a hi tah ty = Soe cee Naot x a (gaa Pil acne “ i 5 Ma alr +, eats ‘ seth = te ice 5 ; Ne Nea 4 ee i Sf eee = eee it. adhe + 4 Rae a ee. oes aes Tey roa Re GD. Rae i at ete a ets 4 « z 4, w aoa », aes R, Oe eee 3 un OF PANE ‘ a FE ER 26 1926 | Ling Ped: (Nae by pip } : VF, rf ny A a 4 TCH Wine aay i Ay THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS ‘ WILLIAM OWEN CARVER, .a., TH.D., LL.D. i ; ss f | , te 4 fi a ~ jf ~ | ee ; pro | ions “$ { TE NRT 1B ae ate MUG, Yh ee eee mM Yin 7O90Ln \ . Sat Wao a { 4 a nes Migs o P as f £ a ye fy 5 > A ny OR BAG Se Hf '@) A =, » J é¢ % has rat" Rea SCAMS ik WILLIAM OWEN CARVER, M.aA., TH.D., LL.D. AUTHOR OF “ACTS—A COMMENTARY,” “MISSIONS IN THE PLAN OF THE AGES,’ “THE BIBLE A MISSIONARY MESSAGE,” ETC. NEW wy YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY THE SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS ay Re PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO GEORGE AN INTERPRETER OF JESUS WHO TYPED THE PAGES FOR ME te Rr Woe a , wD) Ty! INTRODUCTORY All the words of Jesus are revealing of His per- sonality. This is true of us all. Our words are ourselves at the instant of their expression. A. man’s speech is his self-expression. Jesus Christ is the ‘‘Word’”’ of God. Ina similar way Chris- tians are the ‘‘Word”’ of the Christ. Words are the means of communication of personality with personality. This is why Jesus is called the ‘‘Word’’ of God, and why we who bear His name are called the ‘‘Word’’ of Christ. All words ex- press the personality of the speaker. Certain words on certain occasions are more revealing, and more vitally revealing, than other words and on other occasions. We say that our words some- times misrepresent us. We do not wish to be judged, nor to judge ourselves, by some of the words that we speak. Jesus does not ask any such exemption. He is the one man who never needed or desired to retract any word which had gone forth from His mouth and His heart. P. Whit- well Wilson has well referred to Him as the one Friend no word of whom we need ever apologize for or wish to have changed. Yet the words of Jesus on certain special occasions count for more in our understanding of Him than other words of His. The Gospels have preserved for us a few of the ‘‘Words of grace which He _ spake,’’ from among the vastly greater bulk of His vu INTRODUCTORY utterances. Crises come in every life. What we say and do in these critical situations re- veals the innermost character of us. We may think of Washington’s Farewell Address; Lin- coln’s Speech at Gettysburg; Lee’s words at Appomattox; Wilson’s address to Congress call- ing the country to war; Pershing’s reputed re- mark at LaFayette’s Tomb. We think of Paul’s response to the vision of Jesus on the Damascus road, on Mars Hill at Athens, to the Jews in Jerusalem, at Rome facing his martyrdom. So in the Gospels we may readily discover situ- ations in which the words of Jesus reveal the depths of His own self-consciousness, of His con- viction concerning His relation to God, the uni- verse and history, and His conception of how He is related to humanity. In these studies we have selected some of these critically significant occa- sions from the life and ministry of Jesus and made an effort to interpret the occasion and un- derstand the words which He spoke. In nearly all cases He was not primarily interpreting Himself. This is only a secondary factor in His speech. We study this self-consciousness in His normal speech under significant circumstances. All the better do we thus ascertain how we are to think of Him. He never sought to prejudge a reaction to Himself nor to impose an estimate of His per- sonality. Usually He does not seem even to be aiding inquiry as to Himself or to be concerned what men might be thinking of Him. He lives, acts, speaks as He would, and we hear Him and discern ‘‘what manner of Man He is.’’ Vill CONTENTS CHAPTER I II iil IV Vv VI VII THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS: DISCLOS- ING HIS CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF . ° ° JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE: TO FULFILL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS . . . : . THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS: JESUS REVEALS HIS PRINCIPLES OF CONDUCT . ° . : . THE HOME-COMING SERMON: DEFINING HIS RE- LATION TO MESSIANIC PROPHECY . . . THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT: JESUS DECLARES HIS IDEALS FOR KINGDOM MEN IN A SOLILOQUY JESUS ASSUMES THE MORAL BURDEN OF THE HUMAN RACE . . ° ° UPON PETER’S CONFESSION JESUS ANNOUNCES THE METHOD OF HIS CHURCH . . GOING TO JERUSALEM FOR THE LAST TIME JESUS OFFERS HIMSELF AS THE JEWS’ MESSIAH AND THE WORLD’S SAVIOR ‘ ; : } p IN THE UPPER ROOM WITH THE TWELVE JESUS PROJECTS HIS WORLD MOVEMENT . . JESUS, RISEN, COMMISSIONS HIS FOLLOWERS TO CARRY HIS SALVATION TO ALL MEN . ° . PAGE 13 26 40 56 68 89 105 119 137 160 nt , Wr THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS CHAPTER I THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS: DISCLOSING HIS CONCEPTION OF HIMSELF (Luke 2: 40-52) ‘“Why is it that ye sought me? Did ye not know that I must be in the midst of the affairs of my Father?’’ We often treasure the first words of those who mean much to us. We remember the first words of our children. We sometimes recall and cherish the first sentence spoken by one who became an intimate friend. Here we have the first words of Jesus that can be known to us. Of course, they are not His first words. Mary—and Joseph—had already a great volume of His say- ings revolving and brooding in their proud and puzzled hearts. These are the first that are pre- served for humanity. No doubt they were thought of by Luke as being the first sentence of His mes- sage to mankind, His first interpretation of Him- self to Himself and to men. Hence his record of them. Before taking up the words it will be important to try to reproduce the circumstances under which they were spoken. The entire occasion will help us to understand the nature and stage of develop- ment in His character. At twelve years of age He has gone with His parents to the Passover Feast in Jerusalem. We are not to think of this as the 13 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS first time He had visited the Holy City of His people and of His traditional religion. But this visit is recorded because of the incident and of what it signifies concerning Him and His work. The story is one of the most familiar, because it is one of the most beautiful and useful of all stories. At the age of twelve a Jewish boy was supposed to be introduced to the Rabbis, inducted into a personal share in the temple worship, and to become ‘‘a child of the Law.’’ All this experi- ence had doubtless come to Jesus at this time. He had taken quite unusual interest in it all. The week of the feast was over. The caravan in which His family had traveled from Nazareth had set out for the return journey. Joseph and Mary had assumed that Jesus would find His place in the company and did not inquire for Him until they were pitching tent for the night. The inquiry for Him would grow to alarmed search and lead to a restless, wakeful night. The next day took them back to Jerusalem in the search for the missing lad. Then on the next morning ‘‘they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions,”’ while all the onlookers and listeners manifestly ‘‘were amazed at His understanding and His an- swers.’’ There are several items in what we may learn of Jesus from the whole situation. 1. First of all we may note His self-reliance and His reliability. Now, self-reliance is no un- common thing in a boy of twelve. Most of them are quite more willing to take care of themselves than are their parents to trust them to direct their 14 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS conduct and care for their needs. Reliance and reliability are not always matched in the boy. He sometimes claims more in self-confidence than can be granted in confidence. Jesus was left during the feast to look after Himself and He did ut. This shows how far the parents had already learned to trust Him. With the normal residents and the Passover Pilgrims, the city and all its sur- rounding spaces would be crowded, with a million or more people. In all this throng Joseph and Mary so far knew that Jesus was competent and to be trusted that they left Him to do as He pleased. Not even when setting off for home again did it seem necessary to make sure He was going along. Of course such confident treatment was based on experience. How self-reliant and trustworthy they must have found their boy for many years, now! He knew how to find His way in the city and in the throngs of people. He knew where to go and how to demean Himself in the temple and among the different classes of people. To be competent without being ‘‘smart,’’ to be perti- nent and not ‘‘pert,’’ to be at the fore and not be ‘‘forward,’’ how difficult that is, and how every. noble boy and girl has been chagrined at not being able to keep, or to seem to keep, the balance in these delicate scales. To be normally self-expres- sive and not to become self-assertive, to act on the consciousness of self-hood and not be either em- barrassed or emboldened by self-consciousness is a problem all the older of us can well remember, even though we seem usually so incapable of mak- ing the lads and lasses know that we understand 15 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS them when they grapple with the same problem. 2. We find in Jesus at this time a combination of information and acquisitiveness. He amazed all who heard Him by ‘‘His understanding and His answers,’’ but also He was ‘‘both hearing the rabbis and asking them questions.’’ He knew, really knew, some things better than the teachers and some things they didn’t know at all. That was an achievement for a lad of twelve, and a great strain on Him. There was no bravado, no gloating, no priggishness. He really knew, but He also knew His ignorance. He related Him- self to knowledge in the spirit of humility that excluded proud self-assertion. How wonderful, that, for even the maturest wise man. To know an amazing amount and to remain keen for learn- ing, that is the wisdom of getting knowledge. 3. To His parents this Boy was a satisfaction and an anxiety. Such is every child. We were all born problems. Every mother can tell you how true that is. And every father knows how big a load of problem pressed upon him when in proud reverence he held his first-born in his arms. Chil- dren can’t help being problems, and they are not to blame for it, unless they make themselves too insoluble a problem and remain too long a prob- lem. Every boy must be a problem to all who are related to him until he takes over his own problem and enters definitely upon its right solu- tion. Then what a satisfying joy he becomes. The best boys, the cleverest and brightest are often the greatest problems. Their superior capacities call for more delicate handling and 16 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS more elaborate planning. Their education, their control, their guidance, are all more complicated than in the case of the ‘‘normal’’ boy. Our most serious blunders have grown out of our thinking’ there is such a thing as a ‘‘normal’’ boy or girl and of defining the norm in terms of ourselves— of ourselves only very faultily remembered. What satisfaction and what pride Joseph and Mary had often and always found in their unusual Boy. But how He did puzzle them! And His parents were also a problem to Him— more serious than we can realize. It is always so with any serious child. How often he is grieved and distressed and sometimes cowed and re- pressed by the consciousness that his motives are misjudged, his conduct falsely appraised, his de- sires not understood. And he dares not try to explain. How utterly alone every child feels at times. Jesus must have had many such an hour in His experience already; and He was sure to have very many more. 4, Wecan note in Him remarkable development and immaturity. He was a very unusual child; that impressed others. He had much to learn; that was the dominant fact in His own thought of Himself. If Saul of Tarsus could say of him- self, that ‘‘he advanced in the Jews’ religion be- yond many of his own age’’ (Gal.1:14) surely Jesus was mature much above His years. He accepts His unusual gifts as a profound responsi- bility. He must learn more and do more because of the capacity He could not help seeing was within Himself. That is a very wonderful word 17 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS ‘with which Luke closes the narrative of this unique incident: ‘‘And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.’’ We may get the force of this statement better if we compare it with what is said of Him, at verse 40, as an infant. There we read that ‘‘the child grew and waxed strong, becoming full of wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him.’’ There the words are all in the passive mode. They express unconscious, un-aimed experience of growth and development. It was all experience and none of achievement here recorded. But of the Boy we turn to our Greek and find a wholly different word for His growth. No longer did He merely wncrease, now He advanced. And the significance of the Greek word cannot be over- looked. Luke wrote it mpoéxonrev. The base (root) of the word means cut; the apo is for- ward, ahead; the tense is imperfect, of continuous, persistent action. All that speaks of a goal, and of obstacles and difficulties; speaks of determina- tion and effort unceasing and unremitting. He saw what He needed and went after it. He-cut- his-way-forward, He ‘‘forged ahead,’’ as we say. There was much cutting to do: thickets of prej- udice and misunderstanding; trammels of pov- erty and manifold, homely, home tasks; huge bar- riers of tradition, custom and convention; roots of Hebrew language, Greek construction, Latin vernacular; of history wrongly conceived and of religion misunderstood. It would take keen tools and steady effort. But He-cut-his-way-forward. 5. Once more, we find the Boy Jesus combining 18 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS in His conduct and relations autonomy of action with obedience in behavior. Luke tells us how He gave Mary and Joseph to understand that He must determine His actions by His consciousness of relation and responsibility to God; and then he tells us how ‘‘He went down with them and came to Nazareth; and He was subject unto them.’’ It is no wonder Luke says ‘‘they under- stood not the saying which He spake unto them,’’ and that ‘‘His mother kept all the things in her heart.’’ She had more than a heartful with this wonderful Lad. Now against this partially outlined background we must come directly to the Words of Jesus, and see what they may tell us of His self-conscious- ness. 1. We meet, first of all, His disappointment at the misunderstanding of Him by Mary and Jos- eph. This misunderstanding of Him by men— all men—is one of the experiences Jesus had to meet, that the Christ has to deal with all the way through. We shall find Him giving us this as one of our topics in these studies of Him. At the end He will be saying that eternal life consists in knowing Him as the one sent by the Father. In the very first word we hear from Him, Jesus is ex- pressing grief at not being understood, and by that soul who knew and loved Him most already. It seems a pity the feeling of necessity for dig- nified language has obscured for us, in all the ver- sions, the homely simplicity and the maternal im- patience and grief with which Mary addressed the 19 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS Son she had at last found. Our hearts will tell us at once that no mother under such circumstances could have uttered the stately words: ‘‘Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing.’’ We must permit Luke, who is so gifted with sympathetic accuracy, to put into English what he so well wrote in Greek. Then we shall read: ‘‘Child, why did you do us so? Behold thy father and I, too, anxiously are seeking thee.’’ Thus we can see the astonish- ment, the reproach, the grieved authority and the sustained pain of the anxiety, for she uses the present tense. They had come upon Him and now knew He was found, but not yet have they been able to dismiss the feeling—still ‘‘we are seeking thee.’? How very natural. Yes, and how it is His turn for grief and even for rebuke. ‘‘ Why is it that ye were seeking for me? Did ye not know that I must be in the midst of My Father’s affairs?’?’ Why had they not come at once to the house of His Father, to the temple? What had become of their knowledge of His ways, their trust in His conduct and capacity? Why beat blindly about alleys and side-streets? Why go in wild ex- citement into out-of-the-way places seeking for Him when He had established His competence and conscientiousness long ago? ‘‘Did you not know that I must be here in the temple where, just now, My Father’s affairs call loudest for me?’’ To be distrusted is one of the sorest griefs and one of the most discouraging wrongs of childhood. 2. Jesus expresses here a definite sense of high obligation. ‘‘I must be in My Father’s affairs.’’ 20 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS When an outward shall is matched by an inward must we have loyal and true obedience. When the inner soul senses perfectly the will of God and appropriates that will with intellectual approval and emotional enthusiasm we have duty glorified in holiness. ‘‘The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law of sin and death,’’ because the will of God becomes the law of our nature. Paul tells us, in Phil. 2: 12-13, that the complete working out of our salvation brings us to the condition where we will and do that which is well pleasing to God. Jesus was to learn obedience by the things which He suffered (Heb. 5:8). Already He has the first principles. The human obedience in a strict Jewish home had its meaning for Him. He is not afraid now to say **T must.’’? That idea will bulk large in the mo- tives of His activities in the public years of His life. The poles of His sense and rule of duty are in His own personality and in God, His Father. He must maintain the integrity and unity of Himself. Hence what His judgment pro- nounces right His conscience executes as an irre- sistible imperative. He must. It is good to hear Him say it asa Boy. It will be good to hear Him say it in the heat of the height of His ministry. It will be supreme to hear Him say it in Geth- semane, from which He moves on to Calvary, to Olivet, to ‘‘the right hand of the majesty on high.’’ 3. His words in this primary sentence reveal Jesus as already devoted to religion and worship, to the word of God and the house of God. Later, even as now, the work of God will be His one con- 21 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS cern. It was among ‘‘the doctors of the Law’’ that He was speaking. Among them He has been for days. He was hearing them discuss, and dis- cussing with them, the word of God in the Old Testament. That word is ‘‘the man of His coun- sel.’”’ ‘‘The courts of the Lord’s house’’ are sought by His willing feet. He grounds His life on the scriptures and on His consciousness of God. These two factors will appear in all His teaching and doing. It is instructive to find them so evi- dent in this first scene of His conscious life, the first expression of the quality and direction of His soul. 4. The most surprising feature of these words lies in the revelation they make of the conscious- ness in Jesus of a unique relation to God as His Father. We may not undertake to affirm fully and exactly what these words meant to Jesus; but we cannot be true to history or psychology if we at- tribute to them any meaning short of the expres- sion of spiritual sonship unto God, as He now con- ceives God. His words inevitably contrast with Mary’s say- ing ‘‘thy father and I seek thee.’’ It is not so much that He will contrast their claims on Him with His freedom to respond to the claims of His spiritual, heavenly Father. He does place obedi- ence to the heavenly Father in first place for con- trolling conduct. Duty to God will inelude rightly defined obedience to earthly parents. He went home with them again as formerly, and ‘‘was subject to them’’ as became a true and dutiful son; but beyond and through all that obedience was 22 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS the call of the heavenly Father and the response of the spiritual Son; and if conflict should come— as come it might—the relation to the Father-God must prevail. Yet the smug arrogance of a con- ceited religious pride that would repudiate human obligation to parents by the pious ‘‘Corban’’ of mock devotion Jesus will be able twenty years later to denounce with a clear conscience. He knows how to make the heavenly Father supreme. and definitive without repudiating human rela- tionship or shirking any duty. We must go deeper into His God-consciousness,, however, if we are to understand Jesus calling’ God His Father in this connection. The daring of it, the wonder of it, the sheer audacity, have not,, apparently, been much appreciated. One must inquire first of all where He learned thus to use such a phrase; and then how He dared do so. He had never heard it so used in temple, synagogue or home. He had never met it in this direct, open, frank use in any Old Testament passage. A detailed study of the fourteen ex- amples in His Scriptures of references to God as Father will not show a single case of an individual worshiper, however devout and however gifted with the insight of prophetic understanding, speaking in definite, personal directness of God as his Father. Jesus not only does this, but goes further and announces this relation of Father and Son between Him and His God as the determina- tive fact of His consciousness and conduct. We may say, if we think so, that He is applying to Himself the striking words of the second 23 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS psalm: ‘‘Thou art my Son; this day have I be- gotten Thee’’; and the words of Isa. 9:6, ‘‘For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given, ete.’’ But if we explain His words in this way we must be prepared to accept the conclusions that follow. No prophet or saint had ever thus appro- priated these expressions. If this lad of twelve is doing this, he is either on the way to an intolerable insanity of spiritual pride or He is expressing a consciousness which if justified in humility, right- eousness, service and fellowship with this Father must mark Him as God’s Son in a sense attained by none other and possible to none else. We know in how godly and pious a home He had grown up. We know how familiar was Mary with her Bible. There He had come to love, to learn by rote, to read, to ponder the messages in God’s word. In the synagogue every Sabbath and latterly in the day schools that word had been read and expounded in His hearing. In the temple He had seen it symbolized, had heard the psalms sung in wonderful choruses and by antiphonal choirs. But here He is saying something never heard before. His thought of God is original. We have become so familiar, under His lead and teaching, with the Father idea of God, and have gained such boldness of approach in that Name that it requires an effort for us to appreciate how strange, how wonderful, how significant this term for God was upon the lips of the lad, Jesus. God was so ‘‘high and exalted’’ that the Jews feared to call His covenant name, Jehovah, and lest they speak it ‘‘in vain’’ they rarely spoke 24 THE FIRST RECORDED WORDS OF JESUS it at all. They sought priests, sanctified and cleansed, to approach even the mercy seat of God in their behalf. In such an environment, under such instructions this Boy, standing in some room of that Holy Temple of Jehovah, speaks of Him as Father as if that were quite the normal thing to do. What shall we say of these words as re- vealing what Jesus thought of Himself? It is in the same way He will speak and think of God in manhood, ministry and mission. Must we not reverently bow before Him as in His first recorded word to us He brings the Message: ‘‘God is My Father; 1 am God’s Son.”’ 25 CHAPTER II JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE: TO FULFILL ALL. RIGHTEOUSNESS (Matt. 3:18-17; Luke 3: 21-22) There are eighteen years from the first words from Jesus until we are permitted again to hear Him speak or to have any specific statement con- cerning Him. ‘‘The silent years’’ the commenta- tors call them. They were years of private life and growth. That fact is significant. How could a youth so gifted, so extraordinary, so likely to produce a sensation, remain quiet until He was thirty years old? What possibilities there were of applause, of usefulness as a ‘‘boy preacher,’’ a youthful ‘‘prophet,’’ a prodigy! With the pe- culiar consciousness of God manifest in the child how could He be restrained or restrain Himself when there was so much need everywhere for His insight and His message? ‘There is something suggestive of what is more than humanly modest and wise in the reticence of Jesus. How often one meets the comment that we know nothing of Jesus for all these adolescent and grow- ing years. All of us have shared the wish that we might know what He did, how He occupied Him- self and developed into that Man we meet in the Gospels. Tradition could not overlook so fruitful a field. But the stories reveal the lack of under- standing of their Subject. They are all out of 26 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE character. They lay hold on the supernatural and produce incidents that contradict the reticence which marks Him in this period. The acts attrib- uted to Him are not only out of character, and con- tradict John’s statement that He began miracle working at Cana in Galilee (John 2:11); they are such as would inevitably have destroyed His silence and thrust Him ‘‘willy-nilly’’ into a pub- lic career. Yet we are not without material to guide a reverent, constructive imagination in producing what must be a true picture of outstanding fea- tures of ‘‘the silent years.’’ Facts we may largely—but not wholly—lack; truth we may have. We have two fruitful phrases to guide us as we undertake to follow the Boy into His years of silent self-realization. 1. We know that He has a conviction of a rela- tion to God such as no man had claimed or has since claimed, and that this way of thinking of God as His Father was the controlling factor in His thought and His conduct. Here then will be the center of personal interpretation and growth. For we find this the dominant note of His thought of Himself and of humanity when He comes to teach and preach and heal. He will, then, all these years be learning and expanding the meaning of having God for Father and of being, in Himself and for other men, the Son of God. Always He will be occupied with His Father’s affairs. 2. And we have Luke’s inspired testimony that He cut his way ahead intellectually (in wisdom), 27 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS physically (in stature), spiritually (in favor or grace) both in religious relation (with God) and in social coordination (with men). These two sentences yield us a rich fund of information if we analyze them and then study their outcome in the mature Messiah envisaged in the Gospel pic- ture. We shall greatly err and miss much in our understanding of Jesus if we do not allow full force to Luke’s statement that ‘‘He forged His way ahead.’’ That means problems, hindrances, difficulties, opposition; and toil, labor, pains, per- sistence; and loyalty to an ideal ever more clearly defining itself. He was naturally extraordinary; He achieved distinction and uniqueness. We may add yet other items to enlarge our material. 3. We know that the Hebrew Bible, both in the original Hebrew and in the Greek (Septuagint) translation, is to be the basis of all His study. If at twelve He had an amazing knowledge of it and had begun already to approach it not merely as a learner of its traditional interpretations, but with questions that sought out new meanings and fresh interpretations, what joy and painstaking care He will expend in all these years in digging deep into Law and Prophet and Psalm. Days and months and years He delves into these Scriptures. He finds in them His ideal self, His Father’s na- ture and plans, His own purpose and program and method. Every word of it seems known to Him in the open years. Weare all too apt to assume that He knew His Bible ‘‘naturally.’’ But we mistake when we so think. He could ‘‘find the place’’ in Isaiah which He would use for text in His home- 28 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE coming sermon at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30) be- cause He was familiar with its location and its look in the scroll by reason of much handling of it. He was Master of His Bible and could handle it with a freedom and originality and discrimination that aroused the greatest interest and wonder be- cause He had worked so hard at it all these years. It came easy in later years because it came hard in earlier labors. And what came easy at last freed Him for what called for all energy in the present doing. 4. Nor must we overlook the element of prayer in His growing years. The prayer life of His full years cannot have begun with the Baptism. Easy and normal access to the Father in prayer, nights of such prayer conference in crises of His min- istry, these are but the extension of a habit grown from childhood. The hills and rocks back of Naz- areth held trysting places of the Son on earth and the Father from Heaven. Many a problem had been solved in the night season there in the hills where He ‘‘entered His closet and shut the door’’ the while He wrought with God, and God wrought into Him. . 5. And the school of life had for Him lessons rich and stern. He was ‘‘the carpenter’s son’’ and early his apprentice as well, to become Himself the maker of tools and utensils, furniture and finishings for the simple houses of humble homes. He was learning to produce a new humanity and to recon- struct history while handling the tools in homely tasks for humble folk. 29 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS It was no mere pastime of a student that occu- pied Him thus, not the recreational activity of one occupied with ‘‘intellectual and spiritual’’ studies and reflections. His avocation early necessarily became His vocation. The Gospels nowhere speak of Joseph as living during the ministry of Jesus. They do speak of Mary and of the members of the family in a way to confirm the tradition that Joseph died in the youth of Jesus. In the closing paragraph of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew (54 ff.), we have His four brothers named, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, and of His sisters the neighbors say ‘‘are they not all with us?’’ The ‘‘all’’ speaks of at least three. Our knowledge of Jewish cus- tom enables us to infer that Mary was around twenty at the birth of Jesus. We must think of her left a widow when under forty with at least eight children. Jesus was probably between fifteen and eighteen. He became the head of the house- hold. In their moderate circumstances the struggle for physical necessities would be strenuous for the young carpenter. He accepted His lot and took up His burden. Nor did He lay it down until the fam- ily were all reared, at least to possible compe- tency. We can understand in this ight why, hu- manly speaking, He never attended any of the rabbinical schools at Jerusalem which had for Him such fascination as a lad of twelve. Of course we would say that there was no school that could have taught Him as He would learn. But no matter how eager He may have been for such schooling the opportunity was denied Him. He 80 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE had to work hard, early and late, to make ends meet in that crowded cottage. Indirectly He must learn what the schools taught, and He certainly knew when He came to meet their pupils and teachers in later years. How serious were the conferences Jesus and Mary held at night over the needs of the family, the food and raiment and drink concerning which He will later tell us not to worry. These must be found in sufficient measure for growing boys and girls. And there were other problems more seri- ous: education and morals and religion. How shall they be solved for the worthy bringing up of this big family? And we may be sure these boys, so near His own age, were not easy for Jesus to manage, or to get on with at all. His superior- ity would as often nettle and ‘‘rile’’ them as com- mand admiration and deference. Six months be- fore His crucifixion they taunted His pretensions and challenged Him to go on to Jerusalem and publish His claims so as to have the crisis over, one way or another. This was far from being the first time they had failed to appreciate Him. What intimacies of soul He and Mary had in planning and praying together, often after all the children were abed. How blest the widow with such a Son! How high the challenge to every son similarly placed! How much it meant to Him to be schooled in such providences as these as He ‘‘learned obedience’’ and ‘‘sympathy’’ ‘‘by the things He experienced.’’ We can understand, again humanly speaking, why Jesus did not begin His ministry until He 31 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS was thirty years old. To be sure, His ministry must wait on that of John; but the Holy Spirit was controlling and timing both. Jesus must first finish the task in Nazareth. At length that task was complete. He could lay upon other shoulders all the home burdens. Pal- estine is athrill with the sensation of the New Prophet of the Hills, the Evangelist of the Jordan. Not for four hundred years has one so spoken for the living God. Every community is stirred. It is all the talk. No hamlet is unmoved. From every section companies are forming for pilgrim- age down to the great camp meetings in the Jer- icho valley. Some have returned to Nazareth and tell in excited tones to awed throngs of the won- derful preacher and his burning message: ‘‘The day of the Lord is at hand.”’ I think Mary noticed a strange light in the eye of her First-born. There was a far-away air about Him, as if He felt in His soul the call to a new career. He was more than usually reticent. He spent more time out in the hills alone. Hach morning He took with Him to the little shop a ‘‘roll of the Book.’? From it He would read a bit, then lay it upon a shelf while He worked and thought; then read again, and turn almost absent- mindedly to work again. All this Mary’s keen, discerning eye saw. There was nothing for her to say. Then there came an evening when she noted that He carefully put away His tools, swept the shop out all clean and shut the door with a care that spelled finality. He came into the house and laid up His scroll and went out into the solitude of 82 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE the night. When late into the night He still did not come, Mary went and got the scroll to see what He had been reading. Her eyes fell on the words in what we call the Fortieth Psalm: ‘Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I am come; In the roll of the Book it is prescribed for me: I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy Law is written in my heart. I have proclaimed [have to proclaim] glad tidings of righteousness in the great assembly ; Lo, I will not refrain my lips, O Jehovah, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; T have declared thy faithfulness and thy sal- vation; I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great assembly’’ (vv. 6-10, cf. Heb. 10: 5 ff.) Mary could not think of sleep. She got together a ‘‘change of raiment’’ and prepared a simple lunch, all of which she made into a neat packet. Then she got ready a simple breakfast. In the morning twilight she saw Him coming in from His night with that Father about whose affairs it is needful for Him to be. Mary met Him, very 33 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS quietly, and led Him to the waiting breakfast. As they sat and He ate she watched Him furtively, lovingly, longingly. They did not talk much. Rather they felt each other and mingled their souls in spiritual converse and questioning. As He finished Mary went and brought out the packet, and handed it to Him. She helped Him adjust it, thus to touch Him with her hands in gentle caress. A moment they gazed into the deeps of each other’s eyes. Very gently He placed His arm about her, drew her to Him as they stood together there in the doorway, planted a kiss on her upturned face. No word was spoken. He turned about, walked past the little shop, followed the path as it wound eastward and south and then, more than a quarter of a mile below, passed around the point out of sight into the highway leading down to Judea and the Jordan. Mary turned into her house with a great surge of min- gled feeling and fell on her face on His bed. She knew that her wonderful Son had gone out into the world to do His work, to attend to the affairs of His Father. There are some of us who know, as far as we humans may know, what it means to a young man thus to go out from the home, and who know also what it means to the mother’s heart and the father’s soul to see them go. O God, that we may know that they go out to follow Him, ‘‘to do the will of God’’! Two days later through the throngs about the Baptizing Prophet came a serious, modest Man and asked to be baptized. With emphasis that marks astonishment and determination John de- murs: ‘‘I have need to be baptized by Thee, and 34 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE Thou, dost Thou come unto me?’’ Jesus said in reply: ‘‘Allow it in this instance; for thus is it fitting to fulfill all righteousness.’’ Then John yielded and baptized Him. Immediately upon being baptized Jesus prayed. In response to that prayer there came, for Him and John, at least, a vision of heaven opened and the Holy Spirit in bodily form like a dove coming down and alighting on Jesus to abide; and a voice that said: ‘‘This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am pleased.’’ Let us not be disturbed by the superficial incon- sistency between John’s protest against baptizing Jesus and his own statement (John 1: 31-34) that the Messiah was unknown to him, and was recog- nized in the manifestation of the Spirit and the Voice. John does not say that he did not know Jesus, the Man; but that he did not know the Christ, the Redeemer, anointed of God. He de- clared that He was already in the midst of the people and to be manifested. John and Jesus were kinsmen and their mothers intimate friends, sharing their transcendent secrets of God’s grace in their sons. John was probably left an orphan. That he ‘‘was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel’? (Luke 1:80) does not mean that he never mingled at all with people. The one home in all the land to which he would go would be the carpenter home in Nazareth. He and Jesus had too much in common not to know each other and to talk together of the things of God. John was preaching repentance, sternly as well as graciously calling on men to confess their sins and turn unto the coming kingdom of God. His 35 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS baptism was the symbolic embodying of that re- pentance and the washing away of the sins of the man who accepted it. He did not know that Jesus was the Christ. He may have suspected it. He did know Him as the cleanest, purest, godliest man his eyes had looked upon. So he drew back from Jesus, declaring: “You are a far better man than I. As between You'and me You must be my confessor and wash away my sins.’’ Jesus’ reply is: ‘‘I am not com- ing in repentance; not asking you to hear a con- fession. [I am asking that you baptize Me in dedi- cation of Myself to My life-purpose.’? On that basis John agreed and the baptism was per- formed. Now in all this there stand out certain important features. | 1. Jesus calmly assumes the direction of John. Here is a modest, obscure young artisan standing before the man before whom multitudes from all corners of the land quailed and hid their faces in confusion over sin. Here is the greatest preacher Israel has known since the Captivity, the first prophet in hundreds of years, the man who re- buked kings and denounced the sins of the priests of God. The young Carpenter quietly directs the prophet’s course; the prophet owns the command and obeys. Truly ‘‘one greater than John the Baptist is here.’’ 2. We have said Jesus was baptized in dedica- tion of Himself to His life-purpose. That purpose has long been forming and defining itself in His thinking and planning. Now it is clear, definite, 36 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE certain. It has been wrought out in His Bible studies which it is easy to see centered in the ereat spiritual passages of the Law of Moses, in the Messianic Psalms, and preéminently in the Prophets, especially in Isaiah’s visions of the Messianic reign and ‘‘the songs of the suffering servant of Jehovah.’’ The purpose has been defined in periods of meditation prolonged and profound,.in nights of prayer, communion and counsel with God, His Father. That purpose is part*of His peculiar and now perfect God-consciousness. He dedicates Himself to it wholly, unreservedly, and to all its implications and obligations. For this He buries in the past all His sacred secular tasks. No more can they claim Him or assert any claim upon Him. Hear Him state the purpose to which He is now committed in the water symbol of death and resur- rection: ‘‘It is fitting to fulfill all righteousness.’’ Nothing higher, holier, more comprehensive, more costly, could be conceived. He does not propose to be a good man, merely, noble as that is. Nor to do righteousness, important as that is. Nor will He be content to live cleanly, righteously and gen- erously, fine as that ideal is for any man. For Him there is no objective short of fulfilling ‘‘every aspect of righteousness.’’ That means, must mean in the light of His words and His life, that He sets Himself to do all that the Father-God of His consciousness, the Holy and Righteous One of Israel’s revelation, has in purpose and power to 37 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS do in the human race. He will do as a man all the righteousness that one man can do in His rela- tions. But that is only the beginning, only the personal condition of the purpose before Him. If He succeeds the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven and His Father’s name will be hallowed in all the earth. Such is the purpose with which He went into the Jordan. He goes to John because John links up His new work with God’s work in the former order of Is- rael and with the Covenant. He will carry to the full all that God has begun in the ages past. God’s purpose is unchanging, His work continu- ous. There can be no real break with the past, even when a new era is inaugurated. 3. Jesus has no delusions about the task He is undertaking. He knows enough of human na- — ture and of history to see what He is facing. Yet ‘‘He will not fail nor be discouraged till He have set justice in the earth’’ (Isa. 42:4). Thatis why He enters His work through the baptism in the Jordan. ‘‘Thus it becometh us to fulfill all right- eousness’’—ottas, in this manner. He knows that to realize such a high purpose He must raise a dead humanity to life. And He knows that at the other end of His personal ministry there will be another burial with its resurrection. He com- mits Himself to it all. The temple of righteous- ness He will build will have its corner stone laid in an emptied grave. It is no mechanical plan He projects, but a task of remaking personality per- ceived by an insight into the facts of humanity and an acceptance of all that the facts involve. 38 JESUS DECLARES HIS LIFE PURPOSE 4, The scene closes with the seal of divine ap- proval. Not alone will Jesus undertake so tran- scendent a task. Fully convinced and fully dedi- cated as He is, He falls on His knees at the water’s edge in prayer. The response is quick and won- derful. Heaven opens for the Spirit of Deity to join Him. Together they will work for this high goal, even as the Prophet foretold (see Isa. 42:1 ff., 61:1ff., 48:16, etc.). And the voice of the Father spoke to the spirit of His Son in ap- proval of His purpose and of His dedication to it: ‘‘Thou art my Son, the Beloved, in Thee I am pleased.’’ (See Luke 38: 22.) Thus the story of the Baptism of Jesus. What can we make of it? What but to accept it, to own Him, to follow Him. No man could have invented this scene. Unmistakably it aims to portray the presence of deity in humanity undertaking, in complete divine energy, to realize divine right- eousness on earth. The marvelous combination of ideas and aims and method could never have come to any man unless he had seen them set before the eyes of his soul in living Personality. One other word we cannot forbear. We all have our life aim and purpose, more or less distinct, more or less compelling, more or less absorbing. Are we ready to bury all in baptism into that pur- pose? Can we hear the God and Father say to us as we commit ourselves to our purpose: ‘‘ Thou art my child; I love thee; I approve of thee and of thy purpose’’? Can any one of us go on in life unless he can have a purpose on which that bless- ing of God rests? 39 CHAPTER III THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS: JESUS REVEALS HIS PRINCIPLES oF conpucT (Matt. 4:1-11, Mark 1:12f., Luke 4:1-14) A great Life Ideal is not in itself sufficient to produce a great life. The great ideal is essential for the great life; but is not all-sufficient for it. Jesus had a clear consciousness of His unique relation to God. He is the one Son of the infinite Father. He has a clearly defined and firmly fixed purpose ‘‘to fulfill all righteousness.’’ With this consciousness and this purpose He went to His baptism. In that baptism He buried all His sec- ular, private and family life and responsibilities and arose to be the Servant of Jehovah to fulfill the world mission, the universal function for which He ‘‘had become flesh to dwell among men.’’ No sin did He leave behind, for He had none. Yet even He must make the definite break with the former life and the definite committal wholly to His Messianic Calling. This Great Consecration was quickly followed by the Great Temptation. It is always so. One is never permitted to go unhindered into a life of consecrated service of God and men. The con- secration of Jesus had been marked by the bap- tism, the prayer, the Holy Spirit, the approving 40 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS Voice. Then immediately follows the forty days of temptation. There are some general considerations about these temptations through which we must ap- proach any analysis of them. 1. First of all we face the question of the possi- bility and the reality of Jesus being tempted at all. It is no easy question. Indeed we shall do well frankly to confess at once that there are depths to it which we cannot fathom. How much, in truth, do we know of the metaphysics of any temptation? We know the dreadful fact in our- selves, and we can see and accept the fact in Jesus. In His case it was altogether inevitable. He could not be human and escape it. He could not be ideally human without temptation assailing Him with an intensity known to no other. In Him the issue was joined between sin and holiness, between righteousness and evil, between God and the devil. Satan knew how great was the issue. If he could get Jesus, by so much as one dimly dark- ening stain of sin, he could hold the world: if he failed with Jesus he must give up the world and surrender mankind to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The older theologians gave much time and energy to discussing whether Jesus could or could not sin. The glorious fact that spells salvation and victory for us is that He could not sin. We may postpone the discussion of the proposition that He could not sin. He was not able to sin. 2. It will help us to recall what preparation Jesus had for temptation and for resisting and overcoming it. We think first of His home train- 41 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS ing. The spirit and ideals of the home; the in- struction and example of the home; the habits and standards all play a part in the set of the soul in relation to sin and in determining how it will react to temptation. Habits of obedience under the authority of the home helped. Restraints and constraints of control of an immature, growing personality can alone give the sense of authority and responsibility on the basis of which one may become morally and righteously autonomous. Without the teaching and the learning of author- ity self-will develops, but self-control is lacking. Modern pedagogical theory is defective—and often wholly deficient—at this point. To allow only self-expression in the child, under a guid- ance that avoids all exercise of authoritative con- trol, is to deprive the child of the knowledge of the principle of obedience. And without that knowl- edge the child is doomed to develop into a self- willed, selfish, domineering adult, or else to be broken and baffled and destroyed in the conflict with the authority of nature and the cosmic order which are enforced upon us all, whatever our theories. Jesus learned obedience and set up in His own soul the perfect command of God. The conscious- ness of God in His life and in all the world in- fluenced Jesus. He gave Himself up to this. He lived in God and God lived in Him. He hid God’s word in His heart that He might not sin against God’s law (cf. Ps. 119:11). He met every temptation with an instantly recalled text from His Bible. And so He was able to do always in 42 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS the multiform situations that met Him in a busy ministry. These texts did not ‘‘just come to Him naturally.”? They came because He had stored mind and heart with them in the memory days of childhood, had matured their meaning in the meditative days of young manhood, had related them to practical duties in the stern demands of living contacts with men. We must keep in mind, too, that He was a man of prayer. Between His baptism and the wilder- ness He slipped in a praying hour. That was the normal way with Him. And all is crowned by the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit had come to abide upon Him. It is surely on first thought startling, even shocking, that the first influence of the Holy Spirit is to ‘‘lead Him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.’’ Mark’s language here is very strong: ‘‘And straightway the Spirit driveth Him forth into the wilderness.’’ It was a terrible ex- perience. We get the echo of it when Jesus comes to teach us to pray, ‘‘Lead us not into tempta- tion,’’? and when He exhorts His disciples: ‘‘Watch and pray that ye enter not into tempta- tion.’’ No other man was ever so seriously, so persistently, so subtly beset by Satan. There is infinite significance in Luke’s being able to say (4:13-14): ‘‘And when the devil ‘had finished every temptation he departed from Him for (until) a season. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.’’ Because He met temptation in the control of the Spirit He could minister to men in the power of the Spirit. 43 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS 3. A word needs now to be spoken of the purpose of the temptation, and of its value. Already we have indicated that it is part of the discipline by which Jesus was perfected in Saviorhood by the experiences which He suffered. We may not com- prehend the fact that He could not ‘‘be made in all things like unto His brethren’’ without growing into the complete mastery of our conditions by coming up through them. We can at least see that ‘‘being tempted in all points like as we are’’ enabled Him to ‘‘become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining unto God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people’’ (Heb. 2:17-18), because He would thus be able to ‘‘bear gently with the ignorant and erring.’’ His experience of our limitations and struggles illuminates the Psalmist’s assurance that ‘‘God knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust.’’? ‘‘For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.’’ We may ‘‘therefore draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help in time of need’’ (Heb. 4:16). When we think of the temptations as a part of Jesus’ own experience and life their significance lies in their giving Him occasion to fix and declare the principles of conduct. No life can be lived consistently unless grounded in and always moti- vated by inviolable principles. No man can be always honest unless truth is imbedded ‘‘in the inward parts.’’ A sudden, unanticipated opportu- nity to gain wealth by dishonesty, or a sudden 44 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS danger of losing by strict integrity, will plunge him into crooked dealing unless he has so fixed his rule of behavior that dishonesty is not in him. Will one ever lie in an emergency? Unless truth is an inviolable principle of character, and so an unfailing rule of conduct, in a crisis one will resort to falsehood. So of all sins. If we allow that we may ever commit them we certainly will fall into them. Jesus fixed all that at the start. Paul exhorts: ‘‘Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to do its long- ings’’ (Rom. 13:14). Most of our words and deeds are done by im- pulse. We do not, and cannot, anticipate them. We go forth in the morning never knowing what situations will face us calling for word and deed. There is no opportunity in most cases for reflec- tion, for weighing considerations. The religious and moral opportunist will say and do what the situation suggests as the easy, the pleasant, the profitable thing. The true man or woman will do right. Jesus was going forth to the most stren- uous, the most delicately trying, the most bitterly contested task that could engage a life. He car- ried into it the greatest and most important pur- pose that ever stirred a living soul. No mistakes of His can be corrected, compensated or atoned for. He must do right. He is not living for Him- self alone, but for all men. In a measure this is true of every one of us. The period of temptation was to fix for Him the goal He will seek—always; the interest that will control—always. There can be no faltering for 45 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS Him, no vacillation, no compromise, no tem- porizing. That inner experience in which He faced Himself and fixed His personal relation to His task, to His powers, to His safety, to men and to devils, this is the great significance of the temp- tation. We cannot understand the temptation un- less we approach it with the understanding that Jesus is undertaking the role of Messiah, under- taking to fulfill God’s plan outlined in the deeper spiritual sections of the Old Testament, under- taking to fulfill all righteousness in a world where men are weak and proud, and sinful and lost. He has just received the Father’s approval. The Holy Spirit is linked with Him for service, but His acts are still to be His own. He has superhuman powers. No man save John the Baptist knows as yet that He is the Messiah. How shall He win this recognition? How will He use this superior power? These questions must be settled at once, and all that relates to them. We will not make the mistake of supposing that this one conflict ended His fight with Satan and temptation. ‘‘When he had tried every tempta- tion the devil left Him ‘for a season,’ ’’? we read in our versions. That suggests return and repe- tition. The Greek makes this definite, for it reads, not ‘‘for a season,’’ but ‘‘until an opportunity.’’ This was the decisive battle, but not the end of the war. Many ‘‘seasons’’ came. Indeed the temptations were almost continuous. The devil does not easily admit defeat. He never surren- 46 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS ders. He kept up his attacks on Jesus all the way to the cross. He came in enemies, came in false friends and what is most dangerous to us all, he came in the true and loved friends. Even the Twelve, Peter preéminently, and the Mother be- loved and the brothers of Jesus were used as in- struments of temptation to Him. The poor and needy whom He loved and so longed to help tempted Him to turn aside from the high goal cf Messiahship and devote Himself to present relief and to material service. All this, and vastly more than we may pause here even to summarize, lay ahead of Jesus now that He begins to be the prom- ised, planned, and sorely needed Messiah, Servant of Jehovah, Redeemer of men. The wilderness days are testing days, principle-defining days. Nor will we mistake by thinking of only three temptations. These are but the strenuous on- slaught at the climax. ‘‘He was in the wilderness forty days undergoing temptation by the devil.’’ The whole period was a series of temptations. Let us see what we may make of the three su- preme tests recorded as marking the climax. 1. ‘‘If thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it become a loaf of bread.’’ Jesus had just heard God call Him ‘‘My Son, the Beloved.’’ For eighteen years, at least, He has known that He is Son of God. Satan does not attack that. That is too much a matter of clear consciousness. The temptation is, not to question the relation to God, but to doubt God’s fairness in dealing with His Son. ‘‘He hungered and the devil said: ‘Use your power to make bread to feed yourself. It is 47 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS > 99 not right or just for God’s Son to be hungry. No doubt Jesus is conscious of miracle-working power now in Him ready for expression. How will He use it? It is suggested to Him that His first use of it will be to feed Himself. He has this power from His Father to be used in the service of men and in the work of the kingdom of heaven. If He can be made to use it in His own interest first of all, that power will be perverted from the start. The Son of God will then live, not as other men, but by special provision. He will be an ex- ception. He refuses, once and for all. He held this power as a gift sacred for service. He uses it, widely, lavishly, for men and for the glory of His Father, but never once for Himself. He will feed multitudes by the word of command, but will Himself eat no miracle food. He never evades hunger, thirst, weariness, distress, nor relieves it supernaturally in Himself. He settles that matter now at the first consciousness of the possession of this power, and when He is facing a real need, with hunger gnawing at His stomach. And He was facing just the temptation of every human being with any consciousness of power, in intellect, in genius, in possessions. Willi one use it to serve and advance self or will he hold it sacred for the service of men as a ministrant for God. 2. When Jesus will not question the goodness and justice of His Father the temptation shifts to an appeal to ambition. It is not a crass appeal to a sordid ambition. It is quite in line with the ideals and aims in the heart of Jesus. Leading 48 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS Him up to some height from which the wide vision could easily be made to suggest ‘‘all the inhabited earth,’’ the devil showed Him all the kingdoms of men and the glory of being their political head. He proposed at once to make Him the master of all the world if only Jesus would for once do obeisance before him. ‘‘If you do me that honor,’’ he said, ‘‘to Thee will I give this author- ity entire and their glory.’’ The word used does not need to mean ‘‘worship.’’ It means normally an act recognizing exalted personality or position and may be used as between men. It is used to describe Cornelius’ act of prostrate respect be- fore Peter (Acts 10:25). Satan knew that Jesus wished and expected to win the world. There was in the mind of Jesus at this time probably the pledge of the Second Psalm: ‘‘T will tell of the decree: Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my son; This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the na- tions for thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’’? (vv. 7-8.) In many other phrases and forms the Old Tes- tament bore this assurance to the Messianic Serv- ant of Jehovah. Jesus certainly means to take mankind for His field and to bring them into the kingdom of God as His goal. How will He do it? Where will He ever make a beginning? He has no reputation, no standing, no influence of 49 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS position, no friends in power in any place to aid Him. He is contemplating spiritual methods, personal appeal, the attraction of ideals, of holi- ness, of personality. It is to be a slow process, and very difficult. The devil spoke with much of truth when he claimed the authority of human kingdoms and declared that to whomsoever he would he was in the habit of bestowing rulership. He will abdicate in favor of Jesus, and will actively aid in placing Him in authority on con- dition of Jesus recognizing this power and au- thority of the Evil One. He makes no mention now of God, leaving Him wholly out of the reck- oning. That is a favorite way with the devil, and one of our most common sins, just ignoring God and raising no question of His will, or of the prin- ciple of right and wrong. That is the greatest de- fect and sin of our generation—just acting as if God were not. But Jesus will not forget God. And He will not temporize or argue with the devil. Instantly, de- cisively, finally, He commands him to be off. ‘‘Get behind, Satan: for it is written; As Lord thou shalt do obeisance to thy God, and to Him alone shalt thou give worship.’’ Satan offered Jesus the human race in mass to use for His own exaltation. Jesus sees them as multitudes need- ing Him, whom He must rescue and save and transform into a kingdom of heaven. He rejects the thought of regarding men as instruments of His own exaltation and glorification and insists on treating them as subjects of loving service. We may understand something of the nature of this 50 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS temptation if we think of a German Prince who came to the throne forty years ago. To him the devil showed all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if he would bow to him, placing might in first place among the virtues of rulers, and the sword above the cross. The glamour of this glory dazzled the eyes and bedeviled the soul of Wil- helm. We know the mad pace it led him and the maelstrom of ruin in which it engulfed Europe and the world. And all the time the Kaiser was allowed to persuade himself he was a worshiper of God and a benefactor of men. And was not the German Kaiser just the supreme exhibition of the dominant spirit of nationalism and international standards? What a contrast Jesus presents. There in the wilderness He settled the way He would think of men. 3. There remains yet one question. How shall men find out that Jesus is the Christ of God, the Hope of Israel, the Redeemer of prophecy, the Savior He longs to be and means to be? Where and how shall He proclaim Himself? A sugges- tion is ready. Select a feast day. The multitudes will be assembled in all the temple courts in the Holy City. John’s preaching has set tens of thousands thinking ‘‘the Day of Jehovah’’ is near, ‘‘the Kingdom of God is at hand.’’ Now let Jesus ascend to the roof and suddenly, from one of the wings of that sacred building, float down into the midst of the crowds, God’s Servant arriving from the skies. It will all be easy. There can be no danger. God has promised to ‘‘give His angels charge concerning Thee, to guard Thee,’’ and | 51 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS ‘‘On their hands they shall bear Thee up, Lest Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.”’ When the people see this His reputation will be instant. All will know He has come from God. By such spectacular short-cut Jesus may win a place and a following. How much easier and how much more speedily effective than the quiet, slow method of winning individuals by the truth and by personal influence. Here is a suggestion that Jesus take into His own hands the work of His ministry and place upon God the responsi- bility of backing Him up in His plans. The end is not affected. It is only the means that He is to determine for Himself. But Jesus will take God’s way to God’s ends. He will not seek to place God under obligation. The Son must do the Father’s work in the Father’s way. May we not now summarize the elements in these temptations and see how comprehensively they compass our own? ‘‘He was tempted in all points like as we are.’’? (1) He was tempted first to doubt God, then to ignore God, and finally to use God for plans that would be His own and not God’s. (2) There was first the temptation to satisfy a need—He was really hungry and His body must be nourished; then to gratify an am- bition—He wanted the world, and for good pur- poses of blessing and helpfulness: why not use the devil to get it?; lastly to display a possession —He could come down from the temple through the air safely, and it would deceive no man con- 52 THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS cerning His powers. (38) Self played a part in every temptation, as of necessity it always must. First He was asked to serve Himself with a power given for service and for the glory of God; then to make the kingdom of God a means for His own agerandizement, lastly to relieve Himself of toil and trouble, making His way easier when the true way was hard. (4) In the relation of the spir- itual and the material values He was first asked to make physical gratification the test of His life and not the soul’s relation to God and duty; then to materialize His conception of the Kingdom He would found, making it primarily political and not spiritual; and lastly to seek recognition by a physical miracle rather than by spiritual trans- formation of men. Here again we face the most common dangers in religion. At this moment throughout America there is raging a conflict of thought and debate as to the place of the physical miracle in the religion of Jesus. What, now, shall we find in the actual words of Jesus in the face of all these questions and sug- gestions? | 1. ‘‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’’ ‘‘A man’s life consisteth not in the things he possesseth.’’ A man can die, but the Son of God cannot ignore God’s word. He can die, He must not sin. ‘‘Is not the life more than the food?’’? The primary vice, on the religious side, in Christian Science is that its supreme test of faith and piety is found in the degree of comfort 53 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS in the physical self. Jesus’ rule of conduct is: A child of God must make God’s will the sole guide in what he will do. ‘‘My food and my drink is to do the will of Him that sent me’’ is the way He phrases it for the Twelve at Jacob’s well. 2. ‘*Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall thou serve.’’ There can be no divided allegiance, no compromise with evil even as a means to a holy end. There can be no cor- rupting of the means that does not contaminate the result. Every act must be part of the worship of God. Jesus makes all this very clear, very em- phatic. He did not temporize, nor argue with Satan. There was no hesitation. ‘‘He who hesi- tates is lost.’? When we stop to parley with the devil we have already thus far surrendered to him. Jesus never betrayed a weak place in the armor of His resistance and so did not invite a second thrust in the same spot. And when the devil was done Jesus let Him go. There was no gloating, no spiritual pride. 3. ‘*Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’’ Neither presumption nor doubt has any place in our dealing with the heavenly Father. We will trust Him so absolutely that there will be no test- ing of His word, but reliance on it at all times. There will be no taking control out of His hands and still expecting Him to rescue us from the dan- gers of our disbelief or of neglect of His counsel and will. Such were the principles with which Jesus came out of the wilderness, led by the Holy Spirit. His temptations had been desperate. They were per- 5A THE TEMPTATION ANSWERS sonal, powerful, progressive, official, universal. They appeal to the physical, the psychological, the spiritual tendencies in His being. They involved His private life and character; His social ideal and human attitude; His divine relations. In the face of them all He came forth with the principles by which He lived and toiled, ‘‘enduring such con- tradiction of sinners against Himself,’’ ‘‘resist- ing unto blood striving against sin’’ (Heb. 12:3f.). In the end He was able to say, as He faced His death: ‘‘The prince of this world cometh and he hath nothing in Me”’ (John 12: 31); ‘‘HWather, I have glorified Thee in the earth, hav- ing finished the work which thou gavest Me to do”’ (John 17:4). Are we not bound to say, with the author of Hebrews, that this ‘‘Son, who learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and was made perfect, became unto all them that obey Him the author of eternal salvation’’ (Heb. 5: 8-9)? 55 CHAPTER IV THE HOME-COMING SERMON: DEFINING HIS RELATION TO MESSIANIC PROPHECY (Luke 4: 16-30) Jesus, apparently, returned from the period of temptation for two days with John the Baptist. Here He began privately to attract a personal following. His first two disciples were directed to Him by the Baptist. These brought others. Jesus won Philip. Soon He was returning to Galilee with a half dozen or more who already owned Him as Teacher, Friend, Messiah. From this small beginning His reputation spread, His popularity grew, His following multi- plied. At the wedding feast in Cana He made the first ‘‘beginning of signs’’ ‘‘and manifested His glory,’’ by reason of which in a new and deeper sense ‘‘His disciples believed on Him.”’ He attended a passover in Jerusalem where by cleansing the temple He raised an issue between Himself and the religious authorities. Nicodemus visited Him. His growing reputation was sur- passing that of John the Baptist. The jealousy and envy of the Pharisees was rising. He re- turns to Galilee through Samaria, where in a min- istry of two days many Samaritans believed on Him. Altogether some months have passed since that morning when He quietly said farewell to His 56 THE HOME-COMING SERMON home and shop in Nazareth and to Mary. In these months He had become famous. He was the most talked of man in all the land. He comes back home for a brief stay. The town was all a-buzz. The Carpenter who disappeared a few months be- fore has returned a Rabbi, and much more than a Rabbi. Cana was within fifteen miles, and a day’s journey would bring you to Capernaum, flourishing city by the beautiful blue Sea of Galilee, the center of His recent, as also of His future operations. All knew about Him, and wondered. Now He is back in the home town for a visit. It is the Sabbath. His custom from earliest days will take Him to the synagogue, the town meeting place for worship. He is now a teacher and a preacher. Of course He will preach. In- deed, it is known that of late He speaks in some synagogue practically every Sabbath day. The local ‘‘ruler of the synagogue’’ in all probability had invited Him to ‘‘take the service’’ for the day. However that may be, ‘‘He entered, as His custom was, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and took His stand to read.’’ Whether He had timed His visit so as to have the appointed ‘‘lesson of the day’’ fit His purposes, or whether He had arranged with the attendant we cannot know. He had evidently deliberately chosen what scripture He would read and expound that day. There was handed to Him a small scroll contain- ing a part—probably not more than the Second Part and possibly not all even of that—of the writings of Isaiah. 57 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS He found the passage He desired. It was our Chapter LXI. Luke identifies it for us by quoting what corresponds to our verse one and a clause in verse two. Whether the reading included more we may not say with certainty. The quotation in Luke breaks off in the midst of a sentence which continues through verse three and ends a para- graph. The last paragraph in the chapter (vv. 10-11) fits perfectly the first paragraph from which Luke quotes: ‘‘I will greatly rejoice in Jehovah. My soul shall be joyful in my God: for He hath clothed me with the garments of salva- tion, He hath covered me with the robe of right- eousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland, and as a bride adorneth herself with jewels. For as the earth bringeth forth its bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”’ It will at once be evident that this fits per- fectly with what Luke quotes, and all the more so if we quote the first paragraph in full. First, as Luke cites it for identifying the passage: ‘‘The Spirit of the Lord Jehovah is upon me; because He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He hath sent me to bind up the broken- hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor.’’ Here Luke breaks off. The paragraph continues: ‘‘and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in 58 THE HOME-COMING SERMON Zion, to give unto them a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of Jehovah, that He may be glorified.’’ Not only do the two paragraphs harmonize and complement each other, but the close of the second paragraph: ‘‘so the Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth be- fore all the nations,’’ would explain how Jesus came to speak of the widow of Zarephath, and of Naaman the Syrian, for which there seems no connection if we suppose that Jesus read only the part of a sentence which Luke quotes. And we have altogether a completer basis for the sermon of Jesus if we assume that He used all this. This fuller reading is not essential for the significance of the words of Jesus in applying the passage to Himself, although it gives a clearer applicability. There are several items in the application from which we see how Jesus was interpreting Him- self. 1. Of initial significance is the appropriation by Jesus, for explaining Himself, of the most vital, exalted, spiritual predictions and descrip- tions of the Messiah. The case before us is but one example of such use of the Messianic Scriptures. This was a con- sistent element in His teaching, an established habit of His thinking concerning Himself. Here He frankly affirms: ‘‘To-day is this scripture ful- filled in your ears.’’ This was His opening state- ment. He returned the scroll from which He had 59 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS read to the attendant; sat down, the customary attitude for a teaching rabbi, waited for perfect attention and expectant suspense until ‘‘the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him’’; then made this bold, tremendously significant state- ment. Luke’s record puts distinguishing em- phasis on this affirmation of Jesus that He brings the fulfillment of the prophecy, by giving no other item of the constructive teaching. Then he adds to the emphasis by reporting that Jesus tells them solemnly (‘‘verily’’) that He cannot expect from His neighbors’ acceptance of His functional office because ‘‘no prophet is acceptable in his native place.’? Jesus offends further by justify- ing His freedom in the interpretation and exer- cise of His function as Prophet by citing the sovereign will of God in sending His blessings through Elijah and Elisha to the widow of Zare- phath and to Naaman, the Syrian. He is thus as- serting His autonomy as Fulfiller of the Messianic prophecies, and His independence of popular wish and current expectation. The introduction of these heathen as the sole beneficiaries of grace in the instances cited by Jesus, as suggested above, was probably in connection with the prediction that ‘‘the nations’’ were to share His salvation (Isa, 60211). At first the audience were highly pleased and favorable, ‘‘bearing witness to Him, and wonder- ing at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth.’’ His reference to their wish that He do miracles for them must be in response to some such demand expressly made at the time. 60 THE HOME-COMING SERMON From this He goes on to the claim of authority and autonomy in Messianic functions and to the repudiation of their Jewish prejudices, all of which so angered them that they wished to destroy Him, and did form a mob and take Him to the precipice back of the town for that purpose. Such revulsion of feeling, such rage, such willingness to destroy Him can mean nothing short of their understanding Him to claim, and their resenting His claim of Messiahship and of an authority in interpreting the character and work of the Mes- siah such as ignored all established authority and convention. They would destroy Him as an arro- gant blasphemer. The universal note in His pro- gram would be the climax of offense. When John the Baptist from his prison sent to inguire of Jesus: ‘‘Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?’’ Jesus sent, for reply, the story of what He was engaged in doing, and closed with the words: ‘‘And blessed is he who- soever shall find no occasion of stumbling in me.’’ John had been convinced that Jesus was the prom- ised Messiah. But Jesus’ ministry was not so stern nor marked with such judgments as John’s ideas expected. Hence his inquiry. Jesus evi- dently intends to say that He is the Messiah, and encourages John not to be disappointed in Him because John’s stern judgments are not being executed by Him. After John’s messengers are gone Jesus talks about him in praise and appre- ciation. He says of him: ‘‘This is he of whom it is written: ‘Behold I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before 61 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS thee.’ ’’? But Jesus could not affirm that John was the forerunner of the Messiah without claiming that He was Himself that Messiah. In it all there is the assertion by Jesus of His right to interpret His function even in the face of John’s dis- appointed expectations. In the Old Testament Jesus found two aspects of the Messianic hope so different as easily to seem diverse and inconsistent. One stressed the material, political and economic prosperity and the influence and glory of Israel among the na- tions, usually’ grounding this on religious loyalty to Jehovah and including righteous and fraternal dealing both within the nation and with the na- tions. The other aspect emphasized holiness and truth; recognized the need for repentance, for- giveness, redemption, righteousness, was spiritual and transcended all racial lines. This latter ideal placed great importance on personal leadership and influence and made the ‘‘Servant of Jehovah’’ a sacrificial, atoning Savior of His own people and of other peoples as well. The first pledged to Israel glory and honor, the second placed on Israel moral and religious obligation and chal- lenged them to extending the blessings of their religious and ethical ideals. Jesus is in nothing more remarkable than in His choosing the ethical, religious, universal Mes- sianic type and forming His plan for His per- sonal ministry and His program for the King- dom of God, which He made all-important, on the basis of service and sacrifice. He would be the ‘‘Suffering Servant of Jehoyah’’ ‘‘to redeem 62 THE HOME-COMING SERMON Israel and to be God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.’’ Hence His program was always aiming at inclusiveness, expansion, comprehensiveness, which met in the Jews a spirit of exclusiveness, self-assertion and differentiation. He precipi- tated that difference and conflict here in the Naza- reth sermon with the peasantry. This difference will extend and deepen among all classes until the conflict of these two ideals will reach the climax in the cross and Jesus will stake the decision of God on His power to overcome death imposed by the opposition. It would be quite impossible here to cite the numerous examples of this appropriation by Jesus of these spiritually Messianic teachings in the Old Testament. One or more of them is readily seen to underlie each crisis in the development of His ministry and each of His strategic teachings. He quotes them on most such occasions. His inter- preters, in the Gospels, follow His example and apply them to Him in their records. Here is one of the outstanding features of the Gospel story. 2. There are two important features in the Messianic description and claim in the Sermon. The first is the ‘‘anointing of Jehovah’’ for the function of Messiah. Its significance lies in two directions: it gives authority for His function, and it provides equipment and divine coopera- tion in His work. ‘‘No man taketh the honor unto himself, but when he is called of God’’ (Heb. 5: 4). Jesus never tires of the idea that He is ‘‘sent”’ by His Father, that He is doing His Father’s works, speaking His Father’s words. This He 63 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS does ‘‘always’’; it is His ‘‘food’’; ‘‘the Son can of Himself do nothing.’’ It is needless to multi- ply the statements. The Gospels abound in them, just as the idea that the Messiah was to be sent by Jehovah runs through all the Old Testament. The power of Jesus in great measure lay in just this unfailing conviction that He was ‘‘under authority.”’ But it was His claim also that ‘‘the promise of His Father’’ that the Holy Spirit should be with Him was realized in His ministry. Besides the words from which Jesus spoke in Nazareth we find the same assurance in Isa. 11:2: ‘‘And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of knowl- edge and of the fear of Jehovah’’; in Isa. 42:1: ‘Behold My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen in whom my soul delighteth: I have put my Spirit upon Him: He will bring forth justice to the na- tions’’; in Isa. 48:16: ‘‘and now the Lord Jehovah hath sent me and His Spirit’’; in Isa. 59: 20 f.: ‘And a redeemer will come to Zion .. . and this is My covenant with them, saith Jehovah; My Spirit which is upon Thee, and My words which [ have put in Thy mouth shall not depart out of Thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of Thy seed, nor out of the mouth of Thy seed’s seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and forever.”’ “That Jesus worked in the consciousness of this association with the Holy Spirit and in reliance upon Him is manifest from numerous references in His speech. We have seen already how the Holy Spirit came at His baptism ‘‘to abide upon 64 THE HOME-COMING SERMON Him’’; and that it was under the control of the Spirit that He went into the forty days of tempta- tion, and in the Spirit’s power that He came to Galilee to take up His ministry. It was ‘‘by the Spirit of God’’ that He cast out demons (Matt. 12:28). He made His plans for the future of His Gospel and ‘‘gave commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom He had chosen’? (Acts 1: 2-5) in the assurance that the Holy Spirit would unite with His apostles in wit- ness to Him and in carrying out His program. All this is set out with irresistible force in the Upper Room Talk—John 14-16. This linking Himself up with God and with God’s Holy Spirit is one of the unmistakable and inescapable char- acteristics of Jesus. 3. The other impressive feature of the pro- phetic description of the Christ which Jesus ap- propriates, to identify Himself, is in the nature of His work. That work was, first of all, characterized by its interest in the poor, the broken-hearted, captives and prisoners, mourners and all in distress— descriptions which recall to our minds at once the seventy-second psalm and the Beatitudes of the. Sermon on the Mount, as also the description of His labors which Jesus commanded the messen- gers of John the Baptist to report to him. The nature of Jesus’ interpretation of this section of the prophetic word is indicated by the impression on the audience in the synagogue: ‘‘ And all bare witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth.’’ 65 THE SELF-INTERPRETATION OF JESUS A second item in the Isaiah passage was that a new era in God’s redemptive dealing with men was inaugurated by the coming of the Messiah. He was anointed ‘‘to proclaim the year of Jehovah’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God.’’ This was an idea emphasized in other sec- tions of prophecy, e.g. Isa. 49: 8 (quoted by Paul in 2 Cor. 6: 2). It was probably this claim of in- augurating a new era that first angered the au- dience, especially if He included the element of vengeance coupled with the idea of God’s favor. (Cf. also such passages as 2:12, 18:6, 34:2, 8.) It is in accord with this idea of God’s favor that the Isaiah passage in the last paragraph makes the Messiah rejoice in soul because He is ‘‘clothed with the garments of salvation’’ and ‘‘robed in righteousness.”’ A third item was the universalism of the work of the Christ through whom ‘‘the Lord Jehovah will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all nations.’’ The Christ is essentially of and for the human race. This necessity is part of the positive teaching, abundantly urged in the Old Testament, but wholly neglected in its deeper and vital aspects by the scribes of Jesus’ time. It is one of the marks of His insight, of His ‘‘keen scent for God’’ and His perfect human sympathy, that He received and emphasized this aspect of Messiahship. For Him there were no barriers of race, religion, culture, tradition, language. He ‘‘came to save the world.’’ From the beginning He was the embodiment of the thought and pro- gram that ‘‘God so loved the world that He gave 66 THE HOME-COMING SERMON His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.’’ Gathering out all the factors in the Messianic ideal that were spiritual, universal, sacrificial, He made them the ground plan of His life and aim. Thus would He reinterpret and realize ‘‘the Hope of Israel.’’ 67 CHAPTER V THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT—JESUS DECLARES HIS IDEALS FOR KINGDOM MEN (Matt. 4: 25-8:1) Probably somewhat more than a year after His baptism and some months after the Nazareth Dis- course Jesus takes a new step in His ministry. It is not necessary to suppose that all the material assembled in the Matthew section was spoken at one time. The weight of critical scholarship is against that view. Yet one ought not to overlook the unity and progress of the material, nor the pertinency of all of it to the occasion. The fact that some of the matter here recorded is, in other Gospels, assigned to other occasions would leave open the question of which is the accurate account, but quite obviously with the presumption against Matthew. Against that presumption we must still place the probability—the practical certainty— that Jesus, like every teacher, would give His vital and organic teaching more than once and under varying circumstances. Whether it was given entire, at the time of the choice of the Twelve (as Luke, see below), or whether it repre- sents Matthew’s assembling into unity materials ' from various occasions, there is evident fitness in seeking to understand the aim and outline of 68 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT this, the world’s most famous and influential ‘