for a
few, and yet sufficed for five thousand, with a
large provision left over. These Avords of Christ
have in them the infinitude of Godhead; and the
years that have passed since they were spoken
have been spent in developing their meaning.
Yet, as one of their deepest students has de
clared, we are only on the outskirts of the
knowledge of them. The bread has been broken
amongst men and has sufficed, and still there is
more. The teaching of Christ was not exhaus
tive but germinant, — like a handful of seeds and

The Teaching of Christ. ia.'j
roots, with great possibilities which have never
been unfolded; which never will be, because they
are infinite. No other chief of thought has this
depth, this influence. Every other teacher comes
to be criticised and questioned, every other mas
ter has his place filled, but a willing Christendom
still sits at the feet of Christ.
Again, His words are remarkable for their in
tellectual qualities, and at the same time never
marked by mere cleverness. He never needed
to meditate before He gave an answer; and, as
we shall see, most of His finest sayings were
struck from Him in the heat of argument. He
could make sharp retorts and replies, but He
seldom cared to do so. He never was disingen
uous, — never escaped by a quirk or quibble. His
sayings were all perfect in their form. His dic
tion is not an artificial fold which may be taken
off His thoughts and replaced by another. The
thought lives through every particle of the style.
To cut is to wound.1 Yet of form there was no
apparent thought; and all was spoken not to
display the gift of the speaker, but to win the
1 A perusal of the well-intentioned modern travesties of
Christ's words is instructive. See Foster's Journal, 393.

148 The Incarnate Saviour.
hearts of the hearers. He Himself paid abso
lutely no regard to intellectual eminence. His
disciples were not amongst the wise and pru
dent, and He was thankful that it was so. He
did not indeed disparage study and learning; but
His criterion of judgment was not the criterion
of the schools, and nothing was of any account
in His eyes save Avhat made for the purity and
simplicity of the soul. He had no intellectual
pride; and though He could have held the whole
Sanhedrim in audience, and commanded the ad
miration of the learned, He never made the
attempt. He speaks of heaven, of the future world, as
a witness. Yet all His revelation is carefully
shaded to make it fit for our eyes. He claims
to know the Father as none other can. He knows
the interior relations of the Godhead. He beheld
Satan as lightning fall from heaven, and knows
of the joy that is in the presence of the angels
of God over one sinner that repenteth. He is
familiar with the many mansions in His Father's
house, and speaks of departing to prepare a place
there for His disciples. Speaking to Nicodemus,
He forgets the narrow street, with the wind moan-

The Teaching of Christ. 149
ing along it, and says, "The Son of man which
is in heaven." Yet how little is spoken, how
many pressing questions are left unanswered !
Not because He could not answer them, for this
reticence goes along with clear, calm, confident
knowledge. It was not that He did not know;
it was because the knowledge was too high and
too deep to be expressed to men.
Such are some of the characteristics of Christ's
teaching. Into the matter of that teaching Ave do
not enter at present. Of this teaching He said
Himself that it would last longer than heaven
and earth. Yet He took none of the ordinary
precautions for the preservation of His teaching.
He never wrote, except once upon the ground.
His method, however, was more effectual, for He
put His law in the mind, and Avrote it on the
heart, J and the two thousand years that have
gone past have never as yet given the lie to His
saying. Many a name has risen and set since
then. Many words have been spoken and for
gotten; but never since they were uttered first
have the words of Christ been more earnestly
heeded and studied than they are to-day. There
1 See Aquinas, Summa, Quasst. 42, Art. i

150 The Incarnate Saviour.
are voices that tell us that these words also will
pass away, and that the influence of Christ will
decay, as has decayed the influence of other
teachers. But what is to take their place ? They
fill a void which must be filled, and which no
other words do anything to supply. They are
living and mighty still; and until we see other
words likely to be their substitute, we prefer to
believe that He spoke but the sober truth when
He said that they would endure when heaven
and earth had passed away.

CHAPTER IX.
Elje Apostles.

'Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.'

"We are weary, and we
Feeble and faint in our march,
Keady to drop down and die;
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckon' dst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thine hand.
If in the ways of the world
Stones have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing; to us thou wert still
Cheerful and healthful and firm.
Thus to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself,
And at the end of the day,
O faithful Shepherd, to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand." M. Abnold.
SOME of the apostles were at first disciples
of John, — probably all were so, — and this
fact shows that they were men of moral earnest
ness, wearied of the unsatisfying religion that was
in vogue, and needing something more. They
were men also who could not rest under the pre-
(151)

152 The Incarnate Saviour.
liminary dispensation of John, and who eagerly
embraced the Messiah when He appeared. At
first their faith was not mature. Although they
saw in Christ the fulfilment of Old Testament
prophecy, that prophecy they interpreted in a very
carnal and unworthy sense. Still they were en
thusiasts. They had the root of the matter in
them, and He who measured them exactly from
the first saw their fitness for their place.
At first they appeared to have been only occa
sional companions of Christ. We find them, for
example, with Jesus at His first miracle, wrought
at the marriage at Cana. Then they began to at
tend on His person, and to be with Him almost
without a break, accompanying Him in His
preaching journeys throughout the land. Their
function was to be eye-witnesses and ministers of
the word; and in order that nothing should be
lost, it was needful that He should soon have
about Him a company of disciples. After a time
He chose twelve of them as apostles, partly to be
free of the inconvenient crowd that pursued His
steps, but mainly for two reasons, — first, that they
might be with Him; and, secondly, that they
might be fishers of men. The number twelve had
reference no doubt to the twelve tribes of Israel,

The Apostles. 153
besides its convenience otherwise. The twelve
apostles were chosen at least a year before His
crucifixion. We do not know very much of the
greater part of them. They were poor men chosen
from the lower classes, partly because the wise and
prudent did not give ear to Christ, partly because
there was less misapprehension in their minds to
combat. Two or three of them were men of sin
gular gifts, — in particular, John and Peter. John
was the disciple whom Jesus specially loved, the
disciple who understood best His soul and His
object. Of John we have a tolerably complete
portraiture in the Gospels. He was a man of
fiery, vigorous character externally, but under
neath the apparent force and impulse there was a
great and gentle loAre, — a love that was a profound
intelligence, making him fit to gaze on God's
greatest revelations. Some difficulty has been felt
in harmonizing the two ideas, — the Son of Thun
der and the Apostle of Love. It has been sug
gested that as years grew, and as the Master's in
fluence Avas more felt, the fiery passions of youth
were cooled. One advocate of this view says: "It
is a tribute to the power of Christ, that He sub
dued and dominated such a nature. A traveller,
giving an account of an ancient volcano which

154 The Incarnate Saviour.
he visited, tells of a wondrous cup-like hollow on
the mountain summit, and where the fierce heat
had once burned, a still, clear pool of water look
ing up like an eye to the beautiful heavens above."
But the difficulty of imagining the two together
has perhaps been exaggerated. The great deeps
of his nature were unmoved, though the surface
might be vexed with transient storm. Peter's
character is more easily comprehended. A hasty,
audacious, impulsive temperament, a Avarm heart,
strong common sense, — these were his main char
acteristics. Christ discerned from the first the
genuine worth of the man, and called him a man
of rock. The features of his life are all in keep
ing, and are, as it were, echoes of the central one,
— his denial of the Lord. One time he saAV Christ
in the sea through the uncertain glimpses of the
stormy moonlight, longed to be near to Him, and
stepped over the boat to walk to Him on the wa
ter. But when he felt the spray in his face, and
the unevenness of the waves' flow, his faith and
courage failed him. So at the end he avowed that
though all men should forsake Christ he would
not — he would die for Him. His imagination,
however, had conceived the result but not the
process. He had over-estimated his own strength.

The Apostles. 155
The cold of the day, the want of sleep, the jeers
of the servant girl, — these and other little things
came together and mastered him, so that he de
nied the Lord, and having once denied Him, his
iniquity, like the wind, took him away. He de
nied Him a second and a third time, with oaths
and curses. The two disciples sometimes appear
together. Peter and John, after the resurrection,
go together to the tomb. John stands outside,
but Peter makes his way in. And again, when
they see Christ upon the shore, Peter's eagerness
will not allow him to wait till they have crossed
the little strip of Avater that is between them and
Him ; he casts himself into the sea, and, half wad
ing, half sAvimming, he makes his way to the feet
of his thrice-denied Lord, while John waits till he
has reached the shore. Thomas has been called
the Paley of the apostles, from his desire to have
verified to him experimentally the fact that Christ
had risen. The term is not felicitous, for Thomas
had little in common with Paley, and as little in
common with the sceptics of the nineteenth cen
tury. These strange alterations of cold doubt and
passionate affection, which appear in the few re
corded incidents of Thomas' life, separate him from
most doubters. He had a warm heart, but a mel-

156 The Incarnate Saviour.
ancholy temperament, and his fears and doubts
were often too strong for his faith, though not for
his love. We have a definite impression of some
of the other apostles; of others we know little.
And " we must learn to think of them not as ex
ceptionally gifted and holy men, but as very like
the honest, hard-featured men we may see stand
ing in a knot at the corner of any fishing village,
or at whose superstitious legends or domestic tales
or ignorant questions we may laugh when we
spend a night with them in their boat." Our
Lord trained these twelve. They had the inesti
mable privilege of going in and out with Him.
They were trained by what they heard and by
what they saw. They had His direct influence
as well as the indirect. A large part of His life
and effort was devoted to their instruction. To
them was communicated a great part of the Lord's
teaching that they might deliver it. What they
heard in the darkness they were to speak in the
light; what was spoken to them in the ear was to
be declared on the house-tops. Their patient Mas
ter had to contend with much ignorance, narrow
ness, and superstition on their part; but there was
true devotion to Him, and that devotion did in
the end prove victorious over all that impeded it.

The Apostles. 157
He gently accommodated His revelation to their
minds. He taught them as they were able to bear
it. His hardest task was to disabuse them" of their
carnal idea of the Messianic kingdom. At last,
Avhen they seemed in a measure ready for it, He
showed them that He had to die. They came to
a turn in the road from which the end might be
seen. They looked forward and saw in the dis
tance — what? Not thrones in Jerusalem where
they were to sit by His side as temporal princes,
but the great cross on which the Son of man must
be lifted up.
The decisive interview, which forms such a
turning-point in the Gospels, is carefully described.
" Whom say men that I am ? " He asked them
first. They gave Him for reply: "Some say,
Elias; others, One of the old prophets," — perhaps
with some instinctive delicacy concealing from
Him the worst that was said. He appealed from
this judgment of the outer circle to those who
knew Him better: "Whom say ye that I am?"
And we may not say that He waited with anx
iety for an answer, — an answer that would show
the result of all His training and example? It
came full of music and truth from the lips of
Peter: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the liv-

158 The Incarnate Saviour.
ing God." " Blessed art thou," He said with quick
gladness; "flesh and blood hath not revealed it
unto th'ee, but my Father which is in heaven."
Having thus established them in the faith of His
person, He begins to unfold the future. Just
as men find it needful often to prepare their
fellows for the announcement of hard tidings,
by establishing them in the assurance that it is
a friend who speaks, so He wished them to un
derstand who He was, that they might be able
to accept the revelation that was coming. " The
Son of man must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many
things of the elders, and Chief Priests, and Scribes,
and be killed, and be raised again the third day."
It is not of a probability that He speaks. He
does not say, "The anger of my foes is increas
ing, and may soon end in a storm which will
destroy me." He spoke of a certainty which must
be. He "must go to Jerusalem" — that of itself
was bad news — "and suffer many things" — the
picture grows darker — "and be killed" — that is
midnight. And then He shoots a bar of light
across it and makes it all clear — "and be raised
again the third day." But they did not hear Him
out: they heard about the death, but no further.
Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him. " Be

The Apostles. 159
it far from Thee, Lord: this shall not be done
unto Thee." If there had been any hesitation
in His mind, this was the time to bring it forth.
The heart groAvs faint sometimes, when a great
purpose, as it were, takes shape in words. The
eyes are dazzled, and a very little would make
the resolve collapse. But it is not so here. " Get
thee behind me, Satan;" for He hears again the
voice that in the wilderness sought to tempt Him
by pointing a short way to the kingdom. "Thou
savorest not the things that be of God, but those
that are of men." Then He goes on and tells
all: — The law of His kingdom was cross-bearing.
His disciples had each to bear a cross. He that
saved his life would lose it; he that lost his life
for Christ's sake would find it. There was a day
coming when the wisdom of following Him e\~en
with a cross and to a cross would be manifest
to all. The sluice is lifted now, and He talks
freely, as we ourselves have found it easy to say
much that had been long pent up, when the
difficult first Avord was spoken. So far as there
is record, He is not interrupted further, for the
disciples had more difficulty with the thought
that He had to bear a cross, than with the
thought that they themselves had to bear it.

160 The Incarnate Saviour.
Even when the solemn end came, when the great
depths of His heart were broken up, His pur
pose with these disciples seemed very imperfectly
achieved. They could not keep awake by Him
in Gethsemane; they nearly all forsook Him at
the cross. Peter himself denied Him thrice.
After His death they all scattered, but after the
resurrection He gathered them again, and ga\Te
them the great charge to go everywhere preach
ing the Gospel: " Lo, I am with you alway, even
to the end of the world."
The disciples were chosen, first, that they might
be with Christ. He had a real gladness and
strength in their companionship. There is a note
of pain when He says, "The hour cometh when
ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and
shall leave me alone." In the supreme crisis of
His agony He longs to knoAV that the human
companionship was near. To be utterly forsaken
was a deep grief. "I looked for some to pity,
but there was none, and for comforters, but I
found none." When they failed to give him their
company, He reproaches them gently: "Could ye
not watch with me one hour?" He is grateful
even for their uncomprehending fellowship. "Ye

The Apostles. 161
are they," says He, " who have continued with me
in my temptations." He knew the denials and
unbelief that were coming; He knew their par
tial sympathy and knowledge: and yet He was
thankful even for their poor company, for their
wavering affection, for their doubting faith, and
their self-willed submission. And yet thankful
though He is for their presence, and even in a
sense dependent upon it, He does not lean on
them as the strongest man is often thankful to
lean upon his weakest brother. Never does He
take counsel with them; never does He pray along
with them as a man with his brothers : He always
stands, while near them, yet infinitely apart.
But they were chosen chiefly to be instruments
in carrying on the work of His kingdom. Be
fore He ordained the twelve apostles He had
been in prayer, and had commanded them to
pray the Lord of the harvest to thrust forth
more laborers into His harvest. He put it into
their hearts, as it were, to answer their OAvn
prayer by making themselves laborers. He gave
them power. Who was this that could distribute
the omnipotence of God? He was not weakened
by this bestowal of power, but remained as rich

1 62 The Incarnate Saviour.
as ever. Who was this that always gave and
never received, and yet was not exhausted ? The
power was beneficent to heal, to cast 'out devils.
It was easily appreciated, yet it was strictly lim
ited. The apostles were nothing in themselves:
all that they had was His gift, and was meant to
show forth His glory.
We cannot read the Bible carefully without feel
ing that the view it takes of God's workers is very
different from what obtains now. In the Bible
God's Avorkers are simply God's instruments. We
are not told directly of the intellectual power or
genius of any of them. We are not told of the
great depths in John's mind, or of the fiery energy
of Peter, because it was not they or their gifts that
did the work, but God working through them.
Their light shone before men, not to glorify them,
but to glorify their Master. It was not by their
power or by their holiness that miracles were
wrought, but only through Christ working in
them. They did not bring the contribution to
which Christ added, but everything in them that
really told in His service was from Him. This
conception is separated by a wide interval from
that which now prevails in the Church.
We hear it said, that if the old teachers and

The Apostles. 163
leaders of the Church could be restored, we should
see greater things than we noAv behold ; if we had
now in the Church the apostles and martyrs of
past times, the world would soon be subdued for
Christ. ^.That is our mode of thought; but in the
Bible it is God that is viewed as the worker.
Some of the apostles are nothing more to us than
names. They were not meant to be more; for not
they did the work, but the Spirit of God working
in them. Christ intended to form an enduring-
kingdom. But in framing it He not only refused
to seek the help of earthly governments, but chose
as His helpers men so unpromising, that from a
merely human point of view they were hin
drances. These men were rude fishermen, with
out intelligence, influence, and Avealth. They
misunderstand and deny their Master. Yet He
chooses them as the material for the most enduring
of works. Looking round on them, and knowing
them thoroughly, He says with calm certainty,
"Fear not, little flock: it is your Father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom." 1
How is it that when Jesus died, His kingdom
spread far more rapidly than when He was living ?
1 See the able statement of this argument in K. H. Hutton's
Essays, i. 137.

164 The Incarnate Saviour.
He surely spake as never man spake; and when
His voice was silent, His disciples might well de
spair of winning a victory which even He had not
gained. But they did not despair; and the reason
was, that it was not they who spoke, ebut the
Spirit of the Master working in them. They
themselves would have deprecated much of the
adulation that is paid to their names, and pointed
away from themselves to the Master, saying,
"Why gaze ye at us, as though by our own
power or our own holiness we had done these
wonders ? "
The apostles, then, while their whole history
bears testimony to the brotherliness, the patience,
and the tender humanity of Christ, after all are
the best witnesses of His power and divinity; for
He is not only far above them, but whatever
heights they have attained to, are heights to
which He has lifted them.

CHAPTER X.
(florist's Intercourse foitfj ©otr>

"He departed into a mountain to pray."

"So closely art Thou in God's heart,
And God so close in Thine;
I marvel which is human part,
And which is Thy divine." W. B. Phtlpot.
WE turn from the public life of Christ, and
from its aspect to man, to speak of His
interior life and His communion with God. In
speaking of the devotions of Christ, the main
element we must treat is of course His prayer
fulness. But before passing to speak of that, we
remark on His relation to the synagogue and to
the Bible. He was, as we learn, a regular fre
quenter of the Jewish synagogue. He was, we
are told, in His place there, as His custom was.
Six days He labored and did all His work, but
the seventh day was the Sabbath of the Lord
His God. He might have spent it among the
hills round His home, and thus escaped the death-
(165)

1 66 The Incarnate Saviour.
like monotony of the synagogue. But He knew
that the best preparation for His teaching was
the reverent estimation of the old service. Be
sides, His own soul was nourished amongst the
worshippers. He heard the word of His Father
through all the misrepresentations which over
laid it. The prayers might be dull and unaspir
ing, but there was at least a worshipping and
bowing down before the Lord our Maker. So
He was there: no more patient, devout, and
humble listener than He.
The incident is deeply instructive, as showing
the true place of public worship. No wise de
fender of public worship ever rested his case on
the ability of the preacher. Many preachers are
men of limited intelligence and feeble emotions,
— much inferior in these respects to some among
their hearers. The interval, however, to say the
least, is not what existed between the teachers
at Nazareth and Jesus. Men may read at home
sermons far more profound and eloquent than
they can hear in church. Still their true place
is in the sanctuary; for this is still a custom of
Christ's, to be where His people are gathered.
Where but two or three are met in His name,
Pie is there in the midst of them.

Christ's Intercourse with God. 167
Further, we have seen already that He was a
profound student of the Bible in His early life.
During those long years of preparation, His chief
companion was His Father's word. He studied
Moses, pondered the meaning of the mystery of
the Psalms, traced the line of golden testimony
through all the prophets to Himself. We re
member how well that knowledge served Him
in His years of conflict. We remember how,
Avith that sword of the Spirit, He made Satan
himself to reel, and taught the sufficiency of
Scripture in the worst crises of life. We know
how He made his minions to stagger under the
same weapon. " Have ye never read," He said
in thunder more than once to purblind students
of the Bible, who had vainly spent their lives in
the study of the letter, seeing nothing of the
spirit, — " have ye never read," and confounded
and routed them as He had done the Adversary
in the wilderness. Even words of that book
were made, we know, the foundation of elabo
rate arguments. But that does not give the
whole case. He not only knew the Bible in
tellectually, and used it as a sharp weapon in
attack and defence, He knew it spiritually. He
loved it, and trusted it, and sought it in the hour

1 68 The Incarnate Saviour.
of His agony. It was to Him food during those
forty days in which He fasted in the wilderness.
Not by bread, but by the word that proceeded
out of the mouth of God did He live then. And
so throughout His life the Bible was to Him a
fountain of solace and refreshment in the midst
of care and conflict. And, as we shall see, when
the bitterness of death came, and when that bit
terness was bitterest, He fled to the Bible for
words of appeal and consolation. " My God !
my God ! why hast Thou forsaken me ? " He cried
when the darkness was at its worst ; and, " Fa
ther, into Thy hand I commend my spirit," were
the words with which His soul approached its
Father. He died amid the solemn music of an
ancient psalm; and so to Him, in life and in
death, the Bible furnished not only weapons for
intellectual controversy, but food convenient to
nourish and stay the soul.
We come now to speak of His prayerfulness.
In one sense, the prayers of Christ formed the
truest proof of His manhood.1 His practice of
prayer and His exhortations to it are chiefly re-
1 The boldest transcendental flight of the Talmud, according
to Deutsch, is its saying: "God prays." — Remains, p. 131.

Christ's Intercourse with God. 169
corded in the Gospel of Luke, which is pre
eminently a Gospel of the Son of man. We are
told, for example, that Jesus prayed after His
baptism; that after He had cleansed the leper
He withdrew into the Avilderness and prayed;
that the choice of the twelve apostles followed
a night of prayer; that when Jesus was aloue
praying, the disciples came unto Him, and Peter
made his great confession ; that as He prayed the
fashion of His countenance was altered. Again,
Luke records that His disciples asked to be taught
how to pray; and two parables — that of the loaves
and that of the widoAv — are recorded in Luke to
enforce the duty of prayer. Besides, the prayer
for the stablishing of the faith of Peter, and the
prayer for the murderers of Christ, are recorded
in the same Gospel. This comes naturally from
the writer who traces our Lord's descent to Adam,
tells the story of His birth and His childhood, and
gives many beautiful touches that teach His true
manhood and His tender sympathy.
Prayer is what distinguishes man from other
creatures. The creatures below him cannot pray;
those above him do not need to pray. The an
gels, for example, render, without ceasing, ascrip
tions of praise, which are no doubt prayer in an

170 The Incarnate Saviour.
important sense. One clear thought of prayer
is communion with God, having His thoughts
and His love dwelling and working in us, living
under the conviction that we have been chosen
by Him to stand and to work in our lot to the
end of the days. But here we speak specially
of prayer as request for some needed boon. The
manhood of Christ never comes nearer to us
than when we remember that He too needed to
ask for gifts and for help. We knoAv how His
physical nature needed to be supported: how
He was weary and thirsty by the well, how
He broke down in tears at the tomb, and slept
soundly through the storm that almost Avrecked
the little ship. But we need still more to know
that His spirit also was dependent, under sub
mission, and in need; that in communion He was
our pattern; that He Hved by faith; and that
although His life might be called one long
prayer, still He needed, as we do, special sea
sons of supplication to God. It would not have
been wonderful if He had given this, as the
angels do, in prayers consisting of mere ascrip
tions of praise and adoration; but we shall find
that we have in the Gospels as real and genuine
pleadings for a boon as any man ever offered.

Christ's Intercourse with God. 171
There is the other side of the case. While
Jesus Christ was true man He was also true
God; and as in other words and deeds of His
life we have traced a double side, — true manhood
and true Godhead, — not separate, but always to
gether, so in prayer we shall find the same.
And we may conveniently arrange our thoughts
upon the prayers of Jesus Christ, by consider
ing them, — first, as showing His true manhood;
and, secondly, as shoAving His true divinity.
Looking first at the prayers which show the
true humanity of Christ, we take, first, that which
He offered before He chose the apostles. His
enemies had been seeking to take His life away.
He went and chose twelve, as if to multiply His
influence and make it indestructible; but before
the choice He continued all night in prayer. We
can see how large were the issues Avrapped up in
this selection, — how much, humanly speaking, all
the fortune of His kingdom in the world depended
upon it; and so, as a preliminary to this solemn
act, He prayed all night. In the same way Ave
find Him praying before he revealed to His dis
ciples the suffering that was drawing near. AATe
too may well pray before we make a great choice
or speak a decisive word. Were we to pray, the

172 The Incarnate Saviour.
heavenly wisdom granted in answer might save
us many a blunder, many a retractation, many an
agony. We should be able to walk with sure
strength and courage, even by new and difficult
roads, if we saw the Wonderful Counsellor before
taking the great steps that determine the course
and the issue of our lives. In every life, no mat
ter how insignificant it may seem absolutely, there
occur circumstances and crises as important rela
tively as these were to Christ. When these op
portunities are misused, and these problems erro
neously decided, the errors, for the most part, are
irretrievable. To be saved from these errors, we
should look up to God after the manner of Christ,
and do nothing till an answer has come from the
sacred place to our question, "Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do ? "
Again, we find that Jesus Christ not only
prayed before great and decisive acts, but that He
prayed after them. Pie prayed after serA'ice as
well as before. For example, when he Avrought
the great miracle of feeding the multitudes, Avhich
we have previously referred to as in some respects
the miracle that made the deepest impression upon
the people, and most undeniably showed His di
vine power, He went and snatched a brief hour

Christ's Intercourse with God. 173
or tAvo of repose, and after that rose early in the
morning and engaged in prayer to God. This
teaches us much which it is easy but fatal to miss.
When we have done some great work by immense
expenditure of force, we are tempted to say our
part is done, — Ave cannot accomplish more. Many
a man desires to end and crown his public life
amidst the shoutings of applause for some victory
or achievement. He would retire to boast of it,
and live all the rest of his days upon that proud
memory. Better it is to pray, — to pray, if it be
God's Avill, for new strength, for new if humbler
efforts, and if that is* denied, for blessing on
what has been attempted or done. Jesus Christ
did not boast, He did not give up, but He re
cruited Himself for new service by continuing in
prayer to God. Another temptation is to pride.
We are lifted above the simplicity and humility in
which we lived before. Our hearts swell, and we
are tempted to think our previous life mean and
insignificant. Never are Ave further from God
than when intoxicated by pride. In the pride
of their hearts the wicked angels fell, and we
may fall too unless we are delivered from their
sin. Nothing will avail more effectually to allay
and silence our pride than prayer. In commun-

174 The Incarnate Saviour.
ion with our Father our pride is chilled and
destroyed. A kindred temptation after great achievements
is the temptation to profound depression. When
one has done one's utmost, and put forth the
whole force of life, one feels completely spent,
as if work were over. Men who have preached
with power to multitudes of people, have told us
of the terrible languor which succeeds a full out
burst of the heart. They have told us how they
felt as if their life went from them in that supreme
effort, and could never be regained. That is
natural; and we may laarn from Jesus Christ
how it is to be met. Let us pray that by
prayer and service we may be taught to feel
that our well-springs are in God, and that He
who strengthened and fitted us for that achieve
ment, which we fear we can never repeat, can
gird us, if He will, for new and nobler work.
The profound truth, after all, is that the greatest
thing man can do is to pray. The true climax of
his life is not some dazzling public achievement.
There is something greater and nobler in the
silence of the secret chamber, in wrestling be
fore God for a blessing on the message he has
delivered. The preacher is then really higher

Christ's Intercourse with God. 175
than he was when he delivered the message.
Man experiences his greatest privilege in com
munion with his God. It is easy to misinter
pret the old adage, which says, "To labor is to
pray." While it is true in one sense, in another
it is false. In a full life there must be both prayer
and labor. In a life that is all work, true relig
ion must pine and languish. In a life spent in
prayer, without actual service, there is apt to be
a' luxurious and selfish religion. Christ spent
His day in service, but rather than miss prayer He
borrowed the hours from sleep, because He knew
well that prayer and work must in a true life
always go together.
Once more, the Son of man teaches us to pray
before and during great agonies. During the
great agony of Gethsemane, and before the death
of the cross, He prayed more earnestly than any
other; yea, He outvied Himself^ for His sweat
fell upon the ground like great drops of blood,
which mingled with the tears of His strong cry
ing. We almost fear that the agony is to be
too much for Him, that the flesh is too Aveak,
and that the spirit must shrink from effort.
But He prays, and as the voice of pleading
rises, gradually the storm of His spirit is as-

176 The Incarnate Saviour.
suaged; strength comes from heaven; and He
obtains a victory so complete, that He is borne
unmoved through all the trial, carrying Himself
with wondrous dignity and patience before His
captors and judges, and giving His life a ransom
for many.
We travelling onwards can see, not far ahead,
great wrenches, great losses, and humblings that
we must encounter. The mere brooding over the
sorrows that must come to all who live, will not
help us to bear them, but we shall be helped if
we pray. There are those who feel no cross, and
expect none; but the cross will come to all,
whether they are the disciples of Christ or not.
As the Eastern saying has it, " Every dwelling-
place, even if it had been blessed ever so long,
at last will become a prey to wind and wroe."
But those who pray will find that Christ carries
the heavy end, and for all that may come, yea,
even for the sundering of soul and body in death,
we shall be prepared by prayer.
We turn, in the second place, to look at the
manifestation of the divinity in prayer. We have
seen Him true man, but Ave do not miss the land
marks of the true God. First of all, in reading

Christ's Intercourse with God. 177
the prayers of Jesus Christ, we miss instantly
one of the most prominent features of our prayers.
In His prayers there is no contrition, no sense
of sin, no prayer for pardon. EAren in the dire
extremity, when there are none to help Him,
when refuge fails Him, Avhen no man cares for
His soul, when He is forsaken even by His Father,
He asks why, well knoAving that the reason is
not His own sin. In this He contrasts remark
ably with His own followers and disciples. They
make much of sin ; their prayers are largely con
fession. It seems as if sometimes, when they had
confessed their sin until the mouth was opened
wide, they did no more but left it to God to
fill it. And we find also that the holier they
grew, the more unholy they felt themselves to
be; the nearer they approached God, the more
clearly did they perceive the glory of His holi
ness, and in that glory every spot, speck, and stain
in themselves stood out. We find that the prayers
of the Bible are very much made up of confession.
It is touching to read in the prayers of our fathers
the expressions of their broken-heartedness for
"the sins Avhereby Ave have made ourselves less
than the least of all Thy mercies, and provoked
Thee to embitter all our comforts." But the

178 The Incarnate Saviour.
prayers of Christ, earnest, agonized, tearful as
they were, have in them no word of confession.
He bore our sins in His own body and in His
own soul, yet He Himself had no taint of sin;
He was the spotless Son of God. And so in the
longest prayer of His we have recorded, the pref
ace is not a confession of sin but an assertion of
righteousness : " I have glorified Thee on the earth ;
I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do."
"Into Thy hands," He said, last of all, "I commend
my spirit." But He did not say, as we do, "for
Thou hast redeemed me," because He needed no
redemption, being Himself the Redeemer.
Further, it is very striking that though He
prayed often for men and before men, He never
prayed with men. We rejoice to pray with each
other, and He has encouraged us to do so. Ex
ceeding great and precious promises are bound up
with the prayer of two or three together. We
cannot speak in His name Avithout speaking in
His ear; even where but two are gathered to
gether, He will make the third. But Pie never
prayed with any one. He prayed before His
disciples, but not with them. He never said
along with His disciples, "Our Father," lifting
up common petitions for both. He never even

Christ's Intercourse ivith God. 179
said "Our Father" when speaking of Himself
and His disciples. He makes the distinction,
" Your Father and my Father — your God and my
God," as if, even in His closest approaches to
them, there was an infinite distance between
man and God. He prayed many a time for
His disciples, but He never asked their prayers.
Their sympathy, indeed, He was thankful for;
but though He prayed often that their faith
might not fail, He never asked them to plead
that His might stand.
Again, when He prayed He received special
manifestations of the divine favor. Having re
ferred to these elsewhere, we need not say much
of them now. Thus at the Baptism, when He
was dedicated to His work, and when the voice
of God attested Him as His Son, we are told
that He was praying. At the Transfiguration
He became clad in raiment like snow; His form
was illuminated, and He was transfigured before
His disciples. And then, again, God spake to
Him. Now it is clear that these manifestations
Avere in a sense lonely and supernatural. We
cannot share in them fully, and yet there is a
part that we need not miss. At the Transfig
uration, when He prayed, the weariness, the

180 The Incarnate Saviour.
wrinkles, the marks of pain Avent out of His
face, and He received His true likeness; and
even to men something of the same wonderful
light has come and may come. If we want to
have the wrinkles wiped out of our face, and be
transfigured with the coming glory, and to have
the stains of sins washed away, we too must
pray. Especially in death, when it is noble and
believing, there may be seen something of that
smile which was on the face of Stephen when
he beheld Christ. There may be even in life
that light like an Italian morning on the face.
It will come if we pray. He will say to us even,
"Thou art my son," and we shall know it to be
true in spite of all that makes against it, — in
spite of sin, and sorrow, and death. But such
manifestations as these received by Christ in
answer to His prayers must be held to mark
Him out as divine.
Again, the most superficial reader cannot but
feel in perusing especially the intercessory prayer
of Christ, that its tone is quite different from any
prayer of ours. Pie makes Himself equal with
God. It is probable that the prayer was lifted
in the Temple courts. At the Passover the gates
of the Temple were opened at midnight. But

Christ's Intercourse zvith God. 181
whether this be so or not, He prays standing
upon the steps of the throne. " This is life eter
nal, that they might know Thee the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."
"All mine are Thine, and Thine are mine, and
1 am glorified in them." Is that the voice of a
man ? Does not He speak Avho counts it no rob
bery to be equal with God? Then mark hoAV
He prays here. He does not plead as the frail,
unworthy suppliant, uncertain of the issue of his
prayer, but He is as one who has power with
God and who prevails. " Father, I will that they
also whom Thou hast given me may be with me
where I am, that they may behold my glory
which Thou hast given." Praying for Himself,
He uses the language of deep submission; but
praying for others, He speaks the tranquil irre
sistible word Ave would not dare to use. "My
glory," He says, when the glooms of death were
thickest, — " the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was, and will have after the
world has been." So we see that though He
was true man, and prayed like us with tears and
agonies and cries, nevertheless even in the deep
est hour of darkness He was God ; and His God
head shines luminous through all His sorrow,

1 82 The Incarnate Saviour.
and we know Him to be the eternal Son of God
who has become man.
We repeat, then, in closing, that His humanity
teaches us to pray as a preliminary before sol
emn duty, as a rest after service, and as a prep
aration for great agonies. We are taught His
divinity by the entire absence of confession of
sin from His prayers, by the loneliness of His
prayers, by the wonderful effect they produced,
and by His speaking to God in prayer as to His
equal. It is deeply suggestive to reflect that He is
still the praying Christ, only now He is the In
tercessor. Before Gethsemane He said, "Sit ye
here while I go and pray yonder." He says to
us now, " Labor, struggle, suffer, xpray, while I
go and pray yonder." He is praying for us, and
by and by He will pray us into heaven. The
day will come Avhen it will be His time to say
for one, for another, " Father, I will that he
whom Thou hast given me may be with me
where I am, to behold my glory."

CHAPTER XI.
(Kljrist Dealing foittj Inquirers,

"I saio all Israel scattered upon the hills, as sheep that have
not a shepherd." " He took the suffering human race,
He read each wound, each weakness clear,
And struck His finger on the place,
And said, Thou attest here and here." M. Arnold.
MUCH of the Gospels is taken up with con
versations between Christ and individuals.
Teaching so startling and difficult as His, with
such an element in it of attraction and hope,
naturally drew around Him many who sought
to know further what this gospel meant. He on
His part was as eager to meet inquirers as they
were to seek Him ; and Ave find that He bestowed
as much care and pains in expounding the na
ture of His kingdom to individuals, as He did
Avhen He was speaking to great multitudes.
The audience, if small, was fit.
Not only so, but we find that He put Himself
(183)

184 The Incarnate Saviour.
in the way of individuals. He came to seek souls
as Avell as to save. The shepherd goes after the
sheep — after that which is lost. If his track seem
erratic, it is because the sheep has wandered first.
So it is with Jesus. We seem to see Him seek
ing, wandering, as it were, aimlessly up and
down the land, — now in a croAvd, now in soli
tude, noAv in a house full of guests, now upon
the sea-shore. AVe find Him looking into the
faces of men, calling them from sycamore-trees,
or by wayside wells; and if we ask why He
wandered thus, and why His life-course Avas not
more definite, perhaps the best answer is that
He was seeking, and that His course was de
termined by the track of the sheep. Out of the
numerous stories we may select for study the con
versation between Christ and the woman of Sa
maria, and that between Him and the rich young
ruler. One of these issued in salvation, the other
in departure from Christ; and the contrast seems
to furnish some important teaching as to the up
building of the neAv kingdom.
1. Jesus Christ seeking His sheep must needs
go through Samaria. Travelling in the heat of
noon, He was thirsty, and sat down by Jacob's

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 185
Well; but He had nothing to draw with, and the
well was deep. The Creator sat by the waters
He Himself had created, and looked down into
their cool depths, in the burden and heat of the
noontide. Being weary, He sat thus by the well,
making no effort to disguise His weariness, —
stretched out in lassitude beneath the burning sun.
He is lying thus when the woman comes to Him
from a neighboring village. She was, we knoAV,
a woman who had lost her fair name, and this,
it may be, brought her forth at a time when
others were glad to rest. When He saw her,
another thirst awoke in the Saviour. Only some
times did the body thirst, but the thirsty soul
would not let Him rest, and had brought Him
here. With the thirst of the body the thirst of
the soul rose, and made Him forget His natural
thirst, and set Himself to win this lost sister.
To His request for a draught of cool water He
received the reply, "How is it that Thou, being
a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman
of Samaria ? for the Jews have no dealings with
the Samaritans." She did not know that this Jew
had dealings with the Samaritans — with all na
tions and countries. After what fashion He dealt
with her we shall see.

1 86 The Incarnate Saviour.
First, He wakened in her mind the sense of
need. Forgetting His need of water for the body,
He spoke of water that should quench thirst for
evermore, — of a well that sprang in the soul, and
never ceased to yield its sweet abundance. " The
water that I shall give him shall be in him a
Avell of water springing up into everlasting life."
And yet she understood not His words, but her
soul darkly felt their beauty. She thought of her
long journeys in the Eastern noon, and of the
need in her heart of something that would sat
isfy; and she prays, "Sir, give me this water,
that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw."
It was a poor prayer, but it was a beginning.
It was with her as it was with the prodigal in
the parable, for not love but need drew him home.
In that hunger-ridden land he dreamed of plenty,
and saw his father's house; but what he saw
there was not fulness of love, but fulness of bread.
Even the hired servants, whom he had so often
ordered about, had bread enough and to spare,
so that the very beggars did not depart hungry.
That abundance of bread made him rise. " I will
go to my father; I will say unto him, Make me
as one of thy hired servants;" in other words,
"Give me bread and to spare." Bread and to

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 187
spare was all the heaven which such a soul could
in the mean time conceive. It was very little, but
it was a beginning. And so, "I perish with hun
ger," said he, "and I with thirst," said she; and,
hungry and thirsty, their souls faint within them,
they turned their faces fatherwards and home
wards. But the conversation deepens. It was
not enough that she should be convinced of her
need for salvation ; she had to be convinced also
of her sin. "Go, call thy husband," He says, "and
come hither." The command seemed strangely
irrelevant, but He who knows what is in man
and woman well knew what He did. The Great
Physician of souls shows His skill; He is not only
the healer of disease, but its detector. To know
what the disease is, is the first and essential step
towards curing it, and the step which we often
find it hardest to take. He took it now with
sovereign inerrancy. He looked at her from
head to foot with those clear eyes over which
nothing could cast any glamor; He perceived her
sin, and He touched its secret place. We grope
clumsily for the place of disease, and spread our
ointments often where Ave should not. He, making
no mistake, struck her to the heart, pierced her con
science, and brought out all the story of her life.

1 88 The Incarnate Saviour.
It was now vain to disguise. She said, " I
have no husband," half shrinking and half wish
ing that He might prove His knowledge and
His claims. With a sad irony Jesus replies,
"Thou hast said well, I have no husband; and
he whom thou hast is not thy husband." We
cannot tell now all the wicked and bitter story
wrapped up in that, — the story of shame, and
crime, and heartlessness, that these words cov
ered. Enough to know that they seemed to con
tain her whole history. "Sir," she said, "I per
ceive that Thou art a prophet." There was no
use for further disguise. Now her heart and life
lay bare to His eyes. He was a prophet, and
she was a sinner; and there she stood naked
and ashamed before Him.
One sin He had told, but all were told with
it. " He told me all things that ever I did."
Good and evil were alike in that story. There
might have been love true and undefiled as well
as lawless passion; but whatever there was, He,
in telling the one sin, had told it even as He
had knoAvn it all. PIoav often does it happen
that the whole of life is the history of one sin !
All that Avent before has led up to that sin, and
all that comes after carries with it the shadow

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 189
and the pain of that sin ; so when it is dragged
into the daylight, all before and after is dragged
out with it. When He plucked the sin out of
her bosom for her deliverance' sake, it seemed
to her as if all her life were shining in the glare
of His omniscience. The question which follows
has been strangely misunderstood. She confessed
Him to be a prophet; and it has been said, to
a Samaritan no question could appear more
worthy of a prophet's decision than the settle
ment of a religious centre of the world. But
surely one moved as she had been, sought some
thing more vital, more personal. She had come
to herself, and, having come to herself, she sought
her Father. The sense of need and the sense of
sin drove her to seek her God; and "Where,"
she says, " is He to be found ? " " Our fathers,"
she said, "worshipped in the mountain towering
beside us. Must I go to the far Jerusalem to
find Him ? Can I not find Him on the hill where
my fathers found Him?" The Saviour, speaking
neither of Gerizim nor Jerusalem, tells her that
God is a spirit, and that they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The words were too deep for her bewildered
soul; she would haA^e been lost in them, had it

190 The Incarnate Saviour.
not been that she looked forward to an explainer.
"Messias cometh, which is called Christ; when
He is come He will tell us all things. He Avill
expound Avhat is now so obscure." The pronoun
"He" is emphatic; that teacher would make clear
what she could understand from none other. But
she was nearer light than she knew; she had not
to go to the strange unfriendly city to find Him.
She had not to wait for the Messiah. The Word
was nigh her — the eternal Word. " I that speak
unto thee am He." When He said that to her,
they looked the look that is at once an avowal
and a covenant. Their eyes met, and their souls
met never to part more. She who had come to
know her need and her sin, had come to know
her Saviour, and knowing Him knew the Father.
What follows is full of interest. Upon this came
His disciples, who marvelled that He talked with
the woman, yet no man said, " What seekest
Thou?" or, "Why talkest Thou with her?" He
had upon His face that rapture which is faintly
figured by the joy of the shepherd finding the
sheep, or even by the joy of the earthly father
regaining the lost son. He had in His face the
joy of the Saviour who has found a lost soul.
None dared to speak, until at length, seeing how

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 191
worn He was, remembering how long it was since
He had eaten Avith them, His disciples humbly
implored Him to eat. But He needed not water
from the well, or bread from the town. He had
meat to eat that they knew not of. "My meat,"
said He, "is to do the will of Him that sent me,
and to finish His Avork." And then with glowing
eyes He looked forward, and, with one ear of
corn in His hand, He saw the haiwests that were
yet to be, — saw the fields white, and the corn
falling before the sickle, — saw the disciples doing
the work that He could only begin, — and was
glad in the thought that He that sowed and they
that reaped would rejoice together. When read
sympathetically, nothing in the Gospels is more
profound and touching than the insight this gives
us into the workings of the Saviour's heart;
nothing shows more clearly what Avas His real
delight, and how dear to Him Avas the purpose
of His life. The joy Avas not transient, for the
woman carried the gospel to her countrymen,
and for two glad days He soAved and reaped
together. 2. The story of the rich young ruler is a com
plete contrast to that we have now narrated.

192 The Incarnate Saviour.
At first sight it appears a far more promising
case than the other. Instead of a Samaritan
adulteress, we have a young, beautiful, and, as
man speaks, a pure soul. So amiable was he,
that although still unredeemed, we are told that
Jesus loved him. He Avas young, and, as has
been said, youth itself with health is wealth.
"Wealth is in happy heaps that seem exhaust-
less. Oh for an untried, unstained, unsuspicious
heart! might the miser sigh, sitting wearily on
his chest of gold. Oh for the eyes that shed
the sunshine by which they saw, and that fired
only in hate of wrong and love of beauty ! Oh
for the feet that broke from a walk into a run
for very joy ! Oh for a back too strong to bend
in servility, and knees not too stiff to kneel in
worship ! " 1 And besides, he was pure. He had
kept all the commandments from his youth up.
He had not consciously stooped to evil; and all
ignorant though he was of the sin and weakness
so soon to be revealed to him, yet after his grop
ing fashion he had chosen the good part, which
many might envy him. Many a worn-out deb
auchee might look at such a young frank face
and say: 1 T. T. Linen.

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 193
"To know good is to love it;
And the honor that I covet
Is the pride of your pure youth."
Besides, he was rich, and riches tend to repress
and chill the soul. It was something that he
was what he was, in spite of all his riches; that
he had kept from drinking the cup of pleasure;
and that in his high place he had loved right
eousness more. We need not shrink from frankly
allowing these things, for Jesus beholding him
loved him.
Besides, there was something winning in his
mode of approach. In the case of the Samaritan
woman, Christ had to pierce through the dull
crust of sin and worldliness that lay round her
heart; He had to waken the desire He was after
wards to satisfy. It was not so here, for he came
running, as if with an earnest desire, — as if afraid
his enthusiasm would cool before he gained the
gift. He came reverently, for he knelt and said,
""Good Master." He went straight to the heart
of the question: "What shall I do that I may
inherit eternal life?" Look at the two pictures,
and say whether the Lord will not deal more
gently with the rich young ruler than with the
woman of Samaria.

194 The Incarnate Saviour.
So we say in our ignorance, looking at the
two, and seeing on the one no mark of dis
ease, and on the other disease in all its foul
ness. But Jesus looks with the eyes that can
not be deceived, and immediately takes hold of
the young man's question, and asks him what it
means. "Good Master!" what does that mean?
It is a graceful epithet. Is it mere politeness?
is it the mere effervescence of an amiable na
ture? or do you know all that is meant by say
ing "Good Master"? Christian apologists are
blamed sometimes for putting the dilemma, that
Christ is either God or He is not good. They are
told that such a style of argument will either
kill or cure. But they may plead great author
ity, for that is what Christ Himself does. He
pulls him up sharply, not because he was irrever
ent, but because he was superficial. "There is
none good but one ; that is God. If I am good, I
am God; and there is no medium." He goes on
" If thou wilt enter into life, keep the command
ments.'' The ansAver came with a shock of disap
pointment. The rich young ruler wanted to do
something more, — something new and great, —
when he was told to pace the old round. " Keep
the commandments ! " Why, he had given them a

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 195
life-long obedience. "Keep the commandments!"
Had this new teacher nothing more to say to
him? He had: "Go and sell all that thou hast,
and give to the poor; and come, take up thy cross
and follow me." He thought he had kept all the
commandments, but here was one commandment
interpreted, and he falls. The Lord goes into the
chamber of his heart and finds seated there the
horrid idol Mammon. It was too much: the
young man made the great refusal — he turned
away. What was the meaning of such a strange de
mand ? It cannot be implied that all who trust in
Christ need to part with their possessions. We
must fall back upon Christ's certain knoAvledge
of man. He saw into the depths of that soul, and
perceived that its ultimate rest was riches; and,
as salvation must be the rest of the soul on Christ,
that prop had to be taken away at whatever cost.
It was not that he was so grossly ignorant as to
think that riches would purchase eternal life; nor
was he so vulgar as to boast of his riches offen
sively. The soul was of finer fibre than that, else
Jesus would not have loved it. But his riches
were, after all, the main element of his happiness.
There were many things probably between his

196 The Incarnate Saviour.
happiness and its foundation, — so many things,
that he did not know that the real foundation was
money. Still, so it was; and if the riches had
been taken away, the whole content and happi
ness of his life, his very amiability, would have
vanished with them. It was not that he clutched
his wealth, not that he was niggardly, but his life
was his wealth — it was his rest; and if he had
been a completely beggared man, he could not
have stood free and clear in God's world, or, to
put it more plainly, the loss of his means would
have killed him, as it has killed many a one.
We need to make a very short and sharp reck
oning with whatever comes between us and our
trust in Christ. If we will not, He will, and
friend and lover will be put far from us, and the
edifice of our fortune shattered, that Ave may lean
upon Christ alone. The test was a very sharp
one, but nothing less would do; and so he said,
"I cannot take up my cross, if I must lay down
my gold. I cannot go up to Jerusalem, if I have
to go up to die." So then he went away sor
rowful, for he had great possessions. Whether
he returned we cannot tell. He might, — we may
hope he did, — because he did not leave carelessly,
and because he was loved by Christ. "0 man

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 197
whom Jesus loved, didst thou ever love Him in
return? and as thou once camest glad and wentest
away grieved, didst thou ever come grieved and
go away glad? Did thy blossom bear no fruit?"
Was he not saved if so as by fire? We know not;
but even if he was, he had missed a great oppor
tunity — an opportunity which never could return.
He went away sorrowful. And he left behind him
a sorrowful Christ. Else why the melancholy re
frain, "How hardly shall they that have riches
enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
How wistfully He gazed after him departing from
life and light. We speak and think much of the
sorrow of the disappointed inquirer, but what of
the sorrow of the rejected Master? There is no
sorrow like that sorrow. The same pang shot
through Him as made Him weep over unsheltered
and doomed Jerusalem, that so often might have
been gathered had He but had His will.
A few lessons may be draAvn from the contrast.
There is first the old lesson, needing ever to be
repeated, of the preciousness of one soul. The
greatest words of Christ were spoken to one soul,
the greatest joy ministered by one. "There is

198 The Incarnate Saviour.
joy in the presence of the angels over one."
"Where two or three are gathered in my name,
there am I in the midst of them." One soul
is an end worthy of all the effort of Deity, and
therefore worthy of all ours. Many a heart has
been made sad, that God has not made sad, by
refusing to be satisfied with what delighted the
Saviour. To save even one soul is honor enough
to crown a lifetime. Out of one soul's salvation
issues of inconceivable magnitude may flow. To
convert one may be to convert a continent; but
whether or not we see this — whether or not we
can cipher it out correctly — we may be sure that
one soul in itself is an end for which we may
strive with all our power, and over which we may
rejoice with all our heart.
Again, Ave mark that Christ did not try to
gain those Avho might profit His cause in a
worldly sense. He never bought adherents by
unworthy means. We can easily see that in some
ways the adherence of the rich young ruler might
be profitable, Avhile the conversion of the Samar
itan woman might rather discredit Him than
otherwise. His disciples marvelled that He talked
with the woman, and they marvelled still more
that He sent the rich young ruler away. " Who

Christ dealing with Inquirers. 199
then," they said, "can be saved?" But He never
bought adherents by worldly means, and never
sought to gather into His kingdom those who
were not with it in heart. His success was not
to be judged by numbers. It is pleasant to see
great numbers gathering round the standard, but
quality is more than quantity. Those who gather
themselves around Christ must be strong men
who have trusted Him, who have entered by the
strait gate, and who have left behind them all
other grounds of trust. The gate was not broad
enough to admit the rich young ruler with his
burden of wealth; there was room only for the
soul, and so he was left outside. Jesus Christ
looked forward to the time when men should say,
" Lord, Lord," and enter in this way the portals
of the Church visible, but into the Church invis
ible none could pass save those who had His
spirit. We are taught also that sin does not shut the
door, and that morality does not open it. The
Samaritan woman entered before the rich young
ruler; publicans and harlots entered before Phar
isees. Why ? Because they were forlorn, because
they had nothing else to lean on, and therefore
leant hard on Christ. The rich young ruler had

200 The Incarnate Saviour.
respectability and riches. He was not sure if
they were able to sustain him, and yet he would
not take the risk of quitting them for Christ, and
so he is shut out. He went away sorrowful, for
he had great possessions. The woman of Samaria
entered that door which is open to the wretched
and the guilty, for the Son of man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost.

CHAPTER XII.
Christ's replies to His Enemies.

"Out of his mouth went u, sharp two-edged sword.'

'AAThen the pitcher falls on the stone, woe to the pitcher;
when the stone falls on the pitcher, woe to the pitcher; what
ever befalls, woe to the pitcher." — The Talmud.
WE cannot fully estimate Christ, unless we
see Him as He was when He was put
upon His defence. How did He meet His ene
mies? The subtlest intellects in the country
opposed Him — who outwardly was nothing more
than a poor peasant, who had never learned. We
know how He could speak when He had time and
opportunity to prepare Himself. How does He
answer when He is attacked suddenly?
On one occasion He was assailed in succession
by different classes of His enemies. First of all,
the elders and chief priests asked Him by what
authority He did His works. They hoped to en
tangle Him, believing that in whatever Avay He
answered He would find Himself in a dilemma.
(201)

202 The Incarnate Saviour.
He replied by putting another question, "The bap
tism of John, was it from heaven or of men?"
They found themseh'es puzzled now, for if they
admitted the baptism to be from heaven, then
they would acknowledge Christ's claims; and if
they denied its heaA^enly origin, they would find
themselves in collision with the people, who rev
erenced John as a prophet. They took refuge in
a cowardly silence: ''We cannot tell." Then said
He, "Neither tell I you by what authority I do
these things." At first sight it seems strange that
He should fail to give a clear response to any
question about His authority. These men were
the appointed rulers of the people, and, apparently
in the strict line of duty in making such an in
quiry. And, besides, there is something that at
least resembles eA'asion in the reply — an apparent
want of openness and candor. Any difficulty of
that sort in the sayings of Christ is well worth
examining, for it always covers a large principle,
just as precious metal is found in the hardest
rocks. The answer was what it was because the
question was dishonest. He tears away the veil
from the question, and makes them see what it
really was. He shows them that they knew, or
might know, that the question had been put dis-

Christ's Replies to His Enemies. 203
honestly, and therefore did not deserve a reply.
Putting the question in that spirit, they could
have no answer. There are certain attitudes of
mind which shut the mouth of Christ, and there
are difficulties which, professing to be intellectual,
are in reality moral. This was one of them. For,
first of all, their minds were already made up.
They had come to the fixed conclusion that Christ
Avas not from heaven; and though they were put
ting questions, they never meant to believe the
answer, if it did not square with their precon
ceived notions. And so it is in vain for any one
to investigate Christianity with a foregone con
clusion. Many a one begins the search into the
claims of religious truth fully resolved in his own
mind that he never will become an old-fashioned
Christian ; and to such a one the mouth of Christ
is shut. They never intended to believe in Him
and do His commandments. They had habits and
ways of life which allegiance to Him would rudely
break up; but such an allegiance it never entered
their minds to render. So many a one begins to
investigate Christianity while his life is ruled by
habits directly contrary to Christianity, and it
needs no prophet to foretell that such an inves
tigation will lead to no result.

204 The Incarnate Saviour.
These men, besides, could have no answer, be
cause they had neglected the partial answer al
ready received. Light had been given to them,
and they had refused that light. "To him that
hath shall be given," is as true of Christian light
as of anything else. All have a little light to be
gin with, and that light, if followed, will brighten
and at last illuminate the soul. Christ is the
true light that lighteth every man that cometh
into the world. The range of His beams is wide,
and any one who will choose a beam and follow
the track of light, will find himself at last in
the central radiance to which all paths converge.
They could not tell. But if they had not will
ingly closed their eyes they could have told, and
if they had not been cowards they would have
told. And because they had neglected and re
jected the light they had, Christ refused to give
them another gleam. He will not give that
which is holy to dogs, neither will He cast
pearls before swine.
And, besides, He was silent to these men be
cause they were mere intellectual inquirers. The
very last thought that entered their minds was,
that they had need of Christ. They came to
Him to bandy words, -with no thought that, as

Christ's Replies to His Enemies. 205
guilty sinners, they needed His love and pardon.
To come to Christ as a clever lawyer comes to
browbeat a Avitness, is to come in vain. There
must be the sense of Avant, otherwise He will
refuse to speak to us, and in His very refusal
silence and confound us. N
Not deterred by the failure of these questions,
came the Pharisees and the Herodians. Of the
Herodians we know nothing more than can be
inferred from the name, which shows that they
were favorable to the ascendancy of Herod and
his family. The question they put was, " Is it
lawful to give tribute to Csesar or not?" and, so
far as appearances went, this question also was
a perfectly fair one. It was a practical one, and
to the Herodian there might be a question be
tween his loyalty to Herod and the demands of
a foreign ruler. To the Pharisee it might be a
matter of conscience. Caesar, the arch-enemy of
Israel, — his throne on the Babylon of seven hills,
his heel on the neck of the covenant people of
God, his eagle hovering over the temple area, —
this profane tyrant, was he to be acknowledged
by the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
The question seemed sincere, but was not in re-

206 The Incarnate Saviour.
ality so. The two had banded themselves to
gether in order to destroy Jesus, this hatred of
Him being the one thing they had in common.
He had called Herod a fox, and held up the
Scribes and Pharisees as a scorn and byword,
and they seek to flatter His pride and destroy
Him. If He says "Yes," He will forfeit His
reputation for courage and His last opportunity
of being a popular leader. If He says " No," the
Roman authorities will immediately seize and de
stroy Him.
He makes no direct reply, but asks for a penny
— a denarius, the common silver coin of the day,
with the stern, cruel, inscrutable face of Tiberius
stamped upon it; — "Render unto Caesar the things
that are Caesar's." The stamp is a mark of owner
ship; it tells of a fixed Government which rules
over their life, and to which its dues must be
paid. Our Lord declares not the divine right of
Tiberius, but the divine right of law and order.
Not content with this, He adds the significant
lesson and rebuke, " Render unto God the things
that are God's." That is, " Do not be satisfied
with doing your duty in the smaller matters, —
with cleansing the outside of the cup, — but rise
higher, and remember that as the image of Caesar

Christ's Replies to His Enemies. 2oy
is stamped upon that coin, so is the image of
God upon you." They were God's coins, issued
from Him to return to Him, owing to Him the
tribute of themselves. The question they Avere
discussing was of infinitely little importance as
compared with the question that they were ig
noring. It is the disease of humanity to escape
from the real problem which ought to engage
the soul, to one which beside it is but fri\Tolous.
"Render unto God the things that are God's."
The lines upon the coin are blurred, but still
the face of God is there, and you are not your
own. Thirdly, once more He was assailed, this time
by the Sadducees, who had got up a case which
they imagined would puzzle Him. "A Avoman,"
they said, "had been married to seven brothers:
whose wife should she be in the resurrection ? "
An imaginary case in all probability, and much
credit would the deviser of it take to himself.
But how utterly they Avere defeated ! He showed
them, as He showed all objectors, that they were
fundamentally wrong. " In the resurrection they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are
as the angels of God in heaven." And He pro
foundly argued from the fact that God called Him-

208 The Incarnate Saviour.
self the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that
these departed fathers were still living unto Him.
Not declaring a new truth, He showed them what
treasures, unknown to them as yet, were to be
found in the old revelation.
A lawyer, who might have learned wisdom from
all these defeats, now crosses swords with Him,
saying, perhaps, within himself, "These people
have failed because they have not studied the
law; they do not know the plans of cross-exami
nation as I do. But I will undertake Him and
silence Him." So he puts the question, " Which
is the great commandment of the law ? " and is
silenced by the voice which thunders out, " 'Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy strength,' that is the first com
mandment of the law: and the second is like
unto it, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy
self" It was enough for the lawyer.
The whole case is not exhibited by the stories
of His retorts. Some of the deepest of His sayings
were brought forth by enemies. When the Phari
sees and Scribes murmured, "This man receiveth
sinners, and eateth with them," He told the para
bles of the sheep that was lost, of the silver piece,

Christ's Replies to His Enemies. 209
and of the prodigal son. It was Avhen a certain
lawyer stood up and tempted Him that He spoke
the parable of the good Samaritan, which, next
to that of the prodigal son, has been dear to the
heart of the world. It was in answer to Simon's
suspicion that He told of the creditor who frankly
forgave both his debtors.
These instances might be added to. What do
they show? They show that the more Christ's
mind is drawn out, the richer it is. He is never
so great as when He speaks without premeditation
in reply to His enemies. Remember Avho they
were and who He was. They Avere the wise men
of the nation, skilled from their childhood in all
manner of Avord-fencing. He was but a poor
carpenter, who had just left the bench, who had
never learned. What makes Him such an antag
onist ? Whence has He that wisdom ? Why is
it that He is never worsted? Why is it that
these conflicts always end in the humiliation of
His enemies? that He makes the wrath of man
to praise Him, and the heathen to sound His
trumpet? Is not the man who can do these
wonders God with us?
So it has been since He spoke. Attacks on

210 The Incarnate Saviour.
the Christian religion have brought forth replies
which have been the fullest exposition of Chris
tian truth. We owe more to the enemy than to
the friend. The enemies who attack Him are,
in spite of themselves, made to swell the host
of His friends. The devil's assaults on the saints
have issued in the most pathetic and devotional
utterances of the human mind. The Church has
been at her greatest when led to prison and to
judgment. The blood of the martyrs has been
the seed of the Church.

CHAPTER XIII.
Christ's ®oiI for Jleu.

"I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day:
the night cometh when no man can work."

"This hfe of mine
Must be lived out, and a grave thoroughly earned."
BoBEET BEOWNINO.
WE aim in this chapter at giving an idea
of the way in Avhich the days of Christ's
ministry were spent. Before speaking of His
work, something has to be said of His endurance.
His sufferings in one sense were solitary and
unique, but He had His share also of those pains
which every great and noble life has to pass un
der. He was the enduring Christ, not only in
the deep mystery of His atonement Avhen He
drank the bitterness of our punishment, not only
in the trial agony which He endured as our rep
resentative, but in the life-long pain of His days.
He lived surrounded by an atmosphere of cal
umny and rejection. He was misunderstood by
those who were closest to Him in ties of blood.
(211)

212 The Incarnate Saviour.
For the gospel's sake He had to break through the
bonds which had been confirmed through thirty
years of His life. He had to endure the misun
derstandings even of His own disciples who were
nearest to Him, and to whom He showed most of
His heart. And, besides, He lived under the
fierce, fiery, watchful hatred of the Pharisees.
There is no hatred like the hatred of religionists
who fear that their system is to be overthrown,
and that hatred He knew to the full. He was
dogged by keen and critical malignity. Every
action was misinterpreted, every word twisted.
Men sought in all things to find materials for ac
cusing Him. This hatred pained Him, as it
would pain any — nay, it pained Him more keenly
than it could pain us, because of His absolute sin
lessness. He felt such a requital, because there
was nothing within Him Avhich declared it to be
even in a remote degree just. We who indis
tinctly know our imperfections have the feeling
that criticisms passed upon us, if not deserved in
one point, are deserved in others. He had no
such alleviation. Besides, since He loved all and
despised none, every harsh judgment wounded
Him. And further, His pain was intense, because
He saAv that men in thus treating Him were kick-

Christ's Toil for Men. 213
ing against the goads to their own ruin. When
men reject their fellow-men, they for the most
part know that the worst suffering will be that of
the rejected. Christ knew that the loss and the
ruin would be to those who so tried Him, and this
consciousness, instead of lessening His pain, made
it keener.
Yet He endured the contradiction of sinners
against Himself. The word implies more than
stoical patience, it signifies an unalterable tenac
ity of purpose. He abode in His place, saw the
plain path, and pursued it in spite of all oppo
sition. This persistence of Christ in His course,
the exceeding tenacity with which He pursued
His point, is often missed by us, because His
purpose neArer drooped. Had he faltered some
times, as all men do, and knit Himself up after
a temporary swerving, we should have appre
ciated much more easily the thorough and per
fect determination of His life. But the fact that
the motive always prevailed makes it more dif
ficult for us to perceive it. And, besides, the
exceeding gentleness with which this resolution
was as it were sheathed conceals it from us. A
velvet glove is over the iron hand, but it is an
iron hand. He endured the contradiction of sin-

214 The Incarnate Saviour.
ners against Himself. In spite of all the criti
cisms, all the hatred, all the opposition, He never
turned back. He kept His way steadfastly on
to the very end.
But besides endurance there was work. His
days were full of labor, and in all the labor
there was profit. The record of one day from
the early part of His ministry, will best show
the nature of His life. That day He spent in
His own city Capernaum, where He had returned
from the other side of the Lake of Gennesaret.
Capernaum, then a busy thriving town, situated
on a pile of rocks OATerlooking the sea, was for
some time His home. In the morning the neigh
bors came to welcome Him back. There would
be in the house, as in other Jewish homes of
the same class, a large upper chamber for prayer
and social gatherings, and the people flocked in
there. While they Avere with Him He was in
terrupted in a singular fashion. A man, whose
career of vice had been cut short by paralysis,
and who was now apparently approaching his
end, — for it is difficult otherwise to explain the
manner of his introduction, — was suddenly let
down through the roof and laid at His feet.
Whatever sins the man had been guilty of, he

Christ's Toil for Men. 215
had at least four good friends left. And these
kind-hearted men, in the eagerness of their friend
ship, had adopted the bold and daring plan of
breaking the roof, and putting their poor friend
thus down at the feet of Jesus. The man seems
to have had less hope than they, for Jesus look
ing kindly down on him as he gazed up into
His face, answered his unspoken thoughts with
the words, " Be of good courage, my child, thy
sins are forgiven thee." Some of the venerable
doctors in the room had come to test the claims
of Jesus, and Jesus first makes the claim of
power to forgive sins. They think within them
selves that He blasphemes, because none can for
give sins but God. And He answers their un
spoken thought by giving a proof of 'His claim,
— confirming the word by action, and triumph
antly healing the man. While they were think
ing it is easy to say, "Thy sins be forgiven
thee," He shows them that He can not only
speak but act.
Shortly after He went out with a multitude
following Him, and at the receipt of custom
He sees a man Levi. This man had deeply de
graded himself in the eyes of his fellow-country
men by taking service with the Romans. He had

216 The Incarnate Saviour.
to receive the dues of the boats that came into
the little port, and the taxes of the caravans that
entered the town. It must have been a great
grief to his friends to see him where he was,
for no true Jew would have taken such work. He
had been scourged out of the synagogue, and
cut off from his own people, and there he was
day by day among his relatives, but not of them.
The class of men to which he belonged was ex
ecrated by his countrymen, and doubtless there
was an honest family in that town to whom he
was a constant grief. Jesus cast His eyes upon
him and said, " Follow me." And the man rose
and followed Him. He left his old life, received
a new name — the gift of God — and became a
disciple, an apostle of Jesus Christ. This call
would make a great sensation — and we find that
it did — amongst those of Matthew's own class, as
well as others. It showed how utterly indifferent
Christ was to worldly considerations in the choice
of His disciples. To elect a man who had been
a publican would be a stumbling-block to many,
but Christ did not follow the maxims of so-called
prudence. He called Matthew, and then Avent
out and taught. What He said we cannot tell.
The lost words of Christ, what desires, what spec-

Christ's Toil for Men. 217
ulation there have been about these ! Science has
given us many things back, and we still may gaze
on the scenes where the words were spoken. But
these lost words of Christ, will they ever be re
stored ? We shall find some of them, doubtless,
in heaven, woven into the grateful songs of praise
raised by those whom they won.
He taught — how long we do not know, but in
the evening we find Him sitting at Matthew's
table with a great company of publicans and sin
ners. Matthew showed his insight into the heart
of Christ by asking those publicans and sinners,
knowing that their company would be welcome;
and he showed his love for his old associates by
giving, and they their good feeling for him by
accepting, this invitation. He took them to his
house, which must have been large and hand
some to receive so great a company, and there
Jesus must have enjoyed some of His purest
draughts of happiness. The Pharisees came in
to criticise. Debate commenced, and we have
some of the conversation that passed at the table.
The question was put, why the disciples did not
fast as the disciples of John had done, and Jesus
replies in some of His profoundest and most
genial words. His kingdom, He explained, was

218 The Incarnate Saviour.
one of joy, and He was yet with His disciples.
The time was coming when He would be taken
from them, and it would be time enough for them
to fast. In the mean time they were to be glad,
for His preaching was good news. He illustrated
this by the parable of the children of the bride-
chamber, who do not mourn, but the reverse,
when the bridegroom is with them; and by the
parable of the old and new cloth, and the bottles
and the wine. Old cloth should not be sewed
on to new; old wine should not be put in new
bottles. The laAv of seemliness and congruity
should be observed, and yet He says there is
something to be said for those who prefer the
old, for the old is mild. The mood of Christ at
this supper seems to have been exceedingly
bright and cheerful. He was where He loved
best to be. The Physician was amongst the
sick, and He felt Himself at home.
While they were sitting, there suddenly burst
in the ruler of the synagogue, Jairus. He was
the chief man of the place, and it was strange
that he was seen in such a house, for he very
probably had scourged Matthew out of the syn
agogue with forty stripes save one. But he had
good reason. His little daughter — a term of en-

Christ's Toil for Men. 219
dearment, for the girl was twelve, and that age
means womanhood in the East; — is at the point
of death. Jesus went with him down the dark
ling street, but as they were going along they
were stopped by a woman who had an issue of
blood. Twelve years had she suffered from it —
as long a time as Jairus' daughter had lived.
She had spent all her living and was nothing
the better, but rather the worse. The disease
was one which warranted divorce, and made her
unclean. She touched the hem of the Healer's
garment with a trembling finger, and virtue went
out of Him. He turned round, asked who touched
Him, had her brought forward to confess her story,
and sent her away with the words: "Thy faith
hath saved thee; go in peace." Jairus must have
been impatient while this delay took place, know
ing all the time that his daughter's life was pass
ing. And when they came to the door there was
the tumult of the mourners, which showed that
she was gone. But said Jesus, "She is not dead,
but sleepeth." He entered the room, took her by
the hand, restored her to life and to her parents,
and with benignant composure and tenderness
commanded that something should be given her
to eat.

220 ' The Incarnate Saviour.
Surely this was a crowded day; but, as if it
were not enough, two blind men cried, "Thou
Son of David, have mercy upon us." They fol
lowed Him with their cries, but He gave no heed,
until at length they cried, "Lord, have mercy
upon us." The use of that word, which was not
applied even to the emperor, showed great faith,
and Jesus saw that they were now fit to receive
an answer. He gave it : " According to your faith
be it unto you," and they received their sight.
Even this is not enough; for when He comes
home He is met by a man possessed with a devil.
The Evil One became incarnate when the Holy
One did, and now they meet. The result is not
doubtful. Jesus turns to the man with the calm
ness of conscious strength, and commands the
devil to come out of him. The commandment is
instantly obeyed, and the dumb man begins to
speak.1 Such is a day of the life of Christ, and of the
same complexion are all the rest. We find that
His toil Avas prolonged to the point of physical
1 I have followed closely the bright and graphic narrative
of Mr. S. Cox in A Day with Clirist. But I have not been able
to accept Mr. Cox's attempt to prove that Matthew was Christ's
cousin. See Meyer on John xix. 25.

Christ's Toil for Men. 221
exhaustion. We find that He put aside His own
bodily wants for the relief of others. We find
that with wonderful and uncomplaining patience
He bore the requests, and appeals, and interrup
tions which were constantly occurring in His life.
He made haste to do His work. Looking at the
face of the dial, He saw the hours passing, and
said, "I must work the works of Him that sent
me, while it is day: the night cometh when no
man can work." Is it any marvel that His life
was as a fire that burned fiercely? Unsparing
toil, continuous passion, habitual emotion wear
the life away.
His was an eminently active life, but its most
prominent feature was neither activity nor con
templation, but the way in which activity and
contemplation were combined. While He was
upon earth, engaged in rude hard work, and
enduring pain, He was always surrounded by
the presence of God. The ever thronging cares
of His ministry never separated Him a moment
from the Father. With us the deeply religious
spirit is often unable to cope with the disturbing
realities of life, and the practical spirit tends to
become hard and poor from want of meditation
and prayer. The two are joined here in absolute

222- The Incarnate Saviour.
completeness. Never was there any life more full
of tireless activity ; never was there any that drank
more continuously at the well-springs. None ever
bore a greater part in all the activities of life than
He; and yet He was the Son of Man which is in
heaven, and we cannot think of Him as without
the celestial background.

CHAPTER XIV.
®fje Eransffjjuration of Cfjrtst

"He received from God the Father honor and glory."

"Few the homages and small
That the guilty earth at all
Was permitted to accord
To her King and hidden Lord.
Dear to us for this account
Is the glory of the Mount,
When bright beams of light did spring
Thro' the sackcloth covering.
Bays of glory found their way
Thro' the garment of decay,
With which, as with a cloak, He had
His diviuest splendor clad." B. 0. Tbench.
THERE may be said to be three summits in
our Lord's life — the Temptation, the Trans
figuration, and the Agony in the Garden. Of
these we may perhaps call the Transfiguration
the summit level and division. It was the one
open manifestation of Godhead. Before, Jesus
had been manifested as God only in words and
acts; here He takes on the appearance proper
to Divinity. Up to the Transfiguration the faith
(223)

224 The Incarnate Saviour.
of the disciples grew until it culminated in the
great confession of Simon Peter, "Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the hving God." And up
to the Transfiguration the hostility of His ene
mies steadily advanced. Before the Transfigura
tion miracles were numerous ; after the Transfigu
ration few, and these few in special circumstances.
Before the Transfiguration there had been free
and frequent speech in public; after the Trans
figuration He talked mainly with His own disci
ples. It seemed as if all whom words and mir
acles could move had already been drawn to Him,
and so from the summit of the Transfiguration hill
He descended quietly into the darkness of death
that lay before Him in the valley.
The note of time given in connection with the
Transfiguration is extremely significant. It was
eight days after the revelation made to the dis
ciples of the approaching death at Jerusalem.
This helps us to understand the bearings of the
scene on Christ and on His disciples. Of the two,
perhaps the significance of the Transfiguration is
more immediately connected with the Lord Him
self. In the first place, it was for Him a foretaste
of the glory that was to follow. As He stood
there on the hill-top, arrayed in that garment

The Transfiguration of Christ. 225
of light which scattered the darkness, He was
clothed in the apparel proper to Deity, for the
raiment of God is light. But the light around
Him was more than raiment — it was more than a
robe put on from the outside. It was an emana
tion from the fountain of light within. These
were rays that streamed forth from His own na
ture; and herein is the difference between the
Lord and such of His followers as have looked to
Him and been lightened. The face of Moses
shone, though he was all unconscious of the radi
ance ; and we read of the dying Stephen that his
face was as the face of an angel — bright, calm,
and pure. But in both these cases the light was
derived, and the servants merely reflected the
glory that streamed upon them from the face of
their Master. Not so with Christ, who Himself
was the light of the world. He was not merely
one who bore the light in His hand — He, the
light Himself, rayed out in splendor, upon the full
blaze of which we may not look.
Were we to forget this, we might say that
the glory of Christ in the transfiguration was the
glory of His soul; not external glory, but the glory
of feeling and of will. There was the glory of His
self-devotion, of His utter surrender of Himself for

226 The Incarnate Saviour.
the needy world, and there was also the glory of
His resolved will, which made Him set His face as
a flint to go to Jerusalem in spite of all that was to
meet Him. Without disregarding these, it is safe
to conclude that the main element of the glory was
the revelation of that Godhead which had been
and was to be, for a time, so darkly obscured.
Again, the transfiguration gave Christ the as
surance of the sympathy of Heaven in the work
that was dearest to His heart. Moses and Elias
appeared and talked with Him about the decease
He should accomplish at Jerusalem. His great
work was to die, and one of the chief sources of
His sorrow must have been the want of sympathy
from men with that which was dearest to Him.
For long, except in veiled allusions, He was not
able to speak of His death at all. When at last
the tide of feeling burst its barriers, and He
opened all His heart, and told His disciples that
He must suffer many things and be killed, and be
raised again the third day, even Peter, who had
just risen to the height of his great confession,
fell and said: "Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall
not be unto Thee." He who a few moments be
fore had been called the Rock was rebuked as
Satan. Since He could not speak even to His own

The Transfiguration of Christ. 227
disciples of His great death, how welcome it must
have been for Him to commune with Moses and
Elias, who could speak of it with the calm wisdom
and Satisfying sympathy of Heaven ! They spoke
of the decease which He should accomplish at
Jerusalem. The word decease means departure,
and so the harshness of death is veiled and chast
ened in their speech. For what was His death
after all? It was a departure, which He should
accomplish from the Jerusalem which murdered
the prophets and stoned them that were sent unto
her to the Jerusalem which is above, the Mother
of the Holy. They two had an easy departure.
Moses died, according to the beautiful legend of
the Rabbis, by the kiss of the mouth of God. He
died in the fulness of his strength, with his eye
undimmed and his natural force unabated, while
Elijah was carried by a chariot of fire to the courts
above. Christ's death was to be more glorious
than the departure of these, and it was not so hard
as it might seem. It was an exodus He should
accomplish at Jerusalem.
If they comforted Him, might not He have
said something to comfort them ? Though their
end had been easy, their life had been hard.
Moses died without entering the Promised Land,

228 The Incarnate Saviour.
Elijah ascended without seeing the full triumph
of God's cause. Would not the Saviour show
them how their work — the work of the lawgiver
and the work of the prophet — was taken up and
fulfilled in his own life? He would show them
how their labor, the issues of which they had
not fully understood, was a preparation for, and,
indeed, a necessary preliminary to, His work.
For the glory of the work of Christ does not
efface and absorb the work of the servants — it
only brightens and explains it. He would help
them, they would help Him, as they talked to
gether of the great sacrifice that was to be
rendered so soon.
We know from other parts of the Gospel what
solace our Lord found in the sympathy of heaven.
Though Pharisees might frown and jeer when
sinners were saved, there were mirth and music
in the presence of the angels of God. Here He
was not ministered to by angels. Those who
spoke to Him knew more than angels could of
His sorrow in His work, and of the meaning of
death. Still it is the sympathy of heaven that
is here given as a cordial to help Him on.
Besides, He heard the voice of the Father, "This
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."

The Transfiguration of Christ. 229
We can never understand hoAV the approval of
the Father gladdened and uplifted the wearied
soul of Christ, and so we must leave it, remarking
only how much it must have been to Him when
it was three times repeated in the great turning-
points of His life. There is no need to dwell on
the view of Christ's death implied in all this. This
death is not a yielding to the malice of men, but
the fulfilment of the eternal purpose of God.
We now turn to the bearings of the Trans
figuration upon the disciples. They learned, first
of all, that the words of Christ about His cruci
fixion and death were altogether true. The stag
gering revelation which they understood so little,
and forgot so soon, was emphasized by the au
thoritative word from heaven, "Hear ye Him."
That commandment we need just as they needed
it. In the presence of the cross of Christ, after
all the explanation we can give, there remains
much which is a deep mystery. Before the dark
ness we stand speechless. We cannot reason;
we cannot understand; we must believe. He is
the beloved Son. We hear Him, believing that
the mysteries we in vain desire to look into shall
at last be unfolded by Himself. Still further, the

230 The Incarnate Saviour.
disciples were prepared by special revelation for
the great trial that was to come. They had the
Lord's divinity manifested before their eyes, and
this vision was to remain, and did remain in
some measure, before them when the shadows
and sorrows of death encompassed Him around.
So, when things grow darker with us, and yet
darker, we are, for the most part, prepared by
some special provision of timely grace bestowed
before, lest we should faint in the greatness of
our way. So much so that Christians have
learned, after a wonderful manifestation of divine
love, to expect some trial in the darkness of
which that manifestation would be the rest and
refuge of the soul. Yet again, we see here
Christ's mission confirmed by the representa
tives of preceding dispensations. These ancient
princes — elect of the elect — represented the one
the law and the other the prophets. The law
and the prophets bore their witness, and set their
seal to the atoning work of Christ. He was to
be crucified for setting aside the law, and for
falsely assuming to be the Messiah; and yet here
we have Moses and Elias talking and sympathiz
ing with Him, as if Moses said, "My law has
not been destroyed but fulfilled," and Elias,

The Transfiguration of Christ. 231
"Those wonders which we darkly foretold have
been fulfilled in Jesus the Son of God."
But still further, the disciples needed to learn
that Christ's true glory was in suffering. His
glory was full of grace. They saw nothing in
the cross but shame and defeat. This vision was
to teach them that His cross was His throne.
It seemed to them that He had completely lost
His glory when He went to die. They had to
be taught the victory of defeat — the glory and
the gain of loss ; for the outer trappings in which
they supposed the glory to lie were mere acces
sories, and when they were given up of His
own free will, the burning heart of the glory
only blazed the brighter. He never was so
glorious as He was in His bending love and
His stooping pity. God forbid that we should
glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Still further, they needed to learn the supremacy
of Christ. Peter says, " Let us make here three
tabernacles — one for Thee, one for Moses, and one
for Elias." He did not realize the unapproachable
greatness of Christ. He would have put them on
the same level. But he is rebuked, when Moses
and Elias vanished from the hill, and when to their
eyes lifted up in wonder there appears Jesus only.

232 The Incarnate Saviour.
Jesus was left alone. Moses and Elias vanished, as
all preparatory dispensations vanish; as, indeed,
all things and all men will ultimately vanish save
Himself. They shall perish, but Thou remainest.
From dying eyes all will pass save Jesus only.
The modern mind has in some measure learned
one of these great lessons. The glory of self-devo
tion that lighted up the hill, and scattered the shad
ows and glooms of death, has never been more ex
tolled than it is now by those who have failed to
see the glory of the cross of Christ. But it may
be found that all self-sacrifice that is persistent
and really helpful to the race, must ultimately
derive its force from the self-sacrifice on Calvary.
There can be no true enthusiasm of humanity
without faith in a personal God and Father, and
this Father is given to us in the cross of Christ.
Without this faith a man may attempt to lessen
the sum. of human misery; but the effort will soon
collapse. For if there be not a good Lord on
our side, is it not like an attempt to empty the
sea, and what is more, an attempt to empty it
Avithout proving that what we are doing is the
best fitted to attain the object? Besides, where
without the cross is the motive for self-sacrifice ?
The Christian spirit is the heroic spirit, willing

The Transfiguration of Christ. 233
to give itself. But the reasons must be worthy
and noble. The Christian spirit is shown not
simply in giving up this world, or accepting pain
and want, but in doing this, if it must be done, for
that for ivhich it is worth a man's tvhile to do it —
for something of corresponding greatness, though
unseen ; for work, for faith, for duty, for the good
of others, for a higher life.1 This view can be
beheld only from the cross. How soon was Christ
called upon to use the strength he had received !
He had been in heaven for these few hours, all
night on the hill with Moses and Elias. He must
have felt as if the New Jerusalem had descended
from heaven from God. It was good for Him
to be there, and His soul was doubtless strung
into an ecstasy of high rapture. But round the
hill there rolled darkly the sea of sin and sorrow,
and it was not long before He heard its moaning.
Familiar though it was in His present mood, it
stung Him with a sudden pain when He was
called to heal the sore vexed lunatic boy whom
His disciples could not cure. "How long," Pie
said, "shall I be with you? How long shall I
suffer you?" It was not long. Jerusalem was
near, and the end of His sufferings was at hand.
1 See the masterly remarks of Church: Sermons, p. 68.

CHAPTER XV.
Efje ^refusion of tfje Cross.

'He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.'

"The long self-sacrifice of life." Tennyson.
AN attempt has been made to show that our
Lord was one manner of man at the out
set of His ministry, and another towards its close.
According to this theory, His early years were
steeped in the sunshine; later on He became a
bent and sombre man, the old joy crushed out of
His heart by a desire for self-immolation. But
to those who accept the gospel histories, nothing
can be clearer than that the Cross with its dark
shadow lies upon them from the very beginning.
The shadow of that Cross is over His cradle, and
even in the tranquil years of His childhood and
youth it is not absent. An old legend describes
Him as working out His own cross in the car
penter's shop at Nazareth. The gospel is like
(234)

The Prevision of the Cross. 235
one of those great tragedies where in the earlier
scenes a suspicion is infused of the darkness that
deepens around the close. The Cross is always
present from the very first, although more fully
unveiled as time proceeds. The life of Jesus was
a perpetual going forth to the Cross.
Else how explain the words which He used at
the very beginning of His ministry, to say nothing
of the apparent shrinking at Cana? What else
can be made of the words, "Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will build it up," and His
saying to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son
of Man be lifted up ? " He said this at the very
beginning of His career as Messiah, well know
ing, even when things around Him seemed to
foretell a different issue, what the end would be.
He tells the happy company that gathered
around Matthew's table that a day was coming
when a shadow should be thrown over their joy
by the taking away of Himself the Bridegroom.
And as the close comes nearer, He is still clear
and certain in His prediction of the same thing.
He knows it as truly in the heyday of His popu
larity as He knows it when friends forsake Him
and enemies are fiercest. He takes His disciples

236 The Incarnate Saviour.
aside and tells them what was to be. He knows
not merely the general fact of His death, but
its place, its circumstances, and its instruments.
He is to die in Jerusalem, for it cannot be that
a prophet should perish otherwhere. He is to
suffer many things at the hands of the elders
and chief priests and scribes. He is to be be
trayed to His death by one of His own apostles.
He knows the time; not when Jewish hatred
seeks to destroy Him, but at the Passover, that
He our Passover may die then, and that then He
may institute that feast which is to fill up the
long space between the old rite and the perfect
banquet of His gathered children above. He
knows the implement of His death; it is a Cross
on which He is to be lifted up.
This prevision taken by itself involves- much.
To all men, death is near, to some, obviously very
near; but yet, when we begin to conjecture whose
turn it will be first, Avhat feverish doubt, what
baffled conjecture! How different from the un
wavering assurance and superhuman quietness of
such words as these, "He shall be delivered to
the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and spitefully
entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge
Him and put Him to death"! Again, how was

The Prevision of the Cross. i^j
it that He in the very start of His ministry,
and not without much temporary encouragement,
should be so sure of the issue ? Had He lived
to encounter the chills and reverses of life, and
especially such as come to a reformer, we
might in some measure have understood it; but
the sworn apostle of a new great cause does not
begin his work in a spirit like that. In his young
hopefulness, he says:
"They are tired of what is old,
We will give it voices new;
For the half hath not been told
Of the beautiful and true."
And, generally, it is only after a long and heart
breaking experience that a man makes up his
mind that his work is to be a failure, and that
his aim is to be defeated; but Jesus Christ knew
that from the very first. There is in Him none of
that pathetic confidence of a young reformer, on
which we look as on the Avhite plumes and un
spotted braveries of an army in march for a field
of blood. Again, a reformer, Avhen he saw that
the end of all his labor was to be death, might
accept that death as a necessary incident in his
career. He might say, "My life is the price

238 The Incarnate Saviour.
which I have to pay for uttering the truth, and
it so much concerns the world that the truth
should be uttered that I am willing to pay that
price rather than be silent. In order that my
work may be done, I am ready to give up my
life." Jesus Christ came into the world to bear
witness for the truth, but He did not give His
life as a price for the witness-bearing of the truth.
If He had pleased, He might have borne the
most ample testimony to truth, and delivered
His message in its full integrity, and yet kept
His life. But He gave His life not because the
surrender of His life was the penalty of doing
His mission, but because it was the great part
of His mission, — the great work which He came
to accomplish, the centre of His work for the
world, and the indispensable condition of attain
ing the object for which He came.
For Jesus Christ not only foresaAv His OAvn
death, — He foresaw it as attended Avith immense
moral and spiritual consequences. His visage
was to be marred more than any man's, and His
form more than the sons of men; every face was
to be turned away from His ; but all that was to
be in order that grief might turn to Him at last,
and that He might bear the heavy load of human

The Prevision of the Cross. 239
sorrows and human sins. He saw clearly that this
death of His was to be a creative death, — that the
Church was to be built upon it, that pardon and
cleansing and strength for the world were to come
out of it.
This appears in many things — most clearly in
His last supper. On the night in which He was
betrayed, He took bread ; and when He had giAren
thanks, He brake it, and said, "Take, eat; this is
my body which is broken for you : this do in re
membrance of me." After the same manner also
He took the cup, when He had supped, saying,
"This cup is the New Testament in my blood: this
do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of
me." We might speak of the certain and super
natural prevision which this event shows. Hu
man knowledge could not, certainly, declare that
His death was at hand, for the Jews had no power
to slay Him, and He had done nothing to excite
the enmity of the Romans. This is a clear case
of supernatural knowledge. But even more re
markable is the power which He attaches to that
death in predicting as He does that the bread
and wine broken and poured out then would be
come His body and blood in some sense to future
centuries.

240 The Incarnate Saviour.
"Both faith and art have given
To that one hour, a life of endless rest;
And still whoe'er would taste the food of heaven
May to that table come a welcome guest."
There was here not only a lucid prevision of the
near future, but also a prevision, as wonderful, of
the remote future.1 How did He anticipate that
men in after days would show forth His death?
His death was a death of shame and violence.
After a life spent in teaching and in doing
good, would it not have been far more natural
that He would wish to sink the fact of His
death, patent as the mark of shame, in the mem
ory of His miracles and of His words? and might
it not have been anticipated that His disciples
would do the same thing? But what are the
facts? They actually revive the memory of His
humiliation, and make a sacrament of His shame.
Century after century His death is associated
with His glory, both in the history of the Church
and in the experience of Christians. And when
He is commended to those Avho are ignorant of
Him, it is by the preaching of His Cross.
I need not stay to point out all that this in
volves. It involves, for one thing, the truth of
1 See Hutton's Essays, vol. i. p. 131.

The Prevision of the Cross. 241
the history; for who would ever have begun such
an observance save Jesus Himself? The thought
would never have commended itself to men.
Some thirty years ago an edict against Chris
tianity was issued in China, of which the follow
ing is a part: —
"Were their tale fact, it would still be quite
inexplicable. Why should the worshippers of
Jesus adore the instrument of His punishment,
and consider it so to represent Him as not to
venture to tread upon it? Would it be common
sense it the father or ancestor of a house had been
killed by a shot from a fowling-piece, or by a
wound from the sword, that his sons or grand
sons should adore the fowling-piece or the sword
as their father or ancestor?"
This is an instructive proof of how human
wisdom looks at the matter. But the foolishness
of God is Aviser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men.
"I am come," said He, "to send fire on earth;
and what if it were already kindled ? " When the
vision of the work which He was to accomplish
in the world rose before the Saviour's soul, there
came with it also the thought of the baptism
which He had to undergo before that work could

242 The Incarnate Saviour.
be done. " I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! "
But He felt that without going through that
baptism the work could not be done, — that He
had to die before that fire could be kindled which
was to warm and purify the world.
2. Along with this prevision of the Cross there
was an obvious shrinking from it. This appears,
we believe, even at Cana; and in almost every
reference to the coming death the same thing is
visible. When He sat at the supper table, He
could not bear the shadow of Judas lying over
the board, and said to him, "That thou doest do
quickly." The words were spoken, no doubt, to
get rid of the traitor for the moment, but was
there not also the desire to have the slow hours
of His agony hastened — to have the time brought
near when all should be accomplished ?
In another place Pie says, "How am I strait
ened till it be accomplished ! " as if He were a
man held up between two walls, who has no lib
erty, and Avho longs to be free. He knows that
He cannot be free — that His spirit must be bound
and shadowed till that suffering comes, till that
restraint is over.

The Prevision of the Cross. 243
Then, again, we read of Him on His last journey
from Jericho to Jerusalem striding up the rocky
steeps, with the timid disciples following Him,
alarmed at the intense resolve that was marked
upon His face. He struggles with and overcomes
that reluctance finally at Gethsemane, as we see
farther on.
This shrinking also requires explanation, and
only one explanation will meet the facts. Was it
the mere shrinking of the physical nature? We
shall find it hard to vindicate His manhood if we
explain it; but the suggestion may be dismissed
without ceremony. No; there is something more.
Christ had every reason to wish to be away. We
know that He came from the glory which was
with the Father, and we know that He was weary
of the contradiction of sinners here. " How long
time," He said to Philip, " have I been with you ? "
although it had been but a few months. "The
happy hear no clock,"1 but He, an exile, longed
for His home. Why, then, should He shrink from
entering it, even though sharp pains had to be
passed through before the entrance was accom
plished ? Why should He not say with His apos
tle, only with far more clearness, "I am ready to
' Schiller.

244 The Incarnate Saviour.
be offered up; the time of my departure is at
hand; I have fought a good fight; I have finished
the course; I have kept the faith"? Why should
He say, instead of that, "My soul is exceeding
sorrowful even unto death"? Because He was
bowed down by the burden of the sin of the
world. 3. We find that this shrinking is mastered by
His fixed and firm resolve. He died of His own
free will. Knowing all things that should come
upon Him, He nevertheless set His face stead
fastly to go to Jerusalem. He not only endured
the sufferings that were by the way, but every
step was as it were an agony. It was said of
Wellington, "The long self-sacrifice of life is
o'er;" but this is true strictly of Christ, and of
Christ alone, for His life was a continual going
forth to the Cross. If He pleased, He might have
escaped it. He did not need to go to Jerusalem ;
but He went there, and everything that He could
do He did to draw attention to Him. He might
have averted enmity by silence; but instead of
that, He loads His words more and more heavily
with denunciation and rebuke. He might have
struck His enemies to the ground, or rather kept

The Prevision of the Cross. 245
them on the ground when they fell after coming
forward to seize Him. A very slight concession
to popular clamor would have saved His life.
Nay, even after He had been nailed to the Cross,
He might have lived had He pleased. "They
bound Him," says Jeremy Taylor, "with cords,
but He was bound fast by bonds of His own."
He was held by His Father's will, by love of the
Father, by love of the world, by ancient prophe
cies and mysteries of love. Even at the last His
death is voluntary ; for He cries with a loud voice,
— not gasping out words for the strained ear of
affection amid the awful silence, — and says, " Fa
ther, into Thy hands I commend my spirit," and
sends away the spirit, death being obedient to
Him even when He is obedient to death.
The processes of His mind are strikingly illus
trated by John, who describes Greek proselytes
coming from a distance asking to see Him. They
were strangers to the apostles, and were a testi
mony of how far and how deep His word had
gone. He saw in them the first-fruits of a great
harvest, but along with it the augury which it
gives of His own death, and comforts Himself by
saying, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it

246 The Incarnate Saviour.
bringeth forth much fruit." After He said that,
His soul was troubled with the dread of death.
But a voice from heaven strengthened Him, and
He reasserted the glorious results of His suffering.
He was to become the plague of death, and the
destruction of the grave, by dying. His death
was to be the casting out of the prince of the
world, and therefore He set His face steadfastly to
go to the Cross.

CHAPTER XVI.
Suoas Escariot.

"Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed Him."

"Judas, dost thou betray me with a kiss?
Canst thou find hell about my lips, and miss
Of life just at the gates of life and bliss?"
Geoege Hebbebt.
THE character of Judas, and our Lord's choice
of him as an apostle, form one of the most
difficult problems of the gospel history. With
out professing to solve it, we shall endeavor to
gather the scattered lights, and to learn some
of the lessons of this man's life.
He was of Kerioth, the only Judean amongst
the apostles, all the rest being Galileans. He
might thus look more than they to a temporal
kingdom, and the anticipation of a temporal re
ward would no doubt be a powerful factor in
bringing him to the side of Christ. But, besides
this, there must have been in him something
that was touched by Christ — an emotional ele
ment in his nature which the words of Christ
(247)

248 The Incarnate Saviour.
reached and moved. Christ would choose those
as His apostles Avho showed outwardly the great
est aptitude in absorbing and teaching the truth
of His kingdom, and Judas was in all likelihood
previously a disciple of John, and had thus made
considerable progress.
This impression is confirmed by the behavior
of the disciples. At first Judas was pleased with
Jesus. The early ministry in Galilee, the multi
tudes, and the miracles satisfied him. All seemed
working towards that end which he most de
sired; all was harmony and content in the little
company, and Judas was made custodian of the
small means which all would be expecting soon
and greatly to increase. No doubt Judas had
this probable increase in view when he sought
and accepted the office.
So far all fared well. Judas was never true
at heart, but as yet he had not admitted to him
self that he was a traitor. All were deceived
except Jesus. From the very beginning He knew
that Judas had not the root of the matter in
him. There Avas no visible sign of this; and as
often an appearance of good-will is maintained
between men, who are separated in reality by a
sense of moral antagonism, though the rift was

Judas Iscariot. 249
there, and daily widening, outsiders supposed
them to be good friends.
The first thing that embittered Judas may have
been the discourse of Christ on the bread of life,
which drove away determined believers, and stag
gered even the twelve. By this time the process
of deterioration had begun, and the door had been
widened by inward corruption for the entrance of
outward temptation. Judas, being doubtful of
a heavenly reward, had begun to steal from the
bag ; and in the days of Christ's popularity there
may have been something to steal. This suspicious
ness of Judas, and his consciousness of guilt,
must have explained to him the predictions of
Christ's death, which the other disciples in their
simplicity could not understand. He understood,
and hated Christ Avith an intensified bitterness,
because of the doAvnfall of his hopes. This down
fall made him desperate. The other disciples
had to fight the battle between their old conAric-
tions and the new revelation, and the true love in
their hearts for Christ enabled them to win the
day. Judas having nothing to resist with, was
easily conquered. When the woman, in her lavish
' kindness, poured the great offering upon Christ,
we are told that the disciples said, "To what pur-

250 The Incarnate Saviour.
pose is this waste ? " It was Judas who first made
this unworthy and ungenerous speech, and the
rest followed him in it, a fact which may be taken
as showing both his influence over them and the
imperfection which led them to such a mean and
unintelligent appreciation of deeds of love.
Thus far we have seen that he was a thief, and
that his hopes were disappointed. Something
more follows. Judas was an able man, with a
talent for organizing, but that talent was not
recognized by his being put at the head of the
twelve. Peter, James, and John, were set above
him, and were but ill able to bear this elevation.
Peter took the Lord to task because of His an
nouncement that He was to go to Jerusalem and
be killed. He evidently thought that Christ was
the victim of a morbid hour, — that His spirits
had fallen, and that He was forecasting all man
ner of gloomy things which would never come
to pass. James and John tried to entrap their
Master into granting unto them whatsoever they
should desire, as much as saying, "Promise to
give us whatever we ask, then we will tell what
it is we are wanting." A number of dissensions
on this miserable subject of priority took place
amongst the twelve. On the way back from their

Judas Iscariot. 251
journey to Csesarea Philippi, where He seems to
have taken them to break to them, aside from all
their wonted haunts, the tidings of His death,
there was such a dispute. When He got home
He asked them what they had been disputing
about. They made no reply. Jesus took a child
and set him in the midst of them, and told them
that without the spirit of little children they could
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Peter
asked how often he should forgive his brother
if he sinned against him, and got for his answer,
" Seventy times seven." This question would not
have been put had it not been that some one had
been trying Peter's patience. Who more likely
to have done so than Judas? and what more
likely to have been the reason than the place
which was allotted to Peter amongst the twelve ? '
There was also a strife at supper amongst the
twelve, the occasion probably being that the
whole Paschal arrangements were committed to
two, and that thus jealousy was roused. Still
Judas continued to keep his character, and was
sent to preach and heal like the rest. Judas cast
out devils, Judas preached the gospel of the king-
1 See a very able paper on Judas by Principal Brown in the
Sunday Magazine, 1867.

252 The Incarnate Saviour.
dom perhaps as eloquently and successfully as any
of the band; but whatever were the wonderful
works which he Avrought, he never truly knew
the Divine Master.
Jealousy, covetousness, and resentment had
been opening the door for the devil. It would
not be true to attribute his doAvnfall merely to
the love of money. Covetousness is a sin which
always brings on others, but here it did not stand
alone. His heart was ulcerated by the resentment
he felt at Christ— -resentment that Christ had not
fulfilled his hopes, resentment rising from the feel
ing that Christ knew him thoroughly — the fierce
hatred which an impure spirit bears to a pure
spirit that knows it. He was also jealous of the
rest of the disciples, and lonely in the little band,
for nothing isolates a man like a secret sin. These
things opened the door of his heart for the en
trance of the wicked one. Satan entered first by
inspiring a thought, then by turning that thought
into a settled purpose, and last by giving an oc
casion for the fulfilment of that dark resolve.
The rebuke administered to him by Christ in con
nection with Mary no doubt crystallized his evil
purpose ; and just at that moment when the chief
priests were discussing how Jesus could be taken

Judas Iscariot. 253
in the crowded city without rousing the ire of
the people, with whom He was popular, Judas
presented himself, and offered to do the deed for
thirty pieces of silver.
He had two days to reconsider it, and we find
that Jesus, who till now had encompassed him
with His serene though grave regard, began
specially to deal with his conscience. Still he
did not quail. He sat down at the supper table,
and allowed Jesus to wash his feet. The Saviour
could scarcely endure such hardened hypocrisy,
and said, "Ye are not all clean." He was troubled
by the presence of Judas, wanted him away, and
said, "One of you shall betray me." He gave
him a sop, which the others interpreted as a
mark of affection. Judas was not even yet ripe,
so Satan entered into him. Jesus could bear it
no longer, and said, "That thou doest do quickly."
The disciples did not understand; Judas under
stood, and went out, and it was night — night
overhead, and a deeper night in his guilty soul.
Jesus was now alone with His disciples, and
never did He speak greater and sweeter words
than those which He uttered in that night of sor
row and weakness and love. The many mansions
of His Father's house rose for them in their unfad-

254 The Incarnate Saviour.
ing serenity. He told them of His own abiding
presence, and of the gift of His Spirit and spoke
words that are almost the dearest of all to the
Christian heart. He then went out, fought the
battle of Gethsemane, and won the victory in His
soul. It is Judas' time now : " Whomsoever I shall
kiss, the same is He; hold Him fast." Casting the
last particle of restraint away, he kisses Him.
Even then Jesus does not quite abandon him.
"Comrade, wherefore art thou come? Comrade,"
striking on the chord of old companionship, "by
all the memory of our time together, by all the
memory of my deeds and words, and your pro
fessions, I ask you, are you to persevere in this ? "
Then, "Wherefore art thou come?" — -striking the
conscience, asking Judas even yet to give his
deed a name, in the hope that when he had
named it he would shrink from a crime so foul.
In vain; Jesus is betrayed; Judas recieves the
bribe. The bribe, instead of comforting, torments
him. There are quaint mediaeval stories written
with a recollection of this, — one of a sorcerer who
gave bags of gold to his tools, and when they
went next day to spend their gold they found the
bags full of leaves; another of a magician who
used to receive men and horses in his castle, and

Judas Iscariot. 255
entertain them sumptuously, but after their meal
they were immediately torn with the pangs of
hunger. Judas' bribe ate his flesh like fire. He
came with it to the chief priests, and received
the answer, " What is that to us ? " If he had
but gone with his sin to Christ, who never said
to any one Avho came with his sin and burden,
" What is that to me ? " how different might the
result have been! But His betrayers had no
word of comfort for him, so he flung the silver
pieces on the floor of the Temple, and departed,
and went and hanged himself.
The character of Judas is no doubt a difficult
problem, but there are materials that help us to
a comprehension of it. He was, to begin with,
a man of emotion. How precarious that is let
his history tell. He had been touched by the
words of Christ, and his faculty of impressibility
gave him a certain aptness both to receive and
to teach. But his fate shows how little emotion
is when not issuing from principle. He was an
able man, for he to some extent controlled the
rest of the disciples, and — a more difficult task
— largely controlled himself. What immense self-
possession and determination is shown in the reo-

256 The Incarnate Saviour.
ord of his life! But he was covetous, and that
sin eats away and destroys all nobleness. There
must have been something singularly loathsome
in the man who could betray his Master for a
bribe and with a kiss. Again, he was an apos
tate, and there is no bitterness like the bitter
ness of a traitor. And we touch an element
which we cannot explain, when we say that in
this way the doors were thrown open, for the
devil came in, and the unhappy man was led
captive by Satan at his will.
An attempt has been made to show that the
character of Judas was much higher than has
been commonly believed— that he was the victim
of a misconception, and that he hoped to do Christ
good by betraying Him. Against this is the ir
resistible evidence of Christ's own description.
He says that Judas is a devil, and that it had
been better for him that he had never been born.
Words of "immeasurable ruin, of immeasura
ble woe ! " The only colorable pretext for the
theory is that Judas committed suicide, and it is
said that this shows him to be a nobler man than
if he had remained an honored leader amongst
the Pharisees, dying in the odor of sanctity. But
this rests on an assumption. It may be admitted

Judas Iscariot. 257
that the lowest type of criminal is the callous
wretch who commits crimes and justifies them,
or feels that they need no justification. Such a
one, however, is of a lower type originally than
Judas, who, as we have admitted, must have had
originally an element of nobleness and generosity
in his character. This original endowment does
not make Judas' crime less but more, because,
if it is granted, Judas fell from a greater emi
nence. , Further, this theory assumes that it is
by inward workings of conscience that a man
perceives sin; but are there not some sins so
gigantic as to force themselves upon conscience
once they take shape? and was not this one of
them? There are sins which, once committed,
stand out in glaring and appalling clearness to
the dullest eyes. When he saw — when the sin
stared him in the face, it was so terrible that
Judas could not endure the sight, and he plunged
into the thick darkness of eternity.
The character of Judas throws a vivid light on
the life Christ. What must it have been for Him
constantly to endure the presence of such a
one ? Many a reformer, whose name outside has
been a lightning rod for storms to strike on,

258 The Incarnate Saviour.
has been upheld by this, that he had a refuge at
home, where all things were looked on in the
soft light of love. It was . part of Christ's suffer
ing that He had no such place, that He con
stantly had to endure the presence of a traitor,
that in His most intimate and confidential mo
ments this presence was there to mar the happi
ness. What patience is manifest in His treat
ment of Judas ! Though He knew who should
betray Him, He teaches him, pleads with him,
seems even to have hope for him to the very last.
Not till the very last does He let him go. When
His agonies are thick upon Him, and His foes are
near, He makes one last attempt to win Judas'
hard heart, "Comrade, wherefore art thou come?"
Then, what inexpressible force there is in the
testimony of Judas to Christ! He had watched
Him with fierce, prejudiced, suspicious eyes. It
might have saved his life if he could have brought
to mind one word, one deed of Christ's, to give the
least excuse for his crime; but he could find
none. He thought over all in vain; and so he
confesses, "I have betrayed innocent blood." The
confession is extorted even from his lips, and if
from his lips, sooner or later it must be from all
lips: "I find no fault in Him."

CHAPTER XVII.
ffietfjsemane.

"Who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers
and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was
able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared."

"Strange was His birth — His death and rising such
As to bear out that strangeness— and as much
May well be said of dark Gethsemane,
That sternest link in the great unity." Chaeles Tuenee.
THE agony of Gethsemane is one of the most
prominent, and at the same time one of the
most mysterious passages in our Lord's life. We
find it recorded in more or less detail in no fewer
than three of the evangelists. Besides, in the
Epistle to the Hebrews the narrative is commented
upon, and one vivid and impressive detail is added.
We are told that Jesus in the days of His flesh of
fered prayers and supplications, with strong crying
and tears, , unto Him that was able to save from
death, and was heard in that He feared. That
strong crying and tears were the accompaniments
of His prayers, we know only from the Epistle, and
(259)

260 The Incarnate Saviour.
the detail is used to show the reality of the Lord's
priesthood, and its help for us in our struggles
and sorrows. The explanation of the scene, how
ever, takes us much farther, although this ele
ment must not be omitted. Gethsemane was a
place near Jerusalem, where the Saviour often
resorted to pray with His disciples. His oratory
was to be the scene of His sharpest conflict and
suffering. There still stand olive-trees which may
have succeeded those that saw the supreme agony
of Christ.
The suffering at Gethsemane was evidently of
peculiar intensity. Jesus was familiar with the
varied forms of suffering, and His biographers
with their recital. Many and keen were the
pangs of the chastisement of our peace that had
gone before, but apparently they were far tran
scended here. Very unusual words are employed
to describe this centre and heart of His suffering,
as if language were taxed to convey an adequate
expression. He was sore amazed. He was very
heavy, His soul Avas exceeding sorrowful, even
to the point of death, as if any addition to the
burden would have been enough to snap the
breaking thread of life. He prayed with strong
crying and tears to Him who was able to save

Gethsemane. 261
Him from death, and was heard in that He feared.
This was no torture of the body, no physical
agony, but the far keener pains of the spirit. The
fastidious reticence of modern times must not
prevent us looking at the stern and naked reality
which is with a very gracious intent disclosed
to us. The suffering was so sacred, that, though
He was glad to feel His disciples near, He could
not bear them so near that they should see it,
and said, " Sit ye here, while I go and pray
yonder." But we are taken into the most sacred
ground. It was needful that we should see the
agony of His spirit. Had we not witnessed this
great and solitary expression of pain, we would
have been in danger of supposing that His Divin
ity made the fact of His suffering less precious
and less helpful to us. We might have said,
"God cannot suffer as I suffer. His pains are
not to Him what mine are to me." And it is
that this doubt should be forever silenced that
the veil is lifted, and our eyes behold His awful
agony, His bloody sweat, His great heaviness,
His sore amazement, His strong crying and tears.
His suffering, though in one sense quite unique,
is, we are warranted in believing, a guide and a
solace for us when a sorrow comes which makes

262 The Incarnate Saviour.
us solitary, and renders unavailing the sympathy
that helps us in our common woes. As there
come times sooner or later when no human sym
pathy is enough, — bereavements which no human
love can supply, wounds which the closest affec
tion cannot stanch, — when nothing really helps
but the sympathy of Christ, — this assures us that
He can sympathize even as He suffered, that He
can go with us down the loneliest road of sorrow
and of loss, because His feet have gone even
further, and His footprints are seen stretching
away to the darkness beyond it. There is a
Roman story of a husband and wife, who, weary
of this tyrant-ridden world, resolved to commit
suicide. The wife took the blade and plunged
it into her breast, and then drew it out, saying
with her dying breath, "Take it; it is not pain
ful." So, when the dagger of sorrow is plunged
into our hearts, it is tinctured with the blood of
Christ. It has gone into Christ's heart before it
was plunged into ours, and this has robbed it of
its keenest agony. So, when we have no other
companion, we are able to flee to Him and to
say, " He learned obedience by the things which
He suffered, and, being made perfect, He became
the author of eternal salvation to all them that

Gethsemane. 263
obey Him." As the intensity of the agony greAV
greater, and He felt Himself dying, He asked
whether the cup might not be foregone. He made
His last appeal to the Fatherly love and omnip
otence of God : " Abba, Father, all things are pos
sible unto Thee." He did not abandon the salva
tion of the world, but He asked whether this cup,
so bitter and terrible, must be drunk in order to
accomplish it. Three times He prayed, and as
He prays He grows more resigned. " He was
heard," says the inspired writer, "in that He
feared;" in other words, He was heard for His
piety — His submissive reverence. His submissive
reverence appeared in that He said, "Father, if
it be possible ; " and again in that He said, " Not
My will, but Thine be done. If it be possible, in
Thine unlimited power, canst Thou not find an
other way? Nevertheless, not My Avill, but Thine
be done." There is no revolt; He is ready to ac
cept the answer, whatever it may be. There is
the reluctance of the flesh — the drawing back of
humanity — the resistance of natural instinct, — but
that is all. In all His purpose He never faltered,
never ceased to be the Son. The will of nature
did not for a moment escape from the law of the
Spirit, and after a struggle it was entirely ab-

264 The Incarnate Saviour.
sorbed in it. There was the conflict between
resignation and emotion. Resignation does not
mean the suppression of human and natural feel
ing. There may be true reverence, and humble
submission, and a faithful acceptance of all the
sorrow and defeat that life brings, and that God
sends, and yet at the same time there may be
sorrow, and the distinct expression of sorrow,
without sin. There is no sin in the strong crying;
no irreligion in the tears. It was right that He
should suffer ; it was right to express the suffering,
so that He was able to say in the end, " Not My
will, but Thine be done." "I was dumb; I opened
not My mouth, because Thou didst it, till the
light came at last, and I was able to say, 'The
Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.'" When we
lose our friends, even though we know that they
have cast off forever the burden of humanity,
and have entered into the peace of God, we yet
may rightly go to the grave in mourning and
weep there. Strong crying and tears are part of
our agony, and it is not God's mind that we
should affect a composure that we do not feel.
He has patience with our tears, so long as they
mean no wandering of the heart and will— so

Gethsemane. 265
long as the sorrow is bounded by submission,
and does not become bitter and rebellious.
Again, as there was a conflict between sub
mission and sorrow, there was a conflict between
inclination and duty. They ran counter, as they
must often, and there was no sin in the conflict.
His nature rose up within Him against the punish
ment. The body and soul protested against the
thought of suffering thus. The fact of this nat
ural shrinking is what makes it possible for na
ture to become the real victim — an offering in
earnest. So long as the voice of nature is at
one with that of God, it may be asked, "Where
is the victim for the burnt-offering?" Sacrifice
begins where conflict begins. But the conflict
must not be maintained until it turns away the
will; and it was not maintained in this case.
Duty mastered inclination, submission sorrow —
or sorrow was bounded by submission; and thus
it was that the answer came, "He was heard
because of His piety."
The cup did not pass from Him; it had to be
drunk. Not eATen a drop could be spared. Yet
He was heard. The angel appeared from heaven
strengthening Him. There would have been not
only spiritual consolation, but physical help. The

266 The Incarnate Saviour.
cup was not made sweeter, but His lips were
made brave to drink it. The nature of the punish
ment was not changed, but the thought of it was
no longer the same. He accepted the work, and
was enabled to walk with a firm step to meet the
agony at which he had staggered. Besides, not
Plis will but God's will was done, and that was
what He prayed for. By prayer and supplication
He had made His request known to God, and
the peace that passeth understanding came to
Him. While the incident thus illustrates the reality
of His priesthood, and shows with how firm a step
He could tread on the narrow and difficult ways
that part right from wrong, there needs something
more to be said in explanation of all this suffering.
He did not endure it merely that He might be
able to sympathize with us. How is it to be
explained when we look at Him there, shrinking,
shuddering, with great drops of sweat mingling
with the hot tears that fell on the ground? Is
there the demeanor we should expect from the
bravest of the brave — from the leader of heroes
and martyrs? Is He shrinking from the mere
anticipation of physical suffering? If it be so,

Gethsemane. 267
the servant is above his Master; for many a poor
martyr has gone to his death as to a bed long
desired, and many a delicate woman has endured
as much bodily suffering without almost a tear or
sob. Is He then agitated with all this terror by
the impending suffering which others have borne
bravely and calmly ? If so, how was it that He
Avas able to carry Himself as He afterwards did ?
How was He able to bear silently the insults
and the tortures of His enemies — to master,
with the calm ascendency of His bearing, His
hardened judges? He prayed, when the nails
were driven through His hands, "Father, for
give them, for they know not what they do."
Why did He so shrink from death, which meant
to Him deliverance from the load of humanity,
and a resuming of the glory which He had with
the Father before the sinful world was? We
should have imagined that the agony, great as
it was, would have been forgotten and overlooked
in the thought of the great bliss that was to follow
it. If so, how was it that He did not take a way
of escape? A word might have saved Him. Pi
late would have been glad of an excuse to set
Him free. Without violating truth, He might, one
would imagine, have escaped all that which He

268 The Incarnate Savio7cr.
seemed to fear so much. No, the explanation
is utterly inadequate. No mere dread of pain
could thus agitate a soul like His. "There is no
passion in the mind of man so weak but that it
meets and masters the fear of death. A man
would die if he were neither valiant nor miserable,
only upon the weariness to do the same thing so
oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe
how little alteration in good spirits the approaches
of death make, for they seem to be the same men
till the last instant." It cannot be explained as
some have attempted, by the thought of the de
sertion of His disciples. To state such an explana
tion is to refute it. There is only one explanation
that will cover the facts: "The Lord laid upon
Him the iniquity of us all." He was forsaken by
God, He was enduring the punishment of our sins,
He was drinking the cup we should have drained,
and because our punishment was upon His sinless'
soul, the waters of His baptism were so deep and
chill and black that He feared, and wept, and
shuddered before He entered them. Nothing will
explain the suffering of Gethsemane except the
fact that He died to bear the great burden of
sin — our representative, the just for the unjust,
that He might bring us to God.

Gethsemane. 269
There was something more than anticipation.
He freely accepted death as the punishment of
sin, and in order to distinguish Him from typical
victims; there was needed such an acceptance in
the fulness of His consciousness and liberty. But
is it true to say, that at Gethsemane Jesus did not
drink the cup, but merely consented to drink it?
Rather would we say that Gethsemane is the soul
of His suffering. He laid down His life in the
garden. No man took it from Him; He laid it
down of Himself. There was the inner suffering
before the outward suffering came. There had to
be the outAvard suffering, for the world could not
understand Gethsemane. It must have a histor
ical fact capable of being tested by many wit
nesses. There must be something literal and
clear. So the cross is lifted up on Calvary, and
men see Him nailed there, and His blood is poured
out. It is in this way that we are at first led to
understand His suffering. We begin with the
story of the cross, and the nails, and the lifting up
of the victim, and the nerves quivering, and the
life as one pang. But we are led by and by into
the inner sanctuary — into the suffering of His
soul. The soul of His suffering was the bearing
of our sins. And He bore our sins in Gethsemane

270 The Incarnate Saviour.
and on Calvary, and we put the two together to
understand His work for us. He rose from Geth
semane when the bitterness of death passed. Re
sistance is over ; He gives Himself up to the ruffian
band. Men cross-question Him, buffet Him, drag
Him about, but He will never speak a word more.
He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a
sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens
not His mouth. He goes on without flinching to
bear the full weight of His cross.

CHAPTER XVIII.
Wbe Erial of Crjrist.

"As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not
His mouth.''

"My silence rather doth augment their cry,
My dove doth back into my bosom fly,
Because the raging waters still are high."
Geoboe Hebbebt.
THE death of Christ was the execution of a
capital sentence proceeding upon a sixfold
trial — three trials at the hands of the .lews, and
three at the hands of the Romans. Out of the
manifold details given by the evangelists, it is
somewhat difficult to reach perfect certainty as to
the precise order of events, although the general
truthfulness of the narrative is apparent. We at
tempt to relate the incidents of the successive trials,
but every detail cannot be certainly laid down.1
' See two articles by A Taylor-Innes in the Contemporary Re
view, voL xxx., and the brilliant narrative in Farrar's Life of
Christ. (271)

272 The Incarnate Saviour.
He was tried first of all at the hands of the
Jews. The Hebrew commonwealth and institu
tions were perA'aded by a deep sentiment of jus
tice. In the traditions of the fathers, we read,
that when a judge decides not according to truth,
he makes the majesty of God depart from Israel.
But if he judges according to truth, were it only
for one hour, it is as if he established the whole
world, for it is in judgment that the Divine pres
ence in Israel has its habitation. When Jesus
was bound, He was led through the sleeping city
to the palace of the High Priest. On the Thurs
day night, He had been arrested, because resist
ance was looked for, and He was first brought be
fore Annas, who seems to have occupied the High
Priest's palace jointly with his son-in-law Caiaphas.
Annas was by far the most influential man in
the Sanhedrim. He had been for several years
High Priest, but had been removed from that
office twenty years before, probably for stretch
ing his powers to the extent of executing capital
punishment. But he had been succeeded by his
OAvn relatives. Five of his sons were members
of the Sanhedrim, and either had held, or were to
hold, the office of High Priest, while the acting
High Priest, Caiaphas, Avas his son-in-law. He

The Trial of Christ. 273
was regarded by the Jews as High Priest de jure,
although not High Priest de facto. He viewed
Jesus with feelings of bitter contempt and hatred,
and endeavored at the very outset to extort from
Him admissions which would involve His death.
According to the JeAvish law, this examination
was wholly illegal. The accused was free from all
personal investigation until brought to trial before
the assembly of his brethren. By the Hebrew
law there was no sole judge, and no sole witness.
Jesus, therefore, refused to answer him. , " I have
in secret said nothing; why asketh thou Me? ask
them which heard Me," thus taking His stand
on pure Hebrew justice. The minions of Annas
felt the force of the reply, and one of them struck
Jesus on the face, saying, "Answerest Thou the
High Priest so ? " The contrast between Paul's
sudden anger when similarly insulted, and the
supernatural calmness of Christ, has been often
marked. He again took His stand on His legal
rights, and said, " If I have spoken evil, bear
witness to the evil; but if not, why smitest thou
Me?" Annas was baffled, and sent Him on to
Caiaphas. Caiaphas, although of the same mind
as the father-in-law, was a man of less force of
will. He saw that there was no way of getting

274 The Incarnate Saviour.
Jesus condemned Avithout seeking false Avitness.
This was utterly illegal. Hebrew judges Avere
eminently counsel for the accused. To seek out
witnesses was a scandalous violation of law. The
laAv was thoroughly violated already by the trial
taking place at night. Even an ordinary civil
suit should have been confined to the day, and a
grave criminal trial could be begun, continued,
and finished only in the light. The witnesses
were not able to agree. One reported that Jesus
had said, "I can destroy the temple;" another, "I
will destroy the temple." What He actually said
Avas, If the temple be destroyed, He would build
it up. The charge Avhich they Avere aiming to
establish was eminently one of conspiracy against
the national institutions, which with them was
blasphemy — a crime coming under the same cate
gory as the claim to be the Messiah, or the Son
of God. Jesus allowed the false Avitnesses to con
found one another. Their crime Was all the
greater because of the solemn adjuration the
High Priest had to pronounce to them : " In this
trial for life, if thou sinnest, the blood of the
accused, and the blood of his sin to the end of
time, shall be imputed unto thee." He held His
peace, and His silence maddened His accusers.

The Trial of Christ. 275
He was perfectly self-possessed, for all this had
been foreknown to Him, and He had come to Jeru
salem, not to perish by mistake, but to die as a
priest. His enemies seemed likely to be baffled,
Avhen Caiaphas, overcome with anger and terror,
strode into the midst of the hall, and said, "An-
swerest Thou nothing? What is it that these
witness against thee? " The silence was unbroken,
and then the High Priest exclaimed, "I adjure
Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us
whether Thou be the Christ the Son of the
blessed." This was the question for which all
had been waiting, and the answer came. Look
ing at the man who had lifted himself out of the
crowd of aged and evil faces, Jesus replied, "I
am; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the
right hand of power, and coming Avith the clouds
of heaven." They tore their clothes, the ordinance
in Israel being that every man who heard blas
phemy should rend his garments into two parts,
never again to be united; and the High Priest
exclaimed, "Blasphemy! What further need have
we of witnesses ? What think ye ? He is a man
of death."
He had to be kept till break of day, because
only by daylight and by a full session of the

276 The Incarnate Saviour.
Sanhedrim could He be legally condemned. It
was far past midnight, and the spring air was
chill as they led Him, with blows and curses,
to the guard-room. As He was led past, He
heard Peter denying Him with oaths and curses.
This was at the very beginning of the terrible
derision, which we cannot bear to describe in
detail. Suffice it to say that the worst passions
of men were wreaked upon Him. When dawn
came, probably about six o'clock in the morning,
a full session of the Sanhedrim, almost all against
Him, met. He was silent for a time, but again
declared Himself at last to be the Son of God.
The third condemnation followed, and a second
derision resembling the first.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate. The man
thus condemned to eternal infamy was at that
time the governor of Judea. He had made him
self obnoxious to the Jews by a mixture of
tyranny and weakness. At the very beginning
of his career as procurator, he allowed his sol
diers to bring with them the silver eagles, and
other insignia of the legions, from Cesarea to the
Ploly City. This excited a tumult of rebellion,
to Avhich he had to give Avay. Other foolish or

The Trial of Christ. 277
malicious deeds had made him very unpopular
with the people. He lived during his brief resi
dence at Jerusalem in the gorgeous palace of
Herod, one of those luxurious abodes on which
skill and wealth had been lavished. That morn
ing he was sitting in his praetorium to do bus
iness as usual. He was sitting in his judgment
hall, with the altars of the Roman gods in the
heathen chamber. The Jews, during the Holy
Week, would not enter the place, and he goes
out to them in the early sunlight, probably in
no good humor. " What accusation bring ye
against this Man ? " — the voice of Roman jus
tice; for the Romans were distinguished for their
instinctive righteousness, their passion for justice.
The insolent answer was, " If He were not a
malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up
to thee." Pilate, refusing to act as executioner
where he had not been the judge, contemptu
ously replies, " Take ye Him and judge Him
according to your law." He thus forces them
into the sullen confession that they could not
put Jesus to death. He was not to die by a
Jewish punishment, but by the awful Roman
death of the cross. There does not seem to have
been any concordat as to the power of death be-

278 The Incarnate Saviour.
tween the Jews and the Romans. They dropped
the charge of blasphemy, which would have
availed them nothing before Pilate, and urged
that Jesus had perverted the nation, forbidding
to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that He
Himself was the Christ the King. Pilate took.
Jesus into his hall, and asked Him, "Art Thou
the King of the Jews ? " There might have been
a pitying wonder, and yet at the same time an
instinctive reverence for the nobleness of the pris
oner in the question, "Art Thou, pale, spent,
Aveary man, art Thou the King of the Jews?"'
Jesus replies, "Sayest thou this of thyself, or did
others tell it thee of Me?" evidently meaning,
In Avhat sense is the expression used ? " If thou
sayest of thyself as a Roman would use the ex
pression, I am not; but if thou art using the
words of Hebrew prophecy, I have something
further to explain." Pilate replies, "I am not
a judge. Thine own nation and the chief priests
have delivered Thee to me; what hast Thou
done?" Christ, in reply, explained that He was
a King, but that His kingdom was not of this
world. He acknowledged that a kingdom of this
world might be legitimately attacked by the dep
uty of Caesar, but such a kingship He did not

The Trial of Christ. 279
claim. " Art Thou a King, then ? " said the
Roman; and the answer was, "I am a King,
and I was born to bear witness to the truth."
"Truth," replied Pilate, "Avhat is truth?" — strange
mixture of impatience, sarcasm, and despair. The
prisoner before him, he thought, was not one
likely to interfere with any existing royalty. He
was an innocent and high-souled dreamer — noth
ing more. So Pilate went out to the Jews, and
emphatically acquitted Him: "I find in Him no
fault at all."
If he had but kept to this verdict; but the fury
of the people burst out. Was the judgment of
the High Priest to be frustrated by this heathen ?
Jesus had troubled the people through the whole
land, beginning from Galilee, and Pilate, eager to
catch at every pretext, sends Jesus to Herod
Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, who was then
in Jerusalem. Jesus was dragged through the
streets before the bar of this wretched debauchee,
who had murdered John the Baptist. Of Herod
Jesus had used the only contemptuous expression
He ever employed. Now He looked at him for
the first time face to face. Herod put many ques
tions. He had no remorse for what had been.
He hoped that Jesus would amuse him by some

280 The Incarnate Saviour.
miracle. When Jesus confronted him with si
lence, the savagery of the man broke through his
voluble good-nature, and he and his minions
treated Jesus with contempt and insult, and sent
Him back again to Pilate. It was right that a
man accused of treason should be judged at
Caesar's judgment-seat. In the mean time Pilate
had received a message from His wife. She had
been visited in her dream by the thought that the
blood of that just person would be required of her
husband, and in her restless anxiety she sent to let
him know. With the superstition that often goes
along with scepticism, Pilate was troubled, and
sought again to save himself from the guilt of
condemning Jesus. He summoned the priests and
people before him, told them that their charges
had absolutely broken down, but, willing to go
half way with them, ordered Jesus to be scourged
publicly, and further proposed to set free at the
paschal feast, when a condemned prisoner was
always liberated, Jesus Christ. The people would
not accept the compromise. They clamored for
the liberation of Barabbas, a murderer and a thief,
Avhose sedition had made him popular amongst
them. Jesus was rejected of men. " What then,"
said Pilate, "shall I do with Him ?" The mad cry

The Trial of Christ. 281
came, " Crucify Him, Crucify Him ! " Before that
crucifixion the awful agony of scourging had to
come, according to the cruel customs of the Ro
mans, almost alone amongst civilized nations in
this. They put a crown of thorns round Him,
and arrayed Him in a purple robe, putting a
reed sceptre in His hands, and crying derisively,
" Hail ! King of the Jews." Pilate even yet
hoped to save Him. He led Jesus — in the sad
finery with which they had tricked Him out, Avith
the marks of indignity upon Him — and showed
Him to the people, saying, " Behold the Man ! "
Still they insisted, "We have a law, and by our
law He ought to die, because He made Himself
the Son of God." That word "Son of God"
startled Pilate. He took Him into the hall again,
and asked Him, " Whence art Thou ? " Jesus was
silent, and Pilate flashed out insolently with the
question, " Speakest Thou not unto me ? Knowest
Thou not that I have power to crucify Thee,
and power to release Thee?" Jesus replies gen
tly, "Thou couldest have no power at all over me,
unless it were given thee from above; therefore
he that delivered Me unto thee hath the greater
sin." Jesus judges His judge tenderly yet truly:
"Thy crime is great, but the crime of Annas,

282 The Incarnate Saviour.
Caiaphas, Judas, the priests, and Jews is greater
still." Pilate would make one more effort. He
brings Him out again, and cries, "Behold your
King ! " By this time the conflict had lasted
some hours, and the people were passionate and
weary. "Shall 1 crucify your King?" said he.
"We have no king," the reply was, "but Caesar;
and if thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's
friend." Pilate was paralyzed with terror at the
awful name of Tiberius. Was he to be accused
before that man with whom the accusation of
treason was almost certain death — who at that
time, full of ulcers and fevers and leprosy, mad
dened by the treason of his only friend, was
waiting for opportunities for new infamies? He
yielded; but his conscience was reproaching him,
and in the vain attempt to appease it, he went
through the farce of washing his hands : " I am in
nocent of the blood of this just person; see you to
it." They accepted the burden of the awful guilt,
and answered him back with a yell, " His blood
be upon us and our children ! " Pilate delivered
Him unto them that He might be crucified.
1. The great importance of the trial for our
purpose lies in the fact that the issue raised was

The Trial of Christ. 283
Christ's claim to be the Son of God, the Messiah
of Israel, and a King. He was tried unfairly and
judged unjustly, but the true issue was raised.
He died, then, because before the Jews He
claimed to be the Son of God and the Messiah,
and before Pilate to be Christ and King.
2. All generations since have felt that the
judged was the judge. The men were really
standing before the bar of Christ, and all appear
in terrible distinctness, revealed by the Light of
the world. Pilate, with his proud indifference
to the superstitions of the Jews, his contempt for
the High Priests, his scorn for the mob, his super
cilious wonder at -Christ's mysticism and impracti
cability, his clear recognition of the nobleness be
hind these, his uneasy attempts to get quit of
responsibility and pacify the conscience, which
troubled him while it did not rule him, by catch
ing at. spray after spray, and finally his yielding
— overborne though unconvinced — of Jesus to be
crucified; firm only in refusing to blot out the
title written in scorn, and yet with unconscious
truth, over His head; all these are unmistakable.
Caiaphas, seeing his occasion in the terror of the
nation that the Romans might efface them, and

284 The Incarnate Saviour.
urging that this victim would appease the sus
picion of their conquerors and preserve the na
tion, — a consideration so important as to make it
of no consequence whether He was innocent or
not, — is a type of one who misinterprets the di
vine covenant which he represented. Herod, with
selfish and sensual good-nature, thinly veiling
ferocity and heartlessness, seeking to have mir
acles performed to gratify his appetite for physical
marvel, and treating Christ's silence as a proof
of His imposture, shows the end of a man in
whom conscience is dead. John the Baptist, if
he thought of him at all, would seem much supe
rior to this dumb coward, who could not make a
king tremble.
And Jesus, what shall we say of Him? The
great characteristic of the history is missed in
reading it, for the events pass quickly in the terse
narrative. It is the almost utter silence before all
the judges, and the complete passiveness in the
hands of those who insulted — all this, accom
panied, as has been truly imagined, by a look not
of fortitude and tension, but rather of recollec
tion, as if there was nothing in all these insults
and questions to which any answer or expostula
tion was appropriate, but rather a current of in-

The Trial of Christ. 285
evitable passions which must be, but the moving
spring of which is beyond the reach of words.
No morbid dejection, no personal resentment, but
a complete detachment from all earthly passion,
and at the same time a conscious drawing out of
deep springs of strength and consolation, which
no human malice could reach to choke — infinitely
above them all, their Judge while they judged
Him.

CHAPTER XIX.
Etje Seben TOoros on ttje (Cross.

"Truly this was the Son of God."

"In the wild heart of that eclipse
These words came from his wasted lips."
Alexandeb Smith.
WE do not attempt to describe the physical
sufferings of Christ upon the Cross. Yet
to describe, and in certain cases even to dwell
upon these, is not only warrantable but dutiful.
While it would be utterly wrong and needless
to add any touch of color or horror, yet it is
not without reason that the Gospels, which hurry
over our Lord's life so rapidly, here take the
minuteness of diaries, describing every incident
and noting every word. The insulting voices,
the racked frame, the fiery thirst, the last atrocity
of crucifixion — these, and much else, are not de
scribed without reason. They were foretold in
prophecy. And though it might seem as if human
passion had been let loose to have its will with
Him, yet even in its madness it Avas controlled by
(286

The Seven Words on the Cross. 287
a divine hand, and could go thus far and no
farther. But we propose to omit these things,
needful though it be to make much of them at
times to "scarify callosities," and to teach senti
mentalists, who see or wear the cross glittering
in jewels, how terrible was the reality, and how
deep and awful is the meaning of the command
ment which bids us take up our cross. No re
action from the sensational preaching once, at
least, prevalent in the Church of Rome, should
prevent this. But we pass it by to dwell upon
the seven words uttered on the Cross, which are
as seven windows through which we may gaze
at the soul of Christ.
Last words are always earnestly heeded —
"The tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony;
When words are scarce they're seldom spent in" vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain."
Especially memorable and solemn are the last
words of Christ — the few utterances amidst the
long silence on that half day He hung upon the
Cross. The absorbing and confounding agonies
of crucifixion do not disturb the order and the

288 The Incarnate Saviour.
calm which marked all His life. As He had done
all things fitly in the calmer spaces of His life,
and in the three years of conflict, so now He
does all things well in the midst of this awful
battle on the Cross. Seven times His lips are
opened. Not surely without a reason is the num
ber chosen. There is sevenfold completeness in
His utterances. We trace an order and progress
in these seven utterances. All His life through
He had thought first of His enemies and last of
Himself. He came to call sinners to repentance.
When the pains of death got hold on Him in the
midst of His grief and trouble, He remained the
same. His first thought was for His enemies,- His
last for Himself. We find Him thinking first of
His enemies, next of an enemy who had become
a friend, next of a friend, and so narrowing the
circle, He comes to Himself last of all.
1. "Father, forgive them, for they know not
what they do." He said it after a night of mor
tal agony, after six successive trials, after Ro
man scourging and mocking, while the rough
nails were being driven through His hands. The
horror of it all overwhelms Him. He has no
thought of His own agony, but much of His

The Seven Words on the Cross. 289
murderers' guilt; and therefore are His lips opened
in prayer.
It is much to be able to pray in great agony
of body; it is more to feel the fatherhood of God
as He felt it. He had said "Father" in the
morning of His life, through it all, and now in
the black midnight it is " Father " once again.
His faith does not fail, will not fail for all the
powers of darkness, howsoever they enshroud
Him. But most wonderful of all is it that He
prayed not for Himself, not for the mitigation
of His suffering, nor for any beloved friend, but
for His enemies, in the height of their crime.
"Father," He says, "forgive them," by that blood
which is already flowing through their cruelty,
"for they know not what they do." The awfully
suggestive reason tells us that we never see sin
as He saAV it from the tree of the cross. If they
had known it, as Paul says in an awe-struck un
dertone, they would not have crucified the Lord
of glory. When we sin, we never know what we
do. We throw at a mark, and know not that the
missiles pass beyond our reach; they go higher
than we meant — they strike God, and He from
His Cross saw them reach that goal.
"They know not what they do." He knew,

290 The Incarnate Saviour.
and He could pray for forgiveness. They were
not guiltless. Ignorance is not innocence, else
they had not needed pardon. They knew cru
elty and torture to be wicked, and they might
have known more of Him whom they were cru
cifying. Still, in the divine view, their ignorance
Avas some palliation. Indeed, it is not too much
to say that our ignorance is our hope. If we
had sinned like the rebel angels, in the full light
of heaven, our case would have been different.
But because we have not, we dare to hope that
He says for us, "Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do."
2. Having prayed for His enemies who were
persecuting Him and crucifying Him, He speaks
to one who had been a great enemy, but who
was now a friend: "To-day shalt thou be with
Me in Paradise." Two thieves were crucified with
Him ; one on His right hand, and the other on His
left. One reviled Him, but the other rebuked
his companion, and bore witness to the innocent
Lord by saying, "We are paying for our sins,
but this man hath done nothing amiss." Then
He prayed, " Lord, remember me when Thou com
est unto Thy kingdom."

The Seven Words on the Cross. 291
This story must be true, for it never could
have been imagined. These words so stand out
as to be their own best testimony. Who could
have invented such a prayer? "Lord," he said,
seeing the Lord in the victim. When all were
mocking and deriding the Saviour, and Avhen the
other thief was calling upon Him to take Him
self and them from the Cross, this robber saw a
greater nobility in His continuing to hang there,
read aright the words written over His head, and
trusted Him through all the scorn as " Lord."
At the very depth of His suffering this male
factor saw Christ to be a king. He saw the
crown through the Cross, and declared, " He
hath done nothing amiss." When no mouth
was opened to testify for Christ, His defence
was spoken by this strange tongue. Those held
their peace, and this stone immediately cried out.
But more: he knew the Lord not only as King,
but as Redeemer. " Remember me," he said.
What a perfectly brave word of love ! Throw
ing his heart at the feet of the omniscient Lord,
he said, "Remember all my spent, bad past: how
I began to sin, how I went on from one wicked
ness to another till I came where I am; do not
forget anything, but remember with it all that

292 The Incarnate Saviour.
I trusted Thee." He was not afraid that the Lord
should know all things when he kneAv that He
loved him; he had no doubt of the length, and
breadth, and depth, and height of the infinite
love which went beyond the robber's life. "I
have no fear to tell you what I was, being what
I am," says an English poet; so the penitent
thief says, "I have no fear of all my past, being
what I am, a penitent believer." Besides, he saw
the kingdom beyond the Cross. He did not ask
to be taken down from the Cross, but, " When
this darkness is over, and we emerge into the
light, Lord, remember me."
Hoav grateful must this testimony and this
prayer have been to Christ! The story is like
a flower of beauty amongst those dreary crags
of agony. This was the last tongue that had a
word to say for Him. On the Cross He saw
somewhat of the travail of Plis soul, and His
dying eyes were satisfied ere they closed. How
quick Avas the answer, "To-day shalt thou be
with Me in Paradise?" "To-day!" — that very
word was a gospel. He was not to hang for
long hours in agony, as many did; but "To-day"
— he was to escape — "shalt thou be with Me in
Paradise ; " Lord and thief together. We may

The Seven Words on the Cross. 293
suppose that he did not understand much of
the word "in Paradise," any more than we do;
but he understood the word, "with Me," and it
was enough. Jesus said it from His Cross: "But
thus saith He that is holy, He that is true, He
that hath the key of David, He that openeth
and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man
openeth." The prayer was great, but the an
swer was greater still. If the prayer was like
a river, the ansAver was as a great sea.
3. Next He speaks to a friend : " Woman, be
hold thy son; son, behold thy mother!" He
looked from the Cross, and coming from the
outer circle, nearer to His heart, He saw His
mother and the beloved disciple standing by,
and He commended them to one another.
Every commentator has rightly pointed out
the tenderness of those words. But, as has
been noted before, there is something in the
relation between Christ and His mother Avhich
is not to be explained on the supposition that
He was merely her human son. The mere af
fection shown her does not surprise us; rather
do we wonder at the reticence of His words.
She stood there, with the SAVord of prophecy

294 The Incarnate Saviour.
piercing her heart, in unutterable woe, and He
says no more than, "Woman, behold thy son."
The hour of death has been called —

"That dark hour when bands remove,
And none are named but names of love."
And we have all known how even the most
stern, unbending, and rugged natures have been
broken down, then in words of warm affection
revealing emotions which may have been sealed
through a lifetime. He said few words; these
words could scarce have been fewer. It is true
that a difficult commandment for a religious per
son to keep is the fifth, and that often for the
sake of Christ, bonds of affection have to be
broken. Family life and traditions have to be
interrupted for the gospel's sake: but none had
so completely to break with old ties as Christ.
Pie had to do the will of His Father in heaven.
The natural relationship vanished, and only the
spiritual relationship could endure. But His mo
ther's ministrations He could not have forgotten,
and He shows this by commending her to the
disciple He loved. Still, are we wrong in fancy
ing that she must have craved for some more

The Seven Words on the Cross. 295
unrestrained expression of affection to live on
when He was gone? If so, it was denied, and
in that very denial we have an instructive proof
that He who hung upon the Cross was more
than man.1
4. We have seen how our Lord came gradually
nearer to Himself, beginning with His enemies,
then coming to one now His friend, then to His
mother. He speaks now not to any of the people,
but to God.
A deep darkness came over the land, in the
midst of which He remained silent, till at last He
said, " My God ! My God ! why hast thou forsaken
Me ! " It was dark, because the light of the world
was going out, and there was darkness also in the
Saviour's soul. This was the crucifixion of His
heart. He felt shut out from the presence, from
the face of God. " Why hast thou forsaken Me ? "
We cannot pretend to understand the meaning of
1 I make these remarks with considerable diffidence, as an
opposite view has, so far as I know, been universally taken.
But one of our greatest poets makes a dying son say "Father"
over and over again on his deathbed, because he wished "to
gather up his sonship before he departed." Jesus says "Fa
ther"; He does not say "Mother."

296 The Incarnate Saviour.
this great darkness that enshrouded the Saviour's
spirit, but we may point out that He still re
mained the Son. Yet, not "My Father," He says,
but "My God." Still it is "My God, % God."
There is no wavering, no distrust. He was not
actually lost, neither did God's wrath rest upon
Him for His own sin; it was "My God, My God."
The clasp tightens in the dark. The record of the
word is an instance of fearless candor. "That
voice of utter loneliness in the death struggle is
entirely credible," says one, "because it never
could have been invented."
We cannot give a reply to this question other
than the blessed old answer of the Scripture, "He
was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised
for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace
was upon Him." As with Gethsemane, the at
tempt to explain the agony by merely natural
causes is palpably inadequate. Not the pain of
His body, not the desertion of His friends, could
have wrapped Him in darkness so deep and black.
Our weighty sins which He bare in His own body
on the tree made Him very heavy. And because
of this His suffering escaped Him in this thrilling
cry, "My God, My God, why hast thou for
saken Me?"

The Seven Words on the Cross. 297
5. Having uttered to God the complaint of His
soul, He now utters the complaint of His body:
" I thirst." The tide of His grief had reached
its limit, and began to be assuaged. He was now
able to note the sufferings of His body. It was
eighteen or twenty hours since He had tasted
anything. He had hung six hours on the Cross.
Note the simple manliness of the utterance. He
thirsted, and He Avas not ashamed to confess it.
An Indian brave, ringed in with fire, would re
fuse to let a cry escape his black and swollen lips ;
but the Saviour of the world makes known His
agony — "I thirst." He condescended to ask a
draught, though He was on the very steps of
the throne.
" I thirst." If He had chosen, He might have
made the land alive with the ripple of sweet
water. He created all wells and streams, and
yet He thirsted with a bitter, burning, raging
thirst. As He had thirsted before by the well,
so now, but far more intensely, He thirsted again,
and there was none found to help. The hour
of thirst was an hour of danger. The adversary
plied Him with the old temptation. He was
tempted to say, "I will command these waters
to quench My thirst," but He refuses. He was

298' The Incarnate Saviour.
to see to the bottom of this mystery, and to drink
the cup to the dregs, and to lay before His Father
a will that had never swerved.
"I thirst — not for water only, but for rest, for
home, for the end of all this." With desire He
desired to eat and drink in the house of His
Father. But the cup was almost drained, and
He opened His lips next in the words —
6. " It is finished." There was still a little time
before the soul of Jesus parted from the body
which had long been its troublous framework;
but the agony was over, and the exulting sense
of triumph and reward had come in. He had
finished the work that God gave Him to do.
Nothing had been left undone or unendured, and
so He looks back on all the past, and says, "It
is finished."
The meaning of the pronoun we do not attempt
to expound in its whole blessed import. We take
it simply as referring to the work which God
had given Him to do. When we read it, we
feel instantly how great a distance there is be
tween Christ's life and ours. None ever spoke in
that way. Our life is full of ragged edges, of
incompleted tasks. Dying, Ave long for a little

The Seven Words on the Cross. 299
time to fulfil our dear dreams ; but it is not given.
"My book, my book," were the last words of a
well-known writer on his forlorn deathbed; and
all of us, when it comes to the end, will long for
a little season more in which to put the finishing
touch to something, that we may leave some
completed work behind us. But we must die
and leave things unfinished. He did all things
well, — at the right time, in the right place, in
the right way, neither too much nor too little.
"It is finished" — it was done, and He could rest.
"It is finished." The great sacrifice for the
sins of the whole world was offered. We who
have broken" God's law, and finished nothing,
have a new and living way made open by His
blood. When He said, " It is finished," His joy
was not for Himself, merely that His suffering
was over, but for His people — that the poorest,
and the most sinful, and the most imperfect
might now come in all peace to God — that a
door had been opened which no man and no
demon could shut.
From His earliest years He had been busy in
the things of His Father. His life-long suste
nance had been to do the will of Him that sent
Him, and to finish His work; and now that the

300 The Incarnate Saviour.
work is finished, the confidence of faith utters
itself in the joyous cry —
7. " Father, into Thy hands I commend my
spirit." We who cannot say, " It is finished," are
fain to add to these Avords, "For Thou hast re
deemed me, Lord God of truth." "I go," said
one of old, entering a monastery ; "I go to a
logic that fears not the logic of death." That
logic is, " Father, into Thy hands I commend
my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed me." Not
till our sinful souls are cleansed and redeemed
can we commit them to the holy hands of the
Father; but He who could say "It is finished,"
committed a perfectly white soul to God. He
needed not to speak of redemption. He had ful
filled the laAV, and so the soul that had done
and borne all He committed into the sure un
wearied hands of His Father. It was a most
blessed thing to fall into those hands, and so
He cries Avith a loud voice, " Father, into Thy
hands I commend my spirit. "
" It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of
the living God." It is a fearful thing to have to
part reluctantly from life, to be dragged out of it
with sin cleaving to the soul. It is a fearful

The Seven Words on the Cross. 301
thing to fall into the hands of the tremendous
energy of life and righteousness, without being
prepared for the meeting. But it is a blessed
thing to yield one's self in peaceful trust, know
ing that one has not to fall far, and the fall
is into the hands of the living Father. But Je
sus used these words as none other could. He
deepened them, and Avith Him they mean: "I
who do not, unless I choose, need to lose hold
of life, of my own will and by my own act let it
go. My soul is not required, but by my own
choice I commend it, my Father, to Thee. No
man could take my life from me; I lay it down
of myself." Without claiming for ourselves the
whole profound meaning of these words, we may
yet use them as expressing the habitual temper
of our lives, and, supremely, our frame of mind at
death. Not to a tyrant, not to an unknoAvn force,
but to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ we belong, living and dying. " Trust in
God," says Faber, "is the last of all things, and
the whole of all things."

CHAPTER XX. -
Wqz Burial ano Ecsurrection of (Cfjrist.

'The Lord is risen indeed."

' ' One place alone had ceased to hold its prey,
A form had pressed it, and was there no more;
The garments of the grave beside it lay
Where once they wrapped Him on the rocky floor.
"He only with returning footsteps broke
The eternal calm wherewith the tomb was bound;
Among the sleeping dead alone He woke,
And blessed with outstretched hands the hosts around.
"Well is it that such blessing hovers here,
To soothe each sad survivor of the throng,
Who haunt the portals of the solemn sphere,
And pour their woe the loaded air along."
IX. Poems by V.
IT is part of Paul's gospel that Christ was
buried, and there are circumstances of pe
culiar significance connected with the burial.
His body after death was not dishonored as oth
ers were. Instead of being left to hang on the
Cross to be profaned by the soldiers, it was taken
down and laid by loving hands most reverently in
the tomb. With that strange consonance which
'302)

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 303
marks all the history, He who was born of- a A'ir-
gin was laid in a virgin grave. He was as a way
faring man that turned aside to tarry for a night,
and He was well lodged in that dark inn. His
grave was in a garden amidst the springing flow
ers, beneath the soft Syrian sunshine: there the
Rose of Sharon was laid amongst the roses.
There is here a prophecy, whether designed or
not. Just as the flowers in winter weather go
down into their roots, and keep house there till
the breath of spring summons them, so He lay
down for the appointed time to rise again.
He saw, it is written, no corruption. The stone
which covered Him was more changed than He.
Everything in the world which His spirit had left
was changed save the body that lay sleeping in
the holy grave. There He lay, with the flowers
around Him, Avrapped in fine linen, waiting for
the summons. Yet it is to be noticed also that
this tomb was a borrowed tomb. He had died
for our sakes poor, and so though the grave
allotted Him was the best that love could give, it
was still a borrowed grave. We mark also the
condition of the grave when He left it. The
napkin about His head was not lying with
the linen clothes, but wrapt together in a place

304 The Incarnate Saviour.
by itself. All His life through, in every point,
He had fulfilled the will of God and so it was fit,
when He arose from the dead, that He should
keep the fair order still. The napkin was laid by
itself. Every violation of order, if not a sin, is
yet something akin to sin. Although it is hard
to keep order in a world where all things are
gone awry, yet in the life of Christ everything
was done in perfect order, as we saw even in the
cry which He uttered in the agony of His death.
We see here also the calmness with which, un-
flushed by His risen power, He begins His work.
In no flutter or perturbation He uses the resurrec
tion power put into His hands.
He rose again from the dead. That is the cen
tral affirmation of the Christian faith. If this
falls, all the rest falls; if this stands, all the rest
Avill stand. This may excuse us if we depart a
little from the plan of this book, and consider
briefly the proof of the Resurrection, before we
look at the bearings of the Resurrection on the
work of Christ and on the individual lives.
The proof of the Resurrection is the living
Church of Jesus Christ. The life of the Church
proves the life of the Saviour. When Jesus Christ
died, His disciples, as might be expected, were

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 305
plunged in profound despair. When the Shep
herd was smitten, the flock was scattered abroad.
But no long time had passed before a great revo
lution took place. They were at first in despair,
in spite of all that He had said. His enemies
were quicker to discern the meaning of His proph
ecies than His disciples, and their fears were
stronger than His disciples' hopes. No collapse
could be imagined more complete than that which
took place at the entombment of the Saviour, but
in a httle time all was changed. The men who
before had been cowards, slow of heart to be
lieve, were completely transformed. They became
brave and strong, and full of the most resoled
faith. It was not that their outward circum
stances had changed. They were sheep in the
midst of wolves, and the beginning of their con
flict Avith the world might have been expected
to disappoint rather than encourage them; but
instead of that, they have a new faith in the
power of Jesus Christ — a faith Avhich transforms
them and makes them men. What explains this ?
Something must have happened in the interval
to account for so marvellous a transformation.
Nothing can explain it, save the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ. That Resurrection breathed into

306 The Incarnate Saviour.
them new faith, and hope, and strength, by vir
tue of which they faced fearlessly the most formid
able odds, and most determined enemies. That
is the explanation of Paul. It has never been
denied, even by the extremest scepticism, that
the First Epistle to the Corinthians was written
within thirty-fi.ATe years after the death of Christ.
In that Epistle the whole gospel is built on the
risen Christ. Jesus had broken the fetters of
the tomb — the Lord had risen indeed; and in
the strength of that risen Lord His disciples
were henceforth to fight.
The truth of this explanation appears more
clearly when we consider the utter inadequacy
of all others. The old theory was that the dis
ciples and Christ had conspired to deceive; but
that is so impossible that it must be said to be
entirely surrendered. The dullest must perceive
that an institution like the Church of Christ can
not be built upon deceit. Deceit so enormous, so
heartless, does not produce such fruit as this.
And now the explanation given is that they were
not deceivers, but themselves deceived. Had there
been a want of witnesses, had the witnesses been
few, had the facts to be explained been less nu
merous and less significant, it might have been

The Burial and Resurrection of Clirist. 307
possible to conceive of such an explanation; but
that all should be befooled, that all should go
harmoniously and unalterably mad, that such a
faith as theirs, — a faith which shrank from no
sacrifice, even from the sacrifice of life itself, —
that such a faith should come out of an imposture
is utterly incredible. A sentence may serve to
dismiss the mythical theory. Events were too
quick for the sIoav growth of myths. No forc
ing frame could have produced such results so
speedily. So we can rest on the truth that the
Lord is risen indeed; and in that we find the
only possible solution — a risen Christ. Faith in
the risen Christ has made the Church what it
is to-day.1
We now look at the bearings of the Resurrection
on the work of Christ. The Resurrection is no
mere supplement to the work of Christ, but an
integral and essential part. He Himself always
1 To say that the evidence for the Besurrection resolves
itself into an undefined belief on the part of a few persons,
in a notoriously superstitious age, that after Jesus had died
and been buried they had seen Him alive (Supernatural Relig
ion, iii. 522), is to mistake the facts. The faith revolutionized
expectation, changed character, and expressed itself in the most
vivid symbols.

308 The Incarnate Saviour.
coupled the two things, "The Son of Man must
go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the
elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed,
and be raised again the third day." Though the
light of the message of the Resurrection Avas lost
in the gloom of the announcement of His death,
as it fell first on the startled ears of the disciples,
we are able to see that death was not the end,
but the centre of His work. Death, it is true, as
we have seen, was in a sense a vital part of His
work, but death had always to be thought of along
with resurrection. He appealed to the Resurrec
tion as the final test of His work. " Destroy this
temple," He said, speaking of the temple of His
body, "and I will raise it up in three days." In
other words, He claimed not merely that He
would rise, but that He would raise Himself.
Again, He told His disciples that the Spirit
would convince the world of righteousness, be
cause He went to the Father. In other words
— If He did not go to the Father, if He con
tinued to lie amongst the dead, His Avhole work
was a failure, and He Himself a deceiver of the
people. If He really saw corruption, and became
subject to death as others do, the trust which
He claims in life and in death cannot be given

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 309
Him. There may be a question as to what
Avould be left even then in His life and teaching
for man to prize, but there is no need that we
should enter into the mournful inquiry as to how
much might be saved out of so disastrous a ruin.
If He was really God, He must rise. If He be
holden of death, and if His dust sleeps to-day
beneath Syrian skies, then out of His own mouth
we condemn Him, and His own words give us
warrant for believing that His work of redemp
tion is no redemption at all. But if, instead of
that, we see the great stone rolled away, if we
find the grave empty, if we meet Him as He
was when He lay down, with no touch of cor
ruption or trace of death, hailing Him in that
newness of life, we see that the Father has set
His seal upon His work, and accepted it, and
that His claims to be righteous are Arerified by
the voice from heaven. So we go to the grave
and look into its emptiness, and listen to the
angel message, "He is not here; He is risen,"
and see the light of hope and joy passing through
the hearts of the disciples, and we are convinced
of righteousness. All that is deepest in His own
words, all that is greatest in His works, is utterly
lost unless He be risen. But, having risen, He

310 The Incarnate Saviour.
is declared to be the Son of God by that divine
voice which aforetime had proclaimed Him to be
the beloved Son — the voice heard at His baptism,
at His . transfiguration, and before His death.
That voice, clearer than ever, says, when He
rises from the grave, and sets death beneath
His feet, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye Him."
But not only is the Resurrection an attestation
of His work, but it signifies that His death is
not the end of His work, but its centre. In one
sense His work was finished when He died, but
in another sense it was only carried into its
centre, that it might be completed in heaven.
With all men besides, death is the end of work
for this world. The work of Moses, for example,
wras before his death, and we remember him, not
for his death, nor for his work in heaven, but on
account of his long, faithful, and patient labor
before he died. And so Avhen men die, and
their work is over, their influence begins to
decrease. Others take up and carry on the new
work of the world, and these are remembered
and honored. But the centre of the work of
Christ Avas His death, and His death was not
the completion of His work. His work is carried
on in heaven at the right hand of God, and this

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 3 1 1
is why His name must grow. The servants de
crease; they have their day, and cease to be.
They are broken lights of God, and are caught
up one by one into the great splendor. But the
name of Christ grows brighter and greater con
tinually; for although He called us by His death
from the death of trespasses and sins, and al
though He made it possible for guilty men to
be reconciled to God, He has done nothing for
us that is really enduring unless He be risen
to give us power to walk in neAvness of life.
If we have been called from death simply to
fall back again into death, we have been mocked
by a transient gleam, which left the darkness
deeper than it found it. But He calls us to
newness of life, and it is by His power working
in heaven that we are guided in that risen life,
and enabled, in spite of the World, the flesh,
and the devil, to retain it. He was declared to
be the Son of God with power, and that power
He is using in the upper realm for the extension
of His Church, and for the upbuilding of His
people. Leaving this point to be touched upon more
fully when we come to speak of the Ascension,
we pass on to note the bearing of the Resurrection

312 The Incarnate Saviour.
of Christ on our own resurrection. If Christ be
not risen, there is nothing to preach and nothing
to believe. If Christ is not risen, there is no fu
ture life; and if there is no future life, our faith
is vain, and our preaching is vain. We are, as
the great apostle said, of all men most miserable.
The gospel is the gospel of the Resurrection as
much as it is the gospel of the death of Christ.
Is it then true that the Resurrection certifies to us
a future life ? We have to face, every one of us,
the last enemy, death. Ever since the world
began, all who have entered it sooner or later
have had this struggle, and the battle has al
ways ended in one way. Two indeed escaped,
but they did not escape by meeting and master
ing their foe — they escaped by being taken away
before the battle. We all know that we shall
soon meet with this great combatant. We shall
use in the struggle every resource that the ex
perience of the centuries has suggested. All that
love can do, all that skill and science can do,
all the power of tears and prayers will be tried,
and yet the result is sure: we must yield, he
must be the conqueror. It is true that advanc
ing knowledge has probably prolonged for a lit
tle the life of man; yet even against that little

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 313
gain must be set the fact that death is often
more painful when life is continued in condi
tions where of old it could not be maintained.
Nor is this all. Not only does death take all
captive, but all whom he has taken he appears,
so far as we can see, to keep. Every victory
that he has gained he is able to retain. The
turf lies unbroken over those Avhom we laid be
neath it, and no device of man has been able to
take from death what he has conquered. There
are hours when we feel, even to anguish and
despair, the terror of the unbroken victory of
death. Almost every other struggle has its ebbs
and flows — backward and forward rolls the tide
of battle. Hopes that were like to die are sud
denly and wondrously revived; but in this great
battle of death there is one result, and only one.
What are we to say in the presence of this
mystery ? What did the people of God stay their
hearts upon before the coming of Christ ? In
reply, we do not think it can be questioned that
in their highest moments of faith and hope they
saw that the man created in God's image, and
living in God's love, must live again.1 " If a
man die," said Job, " shall he live again ? " And
> See Note E.

314 The Incarnate Saviour.
he answered his own question after a fashion.
"As for me," said another in a great ecstasy of
faith, "I shall behold Thy face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I wake with Thy like
ness." Job looked forward to the time when he
would rise. Many days might intervene before
the summons came from heaven, " but all the
days of my appointed time will I wait till my
change come. All the time between I will count
nothing, if I only know that I shall not be left
forever; and I know that the Divine heart in
its own time will move towards me. ' Thou shalt
call, and I will ansAver — Thou shalt have a de
sire to the work of Thine own hands.' " In
other words: "Thou hast made me, soul and
body, fearfully and wonderfully, with those long
ings for immortality and Thee; and the time Avill
come when Thou wilt have need of me, and call
me from my slumber." That is the great achieve
ment of faith, and the very greatness of that
faith made it brief and rare. In supreme mo
ments of vision and power the Old Testament
saints were enabled so to believe and so to
speak, but for the most part they had to move
on a loAver level; for their faith, though founded
on a true conception of themselves and of God,

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 315
was not able to build upon any explicit prom
ise, far less upon any divine fact; and so, when
hours of darkness came, and the onward sweep of
the victory of death was unbroken, they sank
down again. Only a great hope in God could
make them believe surely in the resurrection
life. "If a man die, shall he live again?" Job's
question has been re-echoed by many a broken
heart not able to echo his victorious answer.
Many centuries passed before it was answered
by Jesus. But the answer when it came Avas
complete and clear. " I am the Resurrection and
the Life," saith the Lord; "he that believeth in
me, though he were dead yet shall he live; and
he that believeth in me shall never die." Upon
this strong assurance we can now fall back. We
have gone to the grave with our dear ones, and
have seen the dust fall on the coffin lid, and have
asked wdiether the gate which we have closed
in our sorrow shall ever be opened again, and
we have been able to answer in these words of
Christ. But the mere assurance of words is not
enough. It is beautiful, and strong, and com
forting; but we need something more: we need
to know that one has actually faced the dread

316 The Incarnate Saviour.
combatant and mastered him ; that he has plucked
the sting from death, and spoiled the victory of
the grave. And it is only when we know and
are sure that He who said these words has veri
fied them by His own victory, that the fearful
questioning of death and the grave receive an
answer which can satisfy. Jesus Christ rose from
the dead, and became the first-fruits of His sleep
ing people. He overcame the sharpness of death,
and rose and revived; and because He lives, we
shall live also. This thought of Christ's conquest
for us over death may be broken into two parts : —
There is first the continued life of the soul. If
we are united to Christ by faith, a life streams
into our souls, which the grave cannot touch,
far less destroy. " He that believeth in me shall
not die." Death to such a life is but a passing
gloom, soon lost in the sunshine. It is not able
to interrupt, far less finally to break, the tie that
binds to Christ. As a river runs through a lake,
and pursues its crystal way beyond, not lost by
its passing through the intervening Avaters, so
the life given through faith that is in Jesus Christ.
flows on through the marshes and the swamps of
death, and comes out clear at the other side.
Not only so. The fact that the essential life re-

The Burial and Resurrection of Christ. 317
mains guarantees that by and by all else that
is worth saving shall be saved. That is the mean
ing and the proof of the resurrection of the body.
Jesus Christ died to redeem the soul in the first
instance, but He also died to redeem the body.
And though we have to wait long for the re
demption of the body, and though death does his
dishonoring work, yet He who has put His hand
to the work will finally complete it, and having
brought the soul to Himself, He will by and by
bring its companion also. Dearer than the dust
of Zion to the ancient saints is the dust of His
redeemed people to the Lord Jesus; and though
it may be driven and scattered by the winds of
centuries, it shall be re-gathered, and all that is
really precious, all that is really part of ourselves,
shall live. We can say to death, "Thou hast
no power at all over my soul and thou couldst
have none over my body, except it were given
thee from above." The perfect man shall be
brought at last into the heaven where the glo
rified Man Christ Jesus sits enthroned.
"The swallow leaves her nest,
The soul my weary breast,
But therefore let the rain
On my grave

318 The Incarnate Saviour.
Fall pure; for why complain,
Since both will come again
O'er the wave ? " '
It is impossible, then, to over-estimate the im
portance of the fact of the Resurrection. If this
miracle is credible, all the rest are credible. If
Jesus be risen from the dead, He was and still
remains the Son of God with power; if He be
risen from the dead, then, in spite of all appear
ances, death is not conqueror but conquered; if
He be risen from the dead, then the souls of be
lievers are at their death made perfect in holi
ness, and do immediately pass into glory, while
their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest
in their graves until the resurrection. But no
longer; for they then rise in the likeness of His
glorious body, and the long-parted companions
are joined together, and so are ever with the
Lord. i T. L. Beddoes.

CHAPTER XXI.
Wqz Eesurrection 3Eife of Cfjrist.

"Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended."
"We were not by when Jesus came,
But round us far and near
We see His trophies, and His name
In choral echoes hear.
In a fair ground our lot is cast,
As in the solemn week that past,
While some might doubt, but all adored
Ere the whole widowed Church had seen her Bisen Lord."
Keble.
THE great truth signified by Christ's resurrec
tion, that death to those who believe in
Him is not an interruption, but an intensifying
of life, not a separation from God, but an en
trance into the immediate presence of the Father
of spirits, has been already dwelt on. But the
significance of the fact is by no means exhausted
by this truth. Other raisings from the dead re
corded in the Bible were restorations to the old
conditions of earthly life; the resurrection of
Christ was the revelation of a new life. The
(319)

320 The Incarnate Saviour.
daughter of Jairus, the young man at Nain, and
Lazarus, resumed their places, and were to their
friends what they had been. Jesus re-entered
the world under neAv and glorious conditions.
During the forty days in which He was on
earth, He appeared at least eleven times. Of
these appearances, nine are recorded in the Gos
pels. The first appearance was to Mary Magda
lene in the garden. Out of her seven devils had
been cast, and we find her, along Avith the other
women who crossed the illuminated track, and
are still visible, following the Lord, and minis
tering to Him of her substance. She was last
at the cross, and when all was over came to the
tomb with spices to anoint Him. Returning in
the dusk of the morning, she found the grave
empty, and ran for the rest. Jesus spoke to
her, calling her by name, "Mary." She did not
know Him at first, but supposed Him to be the
gardener, and asked where the dead body of
her Lord had been taken, offering, weak woman
though she was, to take it away herself. She
then recognized Him, exclaimed "Rabboni," and
moved as if to clasp His feet. He gently, but
decisiA'ely, repelled her: "Touch me not, for I

The Resurrection Life of Christ. 321
am not yet ascended to my Father, and to your
Father; to my God and your God." He re
fused to be touched, not because He was unclean,
nor because His new dignity repelled advance,
but simply because her gesture and her word,
"My Master," showed that she Avas looking for
ward to the old relations being resumed, and
not to the new and more glorious conditions
that were to be established. "Touch me not,
for I am not yet ascended. The time is coming
when the old intimacy of affection, the old un
broken companionship may be resumed ; but that
time is not yet. Still it is coming. This pres
ence that you cannot have now, will be yours in
the future. When I am ascended, you may cling
to me. The spiritual clinging then hereafter,
and the fact that my Father is your Father, and
my God is your God, show that you and I Avill
at last be together." Still it was a disappoint
ment to her faithful love, and He gives her, of
His rich mercy, a compensation, " Go, tell my
brethren." She was thus made an apostle to
the apostles of the fact that the Lord had risen.
He appeared next to Mary Magdalene and Jo
anna, who came together to see the sepulchre,
Avhen He commanded them to go and tell His

322 The Incarnate Saviour.
brethren to go into Galilee, that there they should
see Him. He thus imposed on the disciples a
task of some difficulty, sending them to the north
ern province, partly for their own sakes, partly
that the witnesses to His rising might be dif
fused, and the proof of His death made abundant,
and partly, no doubt, because He wished to gaze
again on the haunts of His childhood — His old
home, the hills which He had climbed, the lake
on Avhich He had sailed, the faces on which He
had looked. It was in obedience to a feeling,
human, true, and manly, that He sought His
childhood's home.
The third appearance was probably to Simon
Peter alone, and the fourth was when He joined
His disciples on the way to Emmaus. Two of
them, who had nothing that we know of to draw
His company, save their profound grief, were
journeying together, talking of the wreck and
ruin which had overtaken their hopes, when sud
denly He joined Himself to their company. He
asked what they were speaking of, and on being
told, opened up to them, in all the Scriptures,
the things concerning Himself. God Avas walk
ing with these ignorant men, though they knew
it not, and as He talked their hearts burned

The Resurrection Life of Christ. 323
within them. They come at last to the house,
and He made as though He would go farther —
a touch of true and refined human feeling ; " the
first true gentleman," says an old dramatist, " that
ever breathed." He would not press Himself un
asked upon their courtesy, nor even seem to do
so. As if to relieve them of possible embarrass
ment, He made as though He would go farther,
but they constrained Him, and He enters Avith
them, and sits doAvn to such poor fare as they
were able to set before Him. The meal goes
on, and in the course of it He takes and breaks
the bread. Their eyes are opened, and they
know Him, and He vanishes out of their sight.
He had always been the head of the little family.
Always when He is a guest He becomes the host,
as at Cana, and now, and in the human soul, so
long as His work of ingathering goes on. " If
any man will open, I will enter in and sup with
him, and he with me." What had not been dis
covered by His words, this simple act revealed
— they knew Him. Possibly when He was hand
ling the bread they saw the marks in His hands
of what He had gone through, or more likely
the way in which He handled the bread brought
all to mind — "they knew Him." Often a little

324 The Incarnate Saviour.
thing will bring back the thronged and eA'entful
past. A stray odor may restore long vanished
gardens and hands that have crumbled into dust,
a bit of blue ribbon bring back a life we thought
ourselves utterly done with, and repeople it with
the old forms. So they knew Him, and instead
of staying to enlighten them still farther with
His company, He vanished out of their sight.
They had work to do — to go to Jerusalem and
tell the apostles; and so He departs.
He appears next to the ten disciples gathered
together without Thomas. They were sitting
Avith shut doors, for fear of the Jews, when sud
denly the thin air yielded His form. . They were
terrified and affrighted, supposing that they had
seen a ghost. The strange dread of the spiritual
world, which witnesses so impressively our sense
of antagonism with it, took possession of them.
He allayed their doubts by asking them to handle
Him, and see that He was not a spirit but His old
self. They ought to have known Him. All His
promises should not have been so soon forgotten.
Yet He does not upbraid them, but seeks to sat
isfy their doubts. It would have been better that
they should have known Him; and thus souls are
happiest who from childhood unto death have

The Resurrection Life of Christ. 325
offered Him the unbroken service of intellect and
will. But such are few, and to others He Avill
give all the proof that they can reasonably
require. These appearances occurred on the day of the
resurrection. The fifth appearance took place on
the following Lord's day to the disciples assembled
with Thomas. Thomas was a doubter, as Ave have
seen, of a peculiar type. His love did not wan
der though his intellect was not satisfied. His
faith was shown in act by his staying with the
disciples. He had evidently a deep and vivid
recollection of the gaping wounds. That death
which he had anticipated when the Lord was to
raise Lazarus had come, but in a worse form than
his worst fears. Jesus offers him the fullest oppor
tunity of testing Him. The disciple is broken
down without availing himself of the proffer.
He shows how great and deep a faith the scepti
cism of the intellect had for a moment paralyzed,
by saying, "My Lord and my God," — an unre
served acknowledgment of the Saviour's divinity,
and thus a great advance upon Mary's, " My
Master." He appeared next to the disciples — five named
— and others by the Sea of Galilee, Avhere He

326 The Incarnate Saviour.
held His touching conversation with Simon Peter.
There had been the secret interview before, when
the apostle was again united to His Redeemer.
How eagerly this interview had been anticipated
we may judge from the character of Peter, a man
who could not have been content to rest in his
denials, and whose agonies would have been in
tensified when the thought shot through him that
he never would have an opportunity of gaining
the pardon of the Master whom he had wronged.
The outbursts of that great penitent heart, the
loving correction of the Saviour — these are too
sacred for outside observation, and accordingly
this interview, though explicitly referred .to, is not
given in any of its details. But there had to be
not only the union of the man to the Saviour,
but the restoration of the apostle to his place,
and this was solemnly done after a thrice re
peated question, "Lovest thou.- me?" If he loved,
all was well. He was able to appeal to omni
science: "Thou knowest all things; Thou know
est that I love Thee." The apparent contradiction
Avas understood, and Peter was restored. What
he was as an apostle after the ascension we know.
His patience under wrong, his calmness in con
troversy, his heroic martyrdom — these are proofs

The Resurrection Life of Christ. 327
that he was not unworthy of the great charge
thus solemnly recommitted to him.
He appeared again to the eleven on a mountain
in Galilee; to five hundred brethren; to James
His brother; and to the eleven at Jerusalem, be
fore the ascension ; and last of all at the ascension.
These appearances are characterized by a strange
union of remoteness and clearness, depth and sim
plicity. The tomb where He was laid was found
empty. He appeared and disappeared at pleasure.
All that belonged to His humanity Avas preserved,
and at the same time all was transfigured. A
sceptic puts the following dilemma : " One or other
alternative must be adopted — if Jesus possessed
His own body after His resurrection, and could
eat and be handled, He could not vanish; if He
vanished, He could not be corporeal." But the
very point of the revelation is that these two
things are reconciled. Nothing is lost in the
passage through death, and yet the limitations
of the present order of things are not perpetuated.
1. As regards His body, we are taught that
the crucified body and the glorified body are con
nected. The wounds are there — these at least are
common to the two. Thus it is signified that

328 The Incarnate Saviour.
through all eternity He is a man, that in heaven
the marks of His death speak and plead, and
that the future judgment of His people is the
judgment of their Redeemer.
Along with this it is taught that the spiritual
body is not trammelled as the physical body is.
He has entered upon a new state. At the very
time when He offers a material test of the reality
of His presence, He shows that He is not bound
by the laws of* matter. In His life He very
rarely departed from the ordinary ways of mo
tion, but after His resurrection He moves from
place to place without any apparent passage. He
is seen within shut doors; He eats, but does not
seem to have need of food. This proves the
possibility of a spiritual body that shall be rec
ognizable — a body which we shall knoAv and in
which we shall be known, and at the same time
a body in which we shall not be burdened — in
which the outer frame will be a help and not a
hindrance to the spirit within.
2. Besides this, these appearances are instruc
tive as showing the abiding laws which govern
the manifestation of the Lord Jesus to His dis
ciples. The resurrection Avas the beginning of

The Resurrection Life of Christ. 329
a new and living relation between the Lord and
His people. The Lord who was raised lives and
manifests Himself to His disciples. They needed,
in the first place, to know that He was really
risen; and they needed, in the next place, to
understand that the old earthly relationships Avere
gone. He weans them gradually from these, that
He may prepare them for doing without them.
Such facts as these are illustrated. Jesus Christ,
during the forty days, did not manifest Himself
to or communicate in any way with those out
side of the Church. His visits were exclusively
to His disciples. The continuity of His risen
life may be seen from this — " If a man love me,
I Avill manifest myself to him." Again, the man
ifestations are given to those who are in special
need, and are carefully adapted to supply that
need. To Peter, when the two were alone, and
in the presence of the rest; to Mary, and to
Thomas, He manifests Himself. Tenderness and
reproof are mingled. There is a remarkable indi
viduality in each interview, but the issue of each
is the same — the communication of new strength
and faith. Again, He manifests Himself some
times to one, sometimes to two or three, more
frequently, to all assembled together; and the

330 The Incarnate Saviour.
promise still holds, " Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them." "If two of you shall agree as
touching anything ye shall ask, it shall be done
for you by my Father which is in heaven." Once
more, it is manifested that in all, Christ Himself,
independent of other things, is the all-sufficient
happiness of His children.
So, then, just as before His crucifixion He gives
us a prayer that helps us to understand His
eternal intercession, so now we have in these
forty days pregnant instances of the precise way
in which He is to be present with. His people
for their comfort and refreshment even unto the
end. I need not say much of the divine originality
of this idea. The combination of truth between
one-sided Materialism and one-sided Spiritualism,
a conception for which the apostles had absolutely
no precedent, and which even yet men find a most
difficult and strange idea, cannot be explained on
any other supposition than the facts. Strange
and difficult though the idea may be, it is never
theless the only one that will harmonize the appar
ently antithetic experiences of our perplexing life.1
' See Note F.

CHAPTER XXII.
fttje Ascension of (Ctjrist.

"Thou hast ascended on high."

"Ii Christ was only six hours crucified,
After few years of toil and misery,
AVhich for mankind He suffered willingly,
While heaven was won forever when He died —
Wliy should He still be shown on every side,
Painted and preached, in nought but agony,
Whose pains were light matched with His victory,
When the world's power to harm Him was defied?
Why rather speak and write not of the realm
He rules in heaven, and soon will bring below,
Unto the praise and glory of His name?
Ah, foolish crowd ! The world's thick vapors whelm
Your eyes, unworthy of that glorious show,
Blind to His splendor, bent upon His shame."
Michael Angelo.
WE have seen how Christ entered the world,
how He bore Himself in it, how He died
and rose again from the grave. How is He to
leave the Avorld in a manner that shall harmonize
with His entrance into it and His life there?
There is, there can be, but one answer — He
ascended. Not much about the Ascension is
said in Scripture, and in lives of Christ it is often
(331)

332 The Incarnate Saviour.
dismissed in a few brief lines; many large and
important truths, however, are wrapt up in the
story. He was not the first to go into the other
world by another gate than that of death. Enoch
was translated that he should not see death, and
a chariot of fire was sent to take Elijah home.
But these translations, instead of resembling the
ascension of Christ, rather show His divinity by
their contrast with it.
Jesus Christ ascended by His own power and
His own will. "I go to my Father" — "I leave
the world and go to my Father." There was no
doubt the power of the Father working along
with that of the Son. "After He had blessed
them, He Avas parted from them, and carried up
into heaven." Still the primary idea is that He
ascended. How sharply this separates Him from
Enoch and Elijah ! Enoch, we are told, walked
quietly with God, and one day he was lifted gently
by the Divine Hand out of the turbulences of sin
that were round about him. He did not ascend
himself; God took him. Then, Elijah was taken
up to heaven by a whirlwind. He did not fix
the time or the Avay of his departure. But God
knew Avhen his work Avas done, and when His
purpose had been wrought to its last refinement,

The Ascension of Christ. 333
He removed him. He sent for him a fiery chariot.
As He appointed the time, so He made the way.
In fit keeping with Elijah's fiery and impetuous
life was his departure in the chariot and horses
that took him up the track of flame to his home
with God. It has been strikingly suggested that
the very force and violence of the translation
show the difficulty with which mortal flesh can
be taken into heaven. There was a great and
manifest expenditure of power in bearing the
prophet up, but nothing can be more easy and
tranquil than the ascension of Christ. As His
life was gentle and His death calm, so without
noise or ostentation He rose up to His glory. He
was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
They watched Him ascending, and they might
have seen His shadow on the sward as He bore
His Avay upward, until at last a cloud received
Him out of their sight. As He was God, it was
more natural for Him to ascend into heaven than
it was for Him to come down to earth. Descent
is natural and only too easy to man. It is for God
to ascend; and so in obedience to His own will,
and in accordance with the laws of His own na
ture, He rose out of their sight into heaven. He
ascended.

334 The Incarnate Saviour.
Again, Jesus Christ differed from all the rest
in leaving behind Him a finished work. He had
died for the sin of the world, and His offering was
so complete that nothing could be added to it.
God alone finishes, man never can. " Our best
finishing is but coarse and blundering work after
all. We may smooth, and soften, and sharpen
till we are sick at heart, but take a good mag-
nifying-glass to our miracle of skill, and the in
visible edge is a jagged saw, and the silky thread
a rugged cable, and the soft surface a granite
desert. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of
the human race be brought to bear upon the
attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they
could not do what is done in the foot of a fly or
the film of a bubble. God alone can finish, and
the more intelligent the human mind becomes
the more the infiniteness of interval is felt be
tween human and divine work in this respect."1
Elijah left work which would be carried on after
he was gone. Before he departed he went round
to the three colleges of the prophets, and looked
for the last time on the young men, then studying
the scrolls of Israel, who were to succeed him.
And so it is with all of us. We die, leaving our
1 Buskin.

The Ascension of Christ. 335
work to others, and the great teacher says to
some beloved disciple, "You will take the banner
I have been carrying for so many years, and bear
it on to victory over my grave. You will take
the message for which I have all my life been
seeking to win an entrance, and speak it more
powerfully and more tunefully, that the world may
take from you what it never took from me." So
Elijah hands on his work to Elisha — one prophet
to another; and thus, though the worker dies, the
work goes on through the years of history. But
Christ's work once accomplished was done for
ever. Had He even failed to utter the words " I
thirst," there would have been something incom
plete, for it is profoundly said that He spoke thus
in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.
But no work had been left undone, no word unut-
tered of all that He should do and say. So, while
His apostles had successors, He had none, but
stands by Himself.
But while in one sense His work was finished,
in another it was carried on when He ascended.
The work in heaven, although distinct from the
work on earth, is nevertheless of one piece Avith
it, and serves to accomplish the same great end.

336 The Incarnate Saviour.
This at once marks Him off from every other
benefactor of the race. Others say, "What shall
I do for thee before I be taken from thee ? While
I live my life is thine — thine even to the last
breath, the breath which may be spent in bless
ing you; but after I am taken from thee, my
power is ended." Father and mother leave their
children young and defenceless, and die, and the
bitterness of death is that they can do nothing-
after it for those who are left behind. But Jesus
within the veil carries on to completion the Avork
which He began in the outer Avorld. The veil
is lifted in various parts of the New Testament,
and especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
And it is well to look at it, for although we
can never think too often or too much about the
cross, we may think too little about the throne.
The finished work on which our faith reposes
should not be dissevered from the work which
is continually going on. Had He not taken His
life up again for us, it would have been of no
avail that He laid it down. He would have been
only the victim of an enormous wrong; and it
is because that He Avas not the victim, but the
priest, that He works out a complete redemption.
In heaven He is interceding for us. His prayers

The Ascension of Christ. 337
rise like a fountain for us through the endless
day. Our intercessions rise and pause, His go
on. Words can but remotely approximate to the
truth here, but we are perhaps nearest when we
say that His intercession is the perpetual presen
tation of His sacrifice and its claims before His
Father. Again, He is preparing a place for us. " In
my Father's house," He said to the bewildered
disciples that nestled near Him when the storm
was darkening, "are many mansions; if it were
not so, I would have told you. I have not hesi
tated rudely to dash your hopes hitherto when
you needed it, and I would not have hesitated
now ; but a place in these mansions will be yours.
I go to prepare it for you." Here again we touch
things that can be but dimly understood. We
may, indeed, conjecture this — God through many
thousands of years prepared for man his home
during the brief day of time, so it is not un
worthy that through mighty periods He should
continue the preparation of the endless resting-
place of His children. But whether this be so
or not, the presence of the glorified humanity
of Jesus Christ seems a necessary condition and
preliminary of our presence in heaven. We could

338 The Incarnate Saviour.
not be at home amidst those august and terrible
splendors unless we saw Him, our brother, in
the heart of all. As Joseph's brethren, who had
been all their lives wild Arab shepherds, would
have felt ill at ease indeed in the proudest court
of the world, had it not been that their brother
was there upon the throne, so we would not
have found heaven to be our home unless we
found it to be the place of the presence of Jesus
Christ. Heaven is no place for us unless Jesus
Christ be there; and when we begin to shape
our thoughts of heaven into a whole, we are
soon arrested by incongruities and perplexities;
but one thought we do not need to reject, one
thought we repose in, that Christ is heaven, and
heaven is He.
"My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him."
"To depart is to be with Christ." The simplicity
of the one thought is far better than a host of
distracting and disturbing conceptions.
It is the presence of Christ that will secure our
bliss in heaven, even as it secures our entrance.

The Ascension of Christ. 339
The angels fell by their own transgression from
the habitation of light to the nethermost gloom;
and if we are saved, it is not because we are
holier or stronger, but because we have been
united to Christ as the angels never were. Our
union to Him brings us through the thorny mazes
of life to rest, and our union keeps us in the
rest. Where Christ is we are, and were it pos
sible that Christ should leave heaven, we, His
people, would follow Him.
Elisha never asked from Elijah that he would
use for him his influence in the courts above.
He never said, "When you reach heaven, pray
for me;" never asked him to look down upon
his work and to help it on, but, "Let me have
now, before you depart, something that will help
me for the time I linger here." One martyr, it
is true, said to another, "So long as I under
stand thou art on thy journey, by God's grace
I shall call upon our heavenly Father, for Christ's
sake, to let thee safely home; and then, good
brother, speak thou and pray for the remnant
which are to suffer for Christ's sake, according to
that thou shalt then know more clearly."1 But
these are vague aspirations, hopes, conjectures.
1 Bishop Bidley to Bradford the Martyr.

340 The Incarnate Saviour.
How different from the clear and well-grounded
certainty of Christ's continual work for us !
Further, there is, corresponding to this, the
thought that Jesus Christ still works in the
world. Though He ascended, yet He descended
again, and is in the heart of the fight, battling
along with His soldiers, and leading them on to
victory. Not merely does He think of them away
in heaven, working within the veil, but says, " Lo,
I am with you alway, even to the end of the
world." Enthroned as He is in heaven at the
right hand of God, He is not absent from the con
flict that never pauses here. We have a won
derful picture of the Lord lifted up in heaven,
and at the same time working on earth with
His disciples, and giving them the victory. He
sat down on the right hand of God, and the dis
ciples went out everywhere preaching the word.
Did He then rest and leave them to fight ? Nay ;
the Lord was working with them, and confirming
the word by signs following. Not only does He
work with the Church, but He works with the
individual members. He helps us in our own
special battle, in our own special burden. If
faith is almost dying in any soul, because of the

The Ascension of Christ. 341
weight of grief, He will roll the stone away and
let in the light. If corruption and temptation are
too much for any soul, He will succor it ere it
be overborne. If the little company of the mil
itant Church are tempted to give up the battle in
the face of the great hosts of evil, He, like those
mysterious horsemen who succored the Romans
when the fight grew desperate, will interpose and
turn the tide of battle. He served in the ranks
before He became Commander, and He knows
the difficulty of every soldier, whatever it may
be. Especially is He with us by the gift of His
Spirit. No departing leader could give his spirit
except Christ. Elisha asked Elijah, "Let a double
portion of thy spirit be upon me." The answer
was, " Thou hast asked a hard thing." It was to
ask for Elijah twice over, as if God would allow
him to depart to heaven and leave the twofold
energy of his life working behind him. "Thou
hast asked a hard thing. It may be, it may not
be, I cannot tell- — if God wills it. And the sign
will be, if thou see me when I am taken from
thee it shall be so unto thee, but if not, it shall
not be so; the gift belongs to God." So many
a dying leader prays that his spirit may descend
upon others, but he cannot pour out his spirit.

342 The Incarnate Saviour.
Christ differs from all others in being able and
willing to give His Spirit.
It is this chiefly which makes the name of
Christ so mighty in the world. All other names
decrease; His increases still. We worship the
rising sun, and it is the fate of all men gradually
to fade. Their places are taken and their work
is done by others, and their memory grows with
the years more shadowed and less frequent. It
is true that their work may be a permanent and
recognizable force ; but the years gradually sepa
rate from the worker, and while the influence of
the one remains, the personality of the other grows
more and more dim. There is something pathetic
in the ineffectual centenaries and celebrations with
which men struggle to keep alive a great name.
But the years that rob other names of their bright
ness, only give new lustre to the name of Christ.
His name endures and shines like the sun, be
cause His work is continual. We feel the effects
of the work of men who are dead, but there are
no fresh discharges from the old centre of force,
and so the memory of the worker is merged in
his work; but the influence of Christ on the his
tory of the race is permanently and steadily ex
ercised, and this it is that makes His personality

The Ascension of Christ. 343
more fresh and Advid than that of any who are
living and working with us still.
The ascension of Christ marks for us the way
to heaven. A track of light goes through the
darkness into the heart of heaven. As He rose,
so we shall rise. The ascension of Elijah left the
way no clearer for Elisha. He went with him
from Gilgal to Bethel, to Jericho, and to Jordan,
but he could go no farther. What the next stage
of the journey was, he must die to know. The
mystery of death was as dark as ever. The tran
sient light soon vanished, and was forgotten ; but
the ascension of Christ is the pledge that the soul
shall ascend. When the last breath is drawn,
and the face settles into rest, we knoAv that
though the shell grows cold in death beside us,
the soul has ascended, and is as distant as a
thousand years. By the road which Christ took
when He went out of the world unto the Father,
do His people pass into Paradise.
He ascended, but He will come again. The
Jews looked for the return of Elias before the
great and notable day of the Lord, and perhaps
the prophecy has not been completely fulfilled.
But we do not look for the return of Elias. It is
true that the saints are to come again — He will

344 The Incarnate Saviour.
come with the saints and with His holy angels.
When He comes, the righteous shall blaze out
like the sun in the kingdom of the Father.
"Them which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with Him," and doubtless among the thronging
legions each will find his own. But still that
thought is nothing to the vast multitude — it is
scarcely even a distinct conception, far less a
ruling motive. How different with the coming
of Christ ! That is the hope of the Church. Still
her eyes are turned eastward; and if she Avere
not looking and hoping, faith and strength would
fail. But He received the kingdom, and He
went to rule that kingdom, and also to return;
and although the years linger, and many doubt,
and generation after generation passes away,
we know that the heavens will break, the throne
will be set, and the Lord will appear. Amen.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

CHAPTER XXIII.
Efje Character of (Cfjrist.

" Whosoever speaketh a word against the Bon of Man, it shall
be forgiven him."

"By the light of burning martyr fires Christ's bleeding feet 1
track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever, with the cross that turns not
back." J. K. Lowell.
WHAT think ye of Christ?" What are
we to say of His character? He
belongs to the human race. Though born of a
Jewish mother, He is claimed by all races as
their own. What judgment must be passed of
the universal Man? First, He was, according to
His own claim, sinless. He tells us Himself that
He was unimpeachable by Satan. Before men
He could say, "Which of you convinceth me
of sin?" He could go farther. Standing in the
presence of His Father, He could say, "I do
always the things that please Thee." This claim
men have never been able to refute. It is wit-
(345)

346 The Incarnate Saviour.
nessed to by those who are friendly, by those
who are indifferent, by those who are hostile, —
by Judas, by Pilate, by the thief, by the centu
rion. But admit that the witness has come to
us through partial statements, declare that the
evangelists are untrustworthy, and still the fact
faces us that they have carried out this faultless
character into the details of life; and in the de
tails of life, as in the processes of philosophy,
error is likely to happen in descending. But
these facts have been examined, and many at
tempts have been made to establish a charge
of moral culpability against Jesus. The cursing
of the fig-tree, the destruction of the swine, the
expulsion of the traders, the harsh words to His
mother at Cana, the alleged collision of duties
between religious and political allegiance — these
have been cited. It might be enough to reply
that sin when present does not manifest itself
in such homcepathic quantities as these. But,
apart from that, careful examination has shown
in each instance that the charges break down,
that no soiling breath has been left upon the per
fect clearness of the mirror. We reckon upon
no forbearance from the enemy, and yet repeat
again with perfect confidence His own challenge,

The Character of Christ. 347
" Which of you convinceth me of sin ? " The
Toice of criticism dies away. It turns out that
some fundamental circumstance has been over
looked, or some unwarranted assumption has been
made; and so again, as at the first, there is silence.
Stronger even than this is His own witness of
His sinlessness. Moral progress becomes more
and more pervasive. Only a dull spiritual eye
fails to see deficiency. The greatest and holiest
servants of God all humble themselves before men
and confess sin — " I am a man of unclean lips, O
wretched man that I am." The anthems in the
Book of Psalms are strangely mixed with misereres;
but we have long conversations and soliloquies
of Christ, and we fail to find in them eATen one half
sigh of penitence. He was not a Pharisee, for He
was the scourger of Pharisees, the friend of publi
cans and sinners, and the lover of them who con
fessed their guilt. But He cannot take His place
along with them. He lifts up His calm and trust
ful eyes to heaven, and says, " I have finished the
work which Thou gavest me to do." Even by
the admission of Strauss, Jesus is in the depart
ment of religion what Shakespeare is in poetry
and Alexander in war, and marks a limit which
may be attained, but cannot be passed. In His

348 The Incarnate Saviour.
sight the faintest speck would have been a fearful
blot; but He knows of no blot. He cannot repent,
however much He feels for them who need re
pentance. He feels sin, but does not do so as a
sinner Himself, but as one who bears the guilt
of sinners. What hopeless superiority to all mis
siles there is in the words, " Whosoever speaketh
a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven
him ! " His claim to be the judge of men involves
His sinlessness. That claim is absolute, not rel
ative. He is ordinarily represented as having
no assistance, and even the angels are only His
attendants. Could the words, "Depart from me,
ye cursed, into everlasting fire," come from the
lips of one who had sinned ? Besides, He claims
to die for sinners. He is the Good Shepherd,
who will lay down His life for the sheep. He
will give His life a ransom for many, to procure
the remission of their sins. How could such a
statement be borne if He was not absolutely sin
less? If He had ever been untruthful, vain, or
cruel, what becomes of the atoning character of
His death ? He claimed to die as a Priest, to lay
down His life of His own free will for the world's
iniquity. How could He have dared to offer a
stained life as a sacrifice for stained lives? The

The Character of Christ. 349
judge of souls and the atoner for souls must, in
Arirtue of these very claims, be sinless.
2. His character is a positive as well as a nega
tive exhibition of goodness. His sinlessness means
that He was full of love to God and man, and that
that perfect love expressed itself completely. The
difficulty which the human imagination finds in
describing a perfect character is in making it
positive. It is comparatively easy to avoid in
troducing faults; the difficulty is to represent
virtues. The character of Jesus is faultless, but
not exhibited like the faultless characters of the
human imagination, but, on the contrary, full of
positiveness, freshness, and force.
3. His character is marked by the balance as
well as the perfection of excellence. Great virtues
are nearly akin to vices, and in men we never
find the balance preserved. Dignity passes easily
into pride, reflection into coldness, sincerity into
bluntness, civility into insincerity — in short, a
finite nature exhausts itself- by efforts in a tem
porary direction. But in Christ there is no want
of balance. The character is one faultless in its
perfection. Attention has been called to the bal-

350 The Incarnate Saviour.
ance He observes between severity and tender
ness. None denounces evil with such terrible
force. The generation in which He lives is adul
terous, evil, sinful, wicked, perverse. And yet He
is profoundly tender along with it all. He weeps
over doomed Jerusalem, defends the condemned
adulteress against her accusers, and absolves the
sinful woman who bathes His feet with her tears.
Something might also be said of the balance He
keeps between manliness and womanliness. "The
character we call manly," it has been said with
some truth, "is not the normal type. We have
had such struggles Avith barbarism, and courage
and firmness have been so useful, that we have
come to regard them as distinctive of man, while
in fact they are only distinctive of fallen man."1
His character is winning, and His power of draw
ing affection, as well as His power of enduring
suffering, are feminine. But there is no weakness
in it all.
4. His character is perfectly simple. He makes
no attempt to dazzle or startle. He has none of
the eccentricities of genius. His mode of life, His
dress, His habits, are without a trace of preten-
1 George Steward, Memoirs, p. 97.

The Character of Christ. 351
sion. His life is all of one piece — the most won
derful events and the most ordinary. He works
a miracle, takes a meal, speaks an imperishable
parable, all as they come, living His life quietly
from hour to hour. Simplicity is a mark of great
ness; none was ever so perfectly simple as He.
5. He lays great stress upon hitherto unrecog
nized virtues. Coming into the world at a time
when force was worshipped as virtue itself^ He
made much of the passive virtues, and showed
that to suffer well was at least as much as to act
well. When Peter commends His example, He
lays special emphasis on this, "Who, when He
was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered
He threatened not, but committed Himself to
Him who judgeth righteously." Patience, humil
ity, meekness — these were restored by Him to
their forgotten but true place. We are forbidden
to select any virtues as specially characterizing
Him, for in Him all the virtues met in supreme
excellence and perfect harmony. But we may
note the prominence He gave to these.
He left us an example. "Always and every
where have Him devoutly before the eyes of

352 The Incarnate Saviour.
your mind — in His behavior and in His ways,
as when He is with His disciples and when He
is with sinners, when He speaks and when He
preaches, when He goes forth and when He sits
down, when He sleeps and when He wakes, when
He eats and when He serves others, when He
heals the sick and when He does His other mir
acles, setting forth to thyself and thy heart His
ways and His doings, how humbly He bore Him
self among men, how tenderly among His dis
ciples; how pitiful He was to the poor, to whom
He made Himself like in all things, and who
seemed to be His own special family; how He de
spised none or shrank from them, not even from
the leper; how He paid no court to the rich;
how free He was from the cares of the world,
and from trouble about the needs of the body;
Iioav patient under insult, and how gentle in an
swering, for He sought not to maintain His cause
by keen and bitter words, but with gentle and
humble answer to cure another's malice; what
composure in all His behavior, what anxiety
for the salvation of souls, for the love of whom
He also deigned to die; how He offered Himself
as the pattern of all that is good; how compas
sionate He was to the afflicted; how He conde-

The Character of Christ. 353
scended to the imperfection of the weak, how
He despised not success, how mercifully , He re
ceived the penitent, how dutiful He was to His
parents; how ready in serving all, according to
His own words, 'I am among you as He that
doth serve ; ' how He shunned all display and
show, all singularity; how He avoided all occa
sions of offence, how temperate in eating and
drinking, how modest in appearance, how earnest
in prayer, how sober in His watching, how pa
tient of toil and want, how peaceful and calm
in all things."1
This is Christ as an example, and if He be
allowed to be the perfect example, the ideal of
humanity, the flower and crown of the creation,
the region of the miraculous has been entered. A
sinless man is a violation of the natural order.
But besides that, there is clearly traceable in the
character itself a divine element, which calls for
worship on our part, as well as for imitation. He
is not simply a perfect man, and those who saw
Him did not build on His perfection, which they
took for granted, but upon His works. He is not
to be analyzed as Paul, though Paul seems nearer
1 Kudolphus de Saxonia, quoted in F. Coleridge's Vita vita;
nosirce, and Church's Human Life, p. 192.

354 The Incarnate Saviour.
to Christ than we do to Paul. Between Paul and
Christ there is a space which we cannot measure;
and the comparison of the Saviour, even with His
greatest apostle, makes us cry, " My Lord and my
God." This impression produced on those who knew
Him — the impression of a character by no means
exhausted when it was pronounced sinless — is con
firmed when we analyze particular virtues. He
does not show the ordinary lawful human emo
tions. He does not think of Himself at all; He
had no self-interest. He does not seek to justify
Himself. When He is awakened in the storm,
He exhibits no emotion of human terror. When
He stands before unjust judges, He utters no
words of natural wrath. When He withdraws
Himself from those who are ready to stone Him,
it is not a timid man crouching behind the pillars
of the temple, but one who wields superhuman
power, passing with the majesty of God through
His enemies.1 When He describes Himself as
meek and lowly in heart, He makes these words
the groundwork of an invitation for weary and
sin-laden souls to come to Him. He does not ask
for favors, nor show gratitude for them when they
1 See Aquinas, Summa. xliii. 3.

The Character of Christ. 355
are received. These are works that are due to
Him. He is conscious of Kingship, Messiahship,
miraculous power, but has nothing of what we all
call self-respect. It is all power and no pride.
Is not all this the idea of God? And we
close by repeating the question of the beginning,
"Whence came He? how is He to be accounted
for?" Jesus Christ must be accounted for. He
is the problem of this age especially, and He will
be the problem of all ages. What account of
Christ will stand? Was He dreamed into being?
Then the dreamer must be equal to the man he
dreamed. Those who make this reply, must, it
has been well said, account for the man born in
the imagination of some other man, who, as a
creature of imagination, has risen to the supreme
place in human history, and who to-day rules mil
lions of human lives and destinies. For this is
the wonderful thing about His character, that He
has been the constant standard of all the different
ages. The best idea of each age has been em
bodied in Him. He was seen at first as the great
Prophet and Teacher of mankind, then as the ideal
of a life of self-devoted poverty, then as a great
improver and reformer, then as the example of
humanity — all true ideas, but none complete.

356 The Incarnate Saviour.
Each age has been touched and swayed by Him,
but He is always above and before the ages, and
still as they go they find Him answering to their
best thoughts and hopes. As it has been, so it
will be; that model will ever rise above the
greatest thoughts of men, and the greatest things
even that have been said and thought about itself.
The generations may make great advances, and
find much that their predecessors have never
thought or cared for; but however great their
advances may be, that same figure will continue
to lead their march.

NOTES.

NOTES.

Note A. — The Descent into Egypt.
This suggestion was originally made in the Expositor
by the Rev. W. G. EhnsHe, who connects it with the
sojourn of Israel in Egypt.
Note B. — The Baptism.
On this subject compare Owen, Discourse Concerning
Ihe Holy Spirit, book ii. ch. 4. Owen admits that Christ
"was probably acted by the Spirit in and unto many
extraordinary actions during His career of a private
life, but the fulness of gifts for His work He received
not until the time of His baptism.''
Note C. — The Temptation.
Compare on this subject the Quarterly Bevieiv, 1874,
in a review of Farrar's Life of Christ ; also a very sug
gestive sermon by Dr. Maclaren in the Sunday at Home,
1880. The significance of the temptation to Christ is
perhaps nowhere more profoundly treated than in Mr.
Maurice's Sermons on the Temptation.
Note D. — The Miracle at Cana.
A striking sermon on this subject will be found in
Mozle/s Sermons: Parochial and Occasional. The view
of the words "Mine hour is not yet come," given in the
text, is substantially that presented in the Expositor by
Rev. Rayner Winterbotham. Dr. W. G. Ward's essay,
previously referred to, is instructive. (oOu)

360 Notes.
Note E. — The Resurrection.
"This presentiment of a resurrection . . . is too feeble
very materially and immediately to lighten Job's sor
rows. The momentary gleam is swallowed up by the
closing darkness, and the benighted wanderer's blind
ness seems intenser from the supernatural glare of the
hght that for a moment filled his eye." — A. B. Davidson,
A Commentary on Job, Introduction, p. 31.
Note F. — The Resurrection Life.
The view taken throughout the chapter is that of
Canon Westcott in the singularly profound essay he
contributed to the Contemporary Review, vol. xxx. The
subject is carefully treated by Dr. E. Robinson in the
Bibliotheca Sacra, 1845. Compare also The Risen Lord's
Interdict on Mary, by S. D. F. Sahnond; The Resurrection
of Christ, by R. W. Macan.

Cambridge: St Johnland
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