1 4 on hasicss. ames tO “ok he 1a te eet eee eae eetnt ae eer meg ee ne en ir OE ee Nn eT et ty i ie Hs a ¥ TRS Mi NS SON IR oN A ‘ Nae ; ANIA Ss ARIA ae Sak Sc 8 te AR NOES Site CAV SANS \: \ NAN S SEAN, mh HAN AY Ra S SOAS ANAS NA SAAN ar LE SAR SS ASS ARE ne a A oe . | a Y A i) - \ Y aN URS wD Ni \y SATS SENS tdi neo 5 RUNES WY Wis a x Nw 'N s Nit it “S ~ Ny . a SN AN a WAN a : a \ XN HRS Ny N ae \ ny SENS vi INN ANN WEk Ay AW : eA “NX 2 ANN NIRS XS oO) \ \ SN Ww, hy WIN Wy SAS WiLL THR, N SEU RO yy , © ¥, SAAN NAN a . a | \y oh A _ SEN aR PENA AN NN TERNS AN SN : WS AN a a CQ \ 7 : XS . NENAS NN Se \ ‘ \\ SNR SY s ANI NN NN) “ ‘ NS AS SO Wy Sy x SN “ RENN SS SN 8 SANS ANN AN LS Shy SESS ANS St NAAN SAN SEER ¥N ‘ SNe SNK » RN \ ANY Ny & NX NY NU NEN NN in the Life and Ministry of Jesus ? Su By CHARLES L. BROOKS COKESBURY PRESS NAsHVILLE, TENN. CopyRIGHT, 1924 BY LaMar & BARTON To My Sainted Mother, Mary S. Brooks: Who went down into the valley of suffering to bring me into being, tenderly nursed me, trained my infant feet to walk, and bound me to the feet of God by prayer; To My Wife, Martha Blanche Brooks: Who joined her life with mine when I was bro- ken in fortune and obscure in position, yet nev- er flinched in all those frightful days of ‘‘pio- neering,’’ nor lost faith in me; who in utter self-sacrificing devotion gave birth to my six children and trained them in the fear of God; To My Daughter, Ada Brooks: Who was born on the day the Sixty-Ninth Ses- sion of the East Oklahoma Conference convened at Ada, Oklahoma, and dedicated to God in Holy Baptism by the sainted Bishop Hoss— THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED a a ae ety granted, or else we deny that he was God. That he, in his temporal existence, did not possess all wisdom. must be granted, or else we deny that he was man. That there was continuity of consciousness through The Baptism of Jesus 57 the period of conception is not to be believed. In the act of incarnation the deity surrendered his consciousness as God and emerged in time with his consciousness as man. He was born of a human mother, yet not in the ordinary way of generation, for his conception was of the Holy Ghost. Being human, the evangelists give us a purely human picture of him. The one glimpse we have into his boyhood shows him as a child his parents could lose and seek sorrowing; and in his manhood and public ministry he is seen to have our common human weaknesses. He is represented as weary, as hungry, as thirsty, as angry, as suffering, as in need of sympathy, as seeking God in prayer, as shrinking from death, as dying, and as dead. The attributes and the fate of universal man are his as they are ours.! “How, then,” it may be inquired, “did Christ come into possession again of his consciousness as God?” For that he had such consciousness is plain from the Scriptures. One has but to turn to Matthew xxvi. 64, Mark xiv. 62, Luke xxii. 70, to say nothing of many other passages, to find where he definitely claimed to be the Son of God. That was one of the charges against him at his trial. John vi. 62 reveals his claim of unchanged per- sonality; John vili. 58, his claim of timeless ex- istence; John xvii. 5, his consciousness of what he actually possessed as Eternal Word. He not only had this remarkable consciousness, but made his claims so easily and naturally that men instinc- tively concede his claims. ‘Fairbairn’s ‘‘The Philosophy of the Christian Religion.” pages 329, 330. 58 Things Fundamentat When and how did this consciousness return to him? If he surrendered it in the moment of transition from the pre-incarnate to the incarnate state, did it return to him immediately upon his emergence into the incarnate state? Was it necessary for him to possess such consciousness during that period of human infancy and weakness, while he was increasing in wisdom and age, and so also in stature? Does it add anything to the deity of Jesus to say that as a child he was fully conscious of all that he was conscious of when he had reached the stature of aman? If any incarnation of deity is — a limitation and humiliation of God, does it in- crease the limitation and humiliation to say that his consciousness as God was a gradual growth and development along with the growth and de- velopment of the man? Does it not smack of the apocryphal to say that Jesus had and exercised all the powers of deity from the cradle? That he was omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent from his birth? If that was true of him, then it is just as easily true that as a child he molded clay sparrows in the streets, then clapped his hands and caused them to fly away! But the Scriptures nowhere teach that. I have no objection to miracles when they can be made to serve legitimate ends, but to perform miracles for mere pastime, or when ordinary procedure would accomplish the same purpose, would be nothing but jugglery. My theory is (and with it I find nothing contradic- tory in Scripture) that this child, miraculously conceived and Virgin-born, came into this world with as perfect a human nature as God could make it, The Baptism of Jesus 59 and with the nature, or intuition, of God dormant in him. He was taken to the quiet village of Naza- reth and given the best possible environment. He was watched over and carefully nurtured by the best possible mother. Thus this specially born, endowed, environed, and nurtured child was always able to keep that perfect poise that belonged to him as the Son of God. As soon as his opening mind would allow he was instructed in the elemen- tary truths of the Scriptures, and so grew in favor with God and man. In preparation for his appear- ance at the Temple, when he was to become “‘a son of the law,’ these same pious parents no doubt told him something of his mission and destiny, explained to him the meaning of his name “Jesus” and how he came to have it, and so evoked in him the consciousness that he sustained a peculiar re- lation to God as well as to mankind. Else how shall we account for his question to his parents at Jerusalem, ‘‘Wist ye not that I must be in my Father’s house?”’ The contention of some that their surprise at his question indicated that they had told him nothing does not hold. On the contrary, his question to them indicates his surprise that they, in the light of their own revelations to him, should not know exactly where to find him. If it be complained that I am accounting for the historical consciousness of Jesus on purely natural- listic grounds, I answer, No. One of the great mistakes of orthodox writers is that very often they have not been content with claiming enough, but have claimed too much. Their writings are some- times literally saturated with Docetism. I have 60 Things Fundamental contended for the miraculous conception and essen- tial deity of Jesus, just as the Scriptures do. I have held only that the deity was necessarily limited in him. His personal development was not isolated, independent, and unrelated; no more was the de- velopment of his consciousness as God. That con- sclousness was mediated in his boyhood by the communications of his parents and in later manhood by his own study of the Scriptures. To these in- fluences his nature as God responded and opened, just as the eye responds and opens to the pulsations of ether waves, emerging in his boyhood and ad-— vancing to completion and satisfaction at his bap- tism, when the declaration came from the sky, “This is my Son.” It is a matter of wonder why that declaration should have been made, if he fully knew from the beginning what that declaration brought him. Had there been in him no God nature to respond, even that declaration could not have evoked in him his consciousness as God. What, then, was the purpose of the baptism of Jesus? I cannot, in passing, refrain from paying my respects to the endless and misguided emphasis laid upon it by the rabid proponents of immersion. This is not descending to sectarian controversy; for the rhetorical flourish they make over “the yielding wave and the liquid grave,” “being bur- ied with Christ in baptism,” “obeying Christ in baptism,” ‘‘following Christ in baptism,’ and I know not what else, is not doctrine at all; it is monumental nonsense. Such sectarian misuse of the baptism of Jesus leads to pharisaism and pre- vents that unity which Christ prayed should obtain The Baptism of Jesus 61 among his followers. It really is a pity that so great a Christian body as the Southern Baptist Church should be led away into that error, along with the equally ludicrous fiction of ecclesiastical succession. If they would only read Dr. Whitsett’s ‘A Question in Baptist History”? and G. A. Lofton’s “English Baptist Reformation,” they might at least come to a saner view of their origin and think more soberly of their other brethren in Christ. This could not have been Christian baptism which Jesus recelved: 1. Because, if, as the immersionists contend, baptism is the door of entrance into the visible Christian Church, there was no Christian Church in existence at the time of the baptism of Jesus, and hence no door to open; none to vote on him ‘and, after baptism, receive him into full fellowship.’’ Jewish Church there was; Christ belonged to it— never to any other. 2. Because Christ could not have been bap- tized in his own name. Even the contenders for “believers’ baptism’? would not have the courage to assert that a man has the authority to baptize until he himself has been baptized. He could not baptize himself, nor baptize in his own name. But had John Smyth, in England in the seventeenth century, adhered so strictly to this rule, the wonder esrows how the immersionist party could have arisen. Christ himself had no authority to issue orders concerning baptism until he had come into the place of authority. 3. Because, if Christian baptism, it was either “for” or “unto” the remission of sins, according 62 Things Fundamental to the school to which the immersionists belong. But Christ had no sins to remit. He says of him- self (John vili. 46): ‘‘Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not be- lieve me?”’ To the doctrine of his sinless perfection Paul, John, and all the other New Testament writers subscribe. But it is contended that it was a part of his humiliation to be classed with sinners. The writers of the Bible Commentary, and I know not how many others, commenting on Matthew iii. 13, say: ‘In his baptism, as in his sufferings, he was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” Refer- — ence is here made to the language of Paul in 2 Corinthians v. 21. But in that passage hamartia is equivalent to sin offering. According to the specifications laid down at Leviticus vi. 25, 26, the sin offering was bloody and the priest offering it ate of it. Christ was hardly a sin offering in his bap- tism! The rendering of Thayer, ‘He treated him, who knew not sin, as a sinner,” is unthinkable in this connection. The concession the Bible Com- mentary seems grudgingly to make is to my mind the only satisfactory explanation of it: “It is pos- sible that the baptism may have had a further signification as a consecration of our Lord to his mediatorial office, as the priests under the law were consecrated by washing (Ex. xxix. 4, xl. 12).” 4. He could not have been baptized as an example, since he was baptized after all the rest. “Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened” (Luke iil. 21). Besides, if “Jesus had no need of baptism himself, he could not The Baptism of Jesus 63 submit to it merely as an example to others, for action must be dutiful to be exemplary.” We do not impress others with a sense of duty by doing what it is not our duty to do. 5. Because clean water is distinctively the water of Christian baptism, and was not used until Pente- cost. The prophet Ezekiel, looking forward to the “blessings of Christ’s kingdom,” said: “‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean” (Ezek. xxxvi. 25). Never until Pentecost was that prophecy accomplished. The water of purification under the Old order was mixed with the blood and ashes of a heifer (Num. xix. 1-10); under the New, it was clean. But one contends that John baptized with clean water. So he did; but his baptism was not Christian baptism; it was a preparatory baptism, the baptism of repentance. Those who received needed to be baptized again. Acts xix. 1-5 makes this perfectly plain. Christian baptism was not administered to any man until Pentecost, and Christ could not have received it. 6. Because Christian baptism had not yet been instituted. No order for it had ever been issued. Authority for the administration of it was not giv- en until just before Christ’s ascension. As he stood yonder on that mountain in Galilee, preparatory to his flight to God, he issued the command: “‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. xxvili. 19). Commenting on this passage, David Smith, in “The Days of His Flesh”’ (page 70), says in a note: “The Christian 64 Things Fundamental Sacrament of Baptism was not instituted until after the Resurrection. Jesus never baptized.” How foolish, then, to exhort one to “‘follow Christ in baptism.” It simply cannot be done. But he was baptized. On that point there can be no kind of doubt. What, then, was the purpose of that baptism? To induct him into his priestly office and dedicate him to his life’s task. And to whom should he go for this service but to a priest? John was a priest of the line. He was a priest by natural right, for he was a Levite. ‘There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia; and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth” (Luke i. 5). These were the parents of John. So John stood in the Aaronic succession. But Christ was not a priest in his own right as man. He was the Lion of the tribe of Judah. ‘‘And thou Bethle- hem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Gov- ernor, that shall rule [margin, ‘‘feed’’] my people Israel”? (Matt. ii. 6). To become a priest after the manner of men, and so entitled to “feed the flock of God,” it was necessary for Jesus to be inducted into that office by one who had authority. Surely no contender for ecclesiastical succession would dispute this. ‘‘And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness”’ (Matt. iii. 15). Critical examination of plerosai pasan dikatosunen reveals the fact that it must here mean “to fulfill or accomplish the law.’ Dzkaiosune unlimited means righteousness in general, without reference The Baptism of Jesus 65 to any particular form. But there are two particular forms of righteousness, that righteousness which springs from the law and that righteousness which is imputed and imparted as a gift to man. Only the one who meets every requirement of the law, and stands in God’s judgment with no guilt to hide, has ‘‘the righteousness of the law.”’ All others who are accounted righteous are so accounted by “ju- dicial disengagement’’—a, liberation brought about by means of faith. If we say that Christ did not meet every requirement of the law, we make him out a sinner, and class him with the judicially released. That will not do. So here we must translate: “Jt 7s conspicuously proper for us to fill full the requirements of the law.”’ That baptism, symbolically representing to the outside world the inward purity and holiness of the priest, was re- quired of all who were to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. And how were the priests originally inducted into office? “‘And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the con- gregation, and shalt wash them with water. : Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head and anoint him” (Ex. xxix. 4-7). “And Moses brought Aaron and his sons, and washed them with water” (Lev. vill. 6). “‘And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying, Take the sum of the sons of Kohath from among the sons of Levi, after their families, by the house of their fathers, from thirty years old [italics mine] and upward even until fifty years old, all that enter into the 5 66 Things Fundamental host, to do the work in the tabernacle of the con- gregation”’ (Num. iv. 1-3). Coming to the place of baptism, Jesus RapRtten himself to the hands of the officiating priest, not for the same purpose for which the rest had sub- mitted, but for an official purpose, and there in the presence of the people congregated—in a sense, at “the door of the tabernacle of the congregation,” particularly that part of the congregation ‘‘ waiting for the consolation of Israel”—-was washed with water and solemnly inducted into office and dedi- cated to the work of priest. The Holy Spirit in the shape of a dove descended upon him, taking the place of the anointing oil whose use had typed him, and the voice of God came from the sky in ac- knowledgment of his Sonship, thus completing his consciousness as God, though, as Mr. Wesley says, “the divine (nature) was not manifested in its full evidence until after his resurrection.” It is therefore significant that Luke, after re- cording the baptism of Jesus (at iii. 21), goes on to add (at ii. 23), “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age.” Matthew Henry says: “‘At this age the priests were to enter upon the full execution of their office.”’ Schaff calls it his “‘ Messianic inauguration.” Summers says: The priests were washed with water upon their assumption of the sacerdotal office; and accordingly as the great High Priest of our profession, he submitted to this ceremonial initiation into his office. The Jewish priests were conse- crated at the age of thirty—the very age at which our Lord received baptism.2 2“ Baptism,” page 104, The Baptism of Jesus 67 So Alford: ‘ His baptism, as it was the Lord’s closing act of obedience under the law, in his hitherto concealed life of legal sub- mission, his fulfilling of all righteousness, so it was the solemn inauguration and anointing for the higher official life of mediatorial satisfaction which was now opening upon him. No other conclusion seems to me possible here but that the evangelist meant by this that Jesus at the proper age entered into the office of priest in the ordained way. And what was the work of a priest? Well, for one thing, and that the essential thing, he was to offer sacrifice for sin. And that is precisely what Jesus did: he offered for sin. But the sacrifice he offered was not for himself, but “for many,” or the whole mass of mankind besides himself. It was not the ordinary “bull” or “goat’’ that he offered, but himself. He was “the Lamb of God.” He was without flaw, so offered himself without spot to God. Thus the priest was transmuted into the sacrifice without losing his identity, just as the deity had been transmuted into “man” without losing his identity. This is precisely what he had come into the world to do. In his study of Old Testament Scriptures he recognized himself as and identified himself with “‘the Suffering Servant of Jehovah.’’ Jesus, in his opening discourse at Nazareth, as quoted by Luke iv. 18, 19, makes definite claim that the references at Isaiah lxi. 1, 2 are fulfilled in him. Matthew’s quotation (at vili. 17) from Isaiah liii. 4 shows how he bore man’s sicknesses. His quotation 3Note on Matthew iii. 13, Greek Testament. 68 Things Fundamental (at xviii. 21) from Isaiah xlii. 1-4 reveals the program he set in operation to restore moral order in the world. Mark xv. 28, quoting from Isaiah lili, 12, identifies him with the passion. The life of Jesus was no experiment, feeling to find out what God wanted him todo. ‘He knew what his vocation was before he began to fulfill it.” John, at the baptism of Jesus, recognized him as “‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John i. 29). With that distinct consciousness Jesus came to his baptism. To this work he dedi- cated himself by entering the office of priest that he might be able to effect it. In him both the Mel- chizedekian and Aaronic priesthoods, the superior and the inferior, the one with and the other without an oath, inhere. All authority in heaven and in earth is his. By that authority he offered himself to God, and made the one oblation of himself for us, finished the transgression, made an end of sins (sin offerings), made reconciliation for iniquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, sealed up the vision and prophecy, and anointed the Most Holy. That was the end and aim of his baptism. CHAPTER IV THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS ““TEMPTATION”’ in Scripture has a twofold signif- icance: (1) A trying out, or proving by test; (2) An incitement to evil. When it is said that ‘God can- not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (Jas. i. 13), the meaning is to be taken in the last sense, not in the first. When it is said that ‘God did tempt Abraham” (Gen. xxii. 1), the meaning is to be taken in the first sense, not in the last. That God may be “tempted” in the sense of tried, tested, proved is not only granted, but in- vited: “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord”’ (Mal. iii. 10). Thus did the children of Israel tempt and prove God through all their wanderings in the wil- derness and settlement in Canaan. Thus did God tempt and prove Abraham. But God does not incite any one toevil. That work belongs to the devil. The devil is the tempter. He incites to evil. Every incite- ment to evil is of the devil. The purposes of the devil are always malevolent, never benevolent. ‘‘He never proves that he may approve nor tests that he may know and accept.” It is just as impossible for the devil to try, test, prove a person in a good sense as it is for God to incite one to evil. a The word employed in the original to designate the temptation of Jesus is petradzo. In the classics it carries a twofold meaning. In a good sense it means to put one to the test; in a bad sense, to seek (69) 70 Things Fundamental to seduce to evil. In the Bible the usage is analogous, only more comprehensive. | 7 : The question immediately before us, then, is this: Could Jesus be tempted in the bad sense, ap- proached with a seduction to evil? If we adopt the Docetic view of him—that is, assert that he had no real humanity—we are bound to admit, in agreement with Scripture, that he could not. If we adopt the Ebionite view of him—that is, assert that he had no real deity—he could. But if we take the Docetic view, we run directly across the teachings of Scrip- ture; for the Scriptures teach that ‘‘God cannot be © tempted with evil,’”’ whereas the Evangelists assert that “Jesus was led up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”” This petrasthenat hupo tou diabolou Cremer renders to tempt to sin. This is a necessary conclusion, since, as we have already seen, any test made by the devil is malevolent in its nature. If we turn to the Ebionite conception, we are in no better case, for then we shall do vio- lence to all those teachings of Scripture which as- sert that he was God. How are we assisted, then, if we assert, as the Creeds define and the Scriptures justify, that he was both God and man, two natures in one person? How is it that in ordinary man there is a higher and a lower nature, the higher ever leading him up to the true, the beautiful, and the good, the lower ever dragging him down to the level of hell? Wemay not know, we do not know, how it is, but every man of us is able to assert, out of his own experience, that it is. Now, is it the higher nature in man that is appealed to by lust, by an incitement to evil, The Temptation of Jesus 71 or the lower? Certainly the lower. And if consent is given to the incitement to evil, the strength of the will, which is head over all, is added to the strength of the lower nature, and this combination of strength overcomes and chokes to death the high- er nature, leaving the mastery to the lower. So Jesus had in him two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man. The God nature led him up to the Father; the human nature, down to man. It was this lower, or human, nature in him that was tempted, ap- pealed to by incitement to evil. No doubt the difficulty many have in dealing with the temptation of Jesus is found in the fact that they fail to get the distinction between im- peceability and sinlessness. One who is impeccable is exempt from even the possibility of sin; where- as one who is sinless has the capacity for sin, but has not sinned. Where there is no possibility of sin, there can be no temptation. But the record says that Jesus was tempted; that he was tempted of the devil; that he was tempted in all points like as we are. The conclusion is therefore forced upon us that Jesus was peccable and temptable, but the sequel shows that he was sinless and holy. If, then, we are to get any meaning at all out of the temptation of Jesus, we must approach the study of the subject with certain definite convic- tions, with some questions settled: 1. This is a real and not an imaginary conflict. 2. That the supernatural is real. 3. That the devil is a person. 4, That Jesus could have yielded to the sug- gestions of the tempter, and so could have sinned. he Things Fundamental For to account for the temptation on natural- istic grounds, or to say that the whole took place in a trance, or that the tempter was merely some man, or that the suggestions of evil came from with- in the heart of Jesus, or that Jesus could not have yielded to temptation, is contrary to the whole tenor of the narrative, and relegates to fable the funda- mental doctrines of the Christian faith. In the temptation of Jesus we have to deal with a crisis in history; in fact, with the one great crisis. Christ, the second Adam, is on trial. This is the | pivotal point upon which the destiny of the world turns. Before it all history points forward; since, history points backward. The fate of the human race hung then and there in the balance. For what could the coming of Christ do to redeem the world, and al- leviate its miseries, if he should be overcome in his first issue with “the prince of this world’’? In Chapter III. we have seen that during the thirty years prior to this Jesus had been busy with the ordinary duties of life, with a growing con- sciousness of his coming ministry. Only in a single instance are we allowed to conjecture that he had any consciousness at all that his life was to reach into altitudes above the common level. There were the announcement of his birth by the angels, his birth in the manger, and the marvelous messages of John concerning him; but as to his own con- sciousness we are limited to the single glimpse we have of him in the Temple at Jerusalem, when he astonished the doctors with his wisdom and perplexed his sorrowing mother. This is all the evidence we have of the pent-up energies and latent powers The Temptation of Jesus (e: of this remarkable man, until we meet him at the Baptism. There, immediately upon that Baptism, the Spirit of God descended upon him out of heaven, and the voice of God proclaimed him his Son. From that supreme moment the seal of God was upon him. There was no longer any uncertainty as to his mission and ministry. The hand of God had definitely touched him, and he was thrilled by the intensity of that touch. The Spirit of God had filled him, and his soul was stirred to its deepest depths. The mantle of the High Priest was upon him, and he was fully awake to the awful significance of its meaning. Amidst the overwhelming revela- tions of the hour he realized the need of the secret place and the quiet hour, so was literally “driven” to the solitudes of the wilderness, in whose un- frequented fastnesses, away from the noise and din of the multitude, he might have closer and sweeter communion with God. | How human and significant this! All the great reforms of the world have been inaugurated, moral battles fought, and spiritual problems solved by men wrestling like Jacob in secret with God. No man was ever trained for a crisis except in secret, and no crisis was ever brought to a successful issue ex- cept by men so trained. They are the silent forces that build human character and shape the destinies of the world. Yonder in a cave, amidst the lightning-riven rocks and crags of old Horeb, Elijah heard “a still small voice” that panoplied him with power to shake to its foundations Ahab’s godless throne. For forty years Moses was trained in the solitudes of Midian 74 Things Fundamental for the leadership of God’s Israel. In the quiet and darkness of a dungeon Joseph was prepared to be “‘a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt’’—the one sent before of God to preserve the life of his people. Shut up in his room of prayer, Martin Luther re- ceived such a baptism of power that he broke the spiritual despotism of ages, and made nations re- joice in the liberty wherewith Christ makes men free. Crying, ‘‘Give me Scotland, or I die,’ John Knox grasped all Scotland in his stong arms of | prayer. Unlike the idle, fox-hunting parsons of his day, John Wesley breathed in the atmosphere of. holy love, and went out to declare afresh the doc- trines of “Justification by Faith” and “The Witness of the Spirit,” and started a revival that swept round the world, is sweeping, and still must sweep, until every land and people in the world which he declared to be his parish shall have received their baptism of power. To adjust himself to his life’s task Jesus went into this desert place to commune with God. There, upon that barren peak that rose like a malediction upon the surrounding plain, with only the fellow- ship of wild beasts; there, overlooking Gennesaret, where later the voice of the deep calling in angry violence to the deep should hush and the troubled waters calm at his bidding; there, in that solitude, the strength of his cable and the grip of his anchorage were to be tested by the supreme powers of hell. Michael and the dragon, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, there met in the conflict that determined the fate of the race. The Temptation of Jesus 75 To this conflict Jesus came as a man. As a man he fasted forty days and nights. He fasted and stood the fiery ordeal solely in his human strength. He had superhuman power, but he did not bring it into play here. If we lose sight of this fact, we miss the significance of the temptation. As the second Adam and voluntary representative of the human race he must stand where Adam stood. Here he was aman. To say that he could not have yielded to the suggestions of the tempter is to strip the temptation of all meaning and turn it into a farce. Jesus could have sinned. And as the first Adam was tempted and fell on his appetites, so the second Adam must first be tempted and stand or fall on his ap- petites. Here was the first point of attack. I do not agree with Garvie, David Smith, and others who re- verse the order as given by Matthew. His account alone appeals to me as correct, both from his use of terms denoting chronological sequence and ad- vancing order in the temptations themselves. Since Garvie and David Smith find the temptations in Israel’s expectations of the Messiah, and thus dis- pose of a personal devil and account for the tempta- tions on purely naturalistic grounds, it is to the in- terest of their theory to reverse the order. So Strauss rejected the whole narrative because he did not believe in any devil at all. But Matthew’s order comports with the whole process of salvation. In salvation man always comes back to God at the point of departure. As Adam lost his standing with God on the serpent’s appeal to his appetite, so Christ, the second Adam, fought his first battle at 76 Things Fundamental the point of Adam’s departure, and recovered the lost field. What is more reasonable to suppose than that the devil, having won his first victory in that way, should regard it as the easiest manner of approach to a second victory? How adroitly planned! At the very moment when Christ was hungry, when every nerve and fiber of his being was racked and tortured with pain, and the cravings of hunger were still more excited by the loaf-like stones that lay at his feet, the devil, “In visible form,’ says Wesley, “possibly in a human shape, as one that desired to inquire further into the evidence of his being the Messiah,”’ discharged his first missile of destruction, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Here everything hinges upon the interpretation put upon the “‘if.”’ The Bible Commentary says: “The words of the tempter are not intended to ex- press a doubt, but as an inducement to our Lord to exercise his divine power to relieve his hunger.” The rule of the grammar is: “ When the protasis of a conditional sentence simply states a present par- ticular supposition, implying nothing as to the ful- fillment of the condition, it has the indicative with et. Any form of the verb may stand in the apodo- sis.” That is the case here, and it seems to justify the conclusion of the Commentary. If so, then the crux of this temptation is found not in an effort, as has so long been supposed, to in- duce Christ to doubt his Sonship of which he had so lately been apprised, but to employ that power of which he was, as Son of God, in conscious possession to gratify, in an unlawful way, his own desires. The Temptation of Jesus G7 The possession of power within itself is not an evil, but the use of that power may be an evil. For instance, I have the power to steal. The mere possession of that power is not an evil. God gave me that power. But if I employ that power in steal- ing, then it is an evil. God says, “‘Thou shalt not steal.’”’? To employ the power of which I am in pos- session in violation of that command would mean to take myself out of the hands of God, cease to de- pend upon him, remove myself from the category of manhood, and become a law unto myself—a spirit- ual anarchist. It had but lately been asserted by John Bap- tist that ‘‘God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham”’ (Matt. iii. 9). What harm, then, in employing that power to convert them into bread? ‘To have done so would have meant the em- ployment of his powers for personal, selfish ends. It would have meant the assertion rather than the sacrifice of himself. It would have meant his re- fusal to share the common lot, live under nature, and be obedient to God. Instead of pursuing that course, he asserts, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” For forty days Moses lived without it. For forty days Elijah lived without it. For forty days he himself had lived without it, and had not up to that hour been conscious of his want of it. How then shall man live? Why, as the saints in heaven live— by all that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. For forty years Israel had proved the truth of that while wandering in the wilderness. What folly for him to doubt it now! It was his business to live in obedience to God’s law, and it was God’s business 78 Things Fundamental to take care of him. To have yielded, Christ would not only have set his seal to the death of the race, but he would have forever made impossible the teaching of that beautiful doctrine, “Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what he shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” Foiled, but not baffled, the devil took a new turn on the Saviour, and made the faith and confi- dence in which he was so strong the basis of a second attack. By a winding way he led him to the pin- nacle of the Temple, whose lofty summit bristled with golden spires, and standing upon this eminence said to him, “Cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” What have we here? Is Saul also among the prophets? When did Satan enter the ministry? We read in Job that ‘‘ When the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, . . . Satan also came in the midst of them.”’ Is he versed in Scrip- ture? That is not sufficient. One may have a head filled with Scripture ‘notions, a mouth filled with Scripture quotations, and still have a heart full of reigning enmity to God. But the devil perverted the Scriptures, just as “the unlearned and unstable” of Paul’s day did “unto their own destruction.” ‘‘He shall keep thee” —but how? “In all thy ways,” and not otherwise. If one goes out of his way, out of the path of duty, in order to make a wanton and foolish trial and dis- The Temptation of Jesus 79 play of God’s power, he forfeits the promise and puts himself beyond the reach of God’s protecting care. Here, again, the effort of the devil was to in- duce the Saviour to misuse his power, to give him- self up toa blind dependence rather than to a rea- sonable faith, to turn his confidence in God into a faith so blind as to become “‘a contempt of nature,” which would be nothing less than ‘‘dependence turned into sheer presumption.” For example, I have the power to “drink.’”’ Now “drink” shatters the nerves, disorganizes the body, enfeebles the will. I cannot hope to hold the laws of nature in contempt, go on in my blind folly, and escape the penalties that attach to that misused power. There is an increasingly popular notion that God is too good to suffer punishment to come to any man. ‘“‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked.” To live according to that doctrine is the grossest kind of presumption. With equally as much confidence I might persuade myself to believe that I could leap from the summit of the Washington Monument and God would send his angels to bear me up on their hands. But my faith in that case would avail me nothing. God’s power is not something to be tossed about, as a juggler tosses the balls in a show, at the will of the performer. The forces of gravity would snatch me up in a jiffy and grind me into a pulp on the pavement below. Would God be to blame for making the law of gravity? No, but I would be to blame for going out of my way to vio- late it. So, in substance, Christ answers the devil: The 80 Things Fundamental Scripture you quote is true; God will make the very laws of nature subservient to his child, the forces of the universe are pledged to his support, just as long as he is following in the path of duty; but it must be kept constantly in mind that there is another Scripture which says, “‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” To put God to the test in a legit- imate way, and so prove him, is allowable; but in all the economy of God there is no provision for the salvation of the man who holds his being, physical or spiritual, in contempt of the laws of God. | Folied again, but still not defeated, the devil now for the first time laid aside his cloak of piety. Disguised as to his true nature, he had appeared up to that moment a pious friend and counselor. Had he come as Satan in the beginning, the Saviour must have dismissed him at once. For it is in- conceivable that the same person who was going to teach men everywhere to “avoid the very appearance of evil”? would consciously allow the devil to stand before him with repeated seductions to evil. But despairing of success in that guise, Satan at last laid aside his cloak of hypocrisy and appeared boldly in his true colors as the rival of God. With the most magnificent bribe the world has ever known or can know, he ambitiously and blasphemously made his bid for the worship of mankind. He led the Saviour to the summit of some high mountain, showed him, ‘‘in a moment of time,” says Luke, the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and said, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” But were they Satan’s to give? Yes, for he is The Temptation of Jesus 81 ‘the prince of this world.’”’ But does not the Bible teach that “the powers that be are ordained of God’’? Ordained, yes, but not controlled. Satan was then, is now, and ever has been the chief director of the affairs of the kingdoms of this world. One need not tell me, nor seek to persuade himself to believe, that God controls the nations of earth while labor and capital are still at war, “the white slave traffic” runs on, and the world is still suffering from that hell in Europe. Just why God permits the devil to operate has been a question of age-long concern, but he does. Not content with his meddling with the affairs of State, he continually interferes in the affairs of the Church. With uncommon subtlety he put a sword into the hands of the Church, caused her to turn that sword against herself, slaughter the Saviour of the world, and stain her garments with the blood of millions of martyrs. Neither God nor the devil can control without the consent of the con- trolled. The majority of the world gives consent to the devil. Hence, the constitution of worldly gov- ernment is devil-controlled. The devil is ‘‘the prince of this world.”’ But he is a usurper, will ulti- mately be cast out, and “‘the kingdoms of the world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ.”’ The effort in this temptation was to induce Christ to misuse his power by consenting to come into the world’s dominion by the world’s method— diplomacy, or compromise with evil. This was the supreme temptation in the life of our Lord. It came to him again and again, once when the multitude on their way to the Passover 6 82 Things Fundamental offered to make him king. Since supremacy over the nations was his objective, why not take it in this way? { have tried to represent to myself what this temptation meant to our Lord. I know the weakness of humankind for glory and power. In history I have followed Napoleon in his splendid campaigns, in which, with only 45,000 men, he met and defeat- ed five magnificent armies, the flower of Austrian manhood. I have stood with him on the bridge at Lodi, in the face of that withering fire that swept his — ranks; I have waded with him the dismal swamps of Arcola. In his hand he carried the sword of free- dom forged in the foundries of the New World. Des- potic Europe caught its gleam and trembled. Aus- tria, Russia, Germany, and England united their forces to oppose its conquest. Money flowed from the English treasury as freely as the blood did from her bleeding soldiery. But among them all Napoleon walked with a giant’s tread, and crushed them with as much ease as he did the vase he dashed to the hearth upon the dissolution of the treaty with England. But such power is a dangerous possession. It puts a tremendous burden upon self-restraint. It is a vaster force than ordinary human intelligence is able wisely to direct. Though a man of consummate skill and master of battles, he proved quite unequal to the task of self-mastery. Possessing power, at last he used it for his own selfish ends. His mind turned from the altogether worthy ambition to be “the liberator of Europe” to the insane desire to be “the dictator of the world.” Able to command, The Temptation of Jesus 83 he felt no compulsion to obey. Feeling like a god, he acted like a devil. His fall was inevitable. Water- loo had to come. Such unrestrained power in control of the world would have meant nothing less than the devil seated on the throne of God. Christ was not only the Master; he was a self- master. He possessed supernatural powers; power over wind and wave, power over disease and death, power over devils; but he always restrained himself in the use of those powers. He never once used them for selfish ends. Though he could command a legion of angels to keep him from the cross, he with- held the command and went to the cross, where he died a moral rather than a physical wonder. From first to last of his ministry he manifested his power in behalf of suffering men. He never turned aside, except on errands of mercy; never stretched out his hands, except in blessing. By this unselfish living he exhibited a new standard of life, and is convincing the world more and more that the one who loses his life in righteous endeavor shall find it. The true nature of the tempter being now mani- fest, the Saviour no longer tolerated his presence. Tempted and tried to the last extreme, he rose to the height of his great manhood, and commanded, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’ Defeated and driven out, the devil slunk away to the regions of the damned, and the angels of God came in a ministry of mercy to the suffering but victorious Lord! CHAPTER V THE MIRACLES OF JESUS CHARLES Foster KENT, in his “Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament,” par- aphrases a verse of one of the old hymns, “God moves in a natural way his wonders to perform.” Of course the idea back of the paraphrase is that God, in the formation and continuance of the universe, is shut up to certain modes of operation | which he is impotent to change, or will not change. He asserts that some of these modes of operation, . or “natural laws,” which “govern” the “evolution” of “the universe”’ and its “‘organic life,’ have been “distinguished” and found “wonderful” and “awe- inspiring,’”” so much so that we have come “‘to ap- preciate the sublimity and divinity of the natural.” As a result of these remarkable discoveries he goes on to say that “we have abandoned the grotesque theories held by primitive men,” and no longer demand ‘‘a supernatural origin for our sacred books before we are ready to revere and obey their commands.” In this position he is in exact agree- ment with Huxley, Harnack, Hume, Schmiedel, Weinel, Spencer, Wellhausen, Eichhorn, and all the rationalists and infidels of the world. They all rule the supernatural and miraculous out of court, while they transfer to nature all the powers of deity. If Professor Kent finds congenial fellowship in that company, it is no affair of mine, but with all my heart I protest against his classification with the apostles and prophets of Jesus. So much for the (84) The Miracles of Jesus 85 “Woolsey Professor of Biblical Literature in Yale University.” David Hume grounds his argument against miracles on human experience. He says that “no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle’; that a miracle is “a violation of the laws of nature’; that the experience of nature is ‘‘firm and unalter- able’; and that the course of nature ‘‘admits of no exception.’’ In other words, since “the experience of nature”’ is always the same, and that experience is against the niracle, if every man on earth should testify as to the occurrence of a miracle, that testi- mony could not be made to weigh against “the experience of nature.”’ It would simply be one universal against another, and that would not es- tablish a “proof,” as there must be a preponderance of evidence before a case can be made out. Here he has committed the usual blunder of the skeptic and made his own knowledge and observation the ex- clusive measure of certainty, like the king of Siam who, it is said, rejected the statement of the Dutch representative at his court that the water in his country “sometimes congealed into a solid mass.” That was contrary to ‘“‘the experience of nature”’ in Siam, so the king rejected the testimony. Simi- larly also Harnack held that, ‘“‘as breaches in the continuity of nature, there can be no miracles,’ for “the continuity of nature is unbreakable.” Huxley did not deny the possibility of miracles, but the sufficiency of the evidence. To use the rather terse expression of Lord Bacon, this “resembles a magnificent structure that has no foundation.” Their zeal was worthy of a better 86 Things Fundamental cause, for, in the vivid language of Victor Hugo, “They confound with the constellations of pro- fundity the stars which the ducks’ feet make in the soft mud of the pond.” The merest tyro is able to see that they have confused the ethical and physical parts of ‘‘nature”’ and carried over from the ethical into the physical the idea of compulsion and trans- lated it into an ordinance which nature must obey. That the course of nature ‘‘admits of no exception” is an assumption. The assumption is not true. Heat expands and cold contracts bodies, is a general | law of physics, but it is not universal. Water, melted iron, lead, bismuth, and rubber are all ex- ceptions. Liquids become heavier on cooling, is another general law of physics, but water is an ex- ception to that rule. The law holds good up to a certain point, but not beyond it. Any given plant will year after year produce the same kind of bud, is a general law of plant life; but the exceptions to this rule give us, according to the evolutionists themselves, all the varieties of the floral kingdom. (See Darwin’s “Origin of Species,”’ pages 9 and 38.) That the experience of nature is “firm and un- alterable” is a gratuitous statement. There is no proof for it. On the other hand, there are proofs against it. There have been formidable breaks in nature. Granting that matter has always been here and the evolutionary process in force, the formation of the visible universe out of the original mass, the first introduction of life upon the earth and the coming of man, each in its turn constituted an “experience of nature” different from anything that went before, and therefore made a “break’’ The Miracles of Jesus 87 in “the continuity of nature.” How explain them? Were they ‘miraculous interventions,’ or mere “accidents”? in the evolutionary process? Those who destroy miracles must not perform them. Thus one is able to see to what desperate straits the rationalistic school is driven. Yet in spite of the contradictions of this absurd system this character of thought has been allowed to work, like the leaven of the Pharisees against which Jesus warned his disciples, until it has well-nigh leavened the whole lump of thought at the present day. Ministers of the gospel, themselves ignorant or timid in the presence of the overmastering egotism of “learning’”’ (falsely so called), have either made unconditional surrender to the enemy, or closed up like clams, until in many places the modern pulpit has become the throne of higher criticism and Christian teaching the handmaid of infidel philosophy. That a miracle is “a violation of the laws of nature’”’ is also assumption. I deny that in naked nature herself there is no suspension of her laws. The chemical forces are constantly interfering with the mechanical; the vital, with the chemical. The activities of some laws are suspended for the opera- tion of other and superior laws. For example, take some copper filings and powdered sulphur and mix them thoroughly together. It is a mere mechanical process, yet by it each of the original substances loses its identity as to color, and to the naked eye there appears a greenish mass. If examined under the glass, each of the original substances may be seen, their particles side by side. Without the introduction of a higher principle they would rest in 88 Things Fundamental that position forever. In other words, they would. remain subject to the laws that operate in that realm. Now let the mixture be gradually heated until it glows. In that process the particles of the two sub- stances are fused; and if the glass be turned upon it, one will not be able to distinguish the original substances as such, but instead a black mass (copper sulphide) possessing properties entirely different from the constituent substances. How was it ac- complished? By the introduction of a superior force into the mechanical realm. The mechanical — forces were suspended by the superior chemical forces. In the mechanical world it might be called a miracle; in the chemical, it is a natural consequence. Or, if a corn of wheat be laid up in some dry place, with the expectation that it will sprout and grow, that expectation will be disappointed. - Why will they not grow? Conditions necessary for the opera- tion of higher laws are wanting. Let the corn of wheat be put in the earth, let the rains descend and the sun’s rays beat upon it, and soon there will be a wonderful manifestation. A tiny shoot, having overcome the mechanical force of gravity, will appear above the earth, and thus continue to grow. Moreover it will send its roots down into the soil, seize and utilize the dead minerals of the earth, passing them up from an inorganic to an organic kingdom, from a dead to a living world. How is it done? By the introduction of the vital principle into the mechanical and chemical realms. In the mechanical and chemical worlds that might be called a miracle; but in the vital world it is a natural consequence. The Miracles of Jesus. 89 But lest there be some misunderstanding about these “laws” of which I have been speaking, let me say that “laws” in physical nature do not “‘govern”’ in the sense of “causing.”