The ui/cf Text Boo As Our ord's Teach inq RobertSGti \F/eming //.^eve// Companu LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by BS 2 4 15 ; R6 2 1. 89 5 Robertson, James, 1840-1920. Our Lord's teaching Our Lord's Teaching THE GUILD TEXT BOOKS Long J6ino, flexible cloth, each net, 40c, New edition, much improved in every particular The Presbyterian Churches : Their Place and Power in Modern Ciiristendom. By Rev. J. N. Ogilvie, M.A. With a Chapter on the Presbyterian Church in the United States, by Rev. Andrew C. Zenos, D.D., author of Compendium of Church History." "We are charmed with the workmanlike manner in which these manuals have been prepared." — The Critic. Landmarks of Church History, By Prof. Henry Cowan, D.D. " There are thousands who will be drawn out of the pre- judice of ignorance into a little true knowledge and sym- pathy by means of this able and unassuming little work." — The Exposito7-y Times. The New Testament and its Writers, By Rev. J. A. M'Clymont. " Our last word to intelligent Christians, old and young, is to get it and assimilate it." — The Indepejident. Our Lord's Teaching, By Rev. James Robertson, D.D. " Most excellent and timely." — The Literary World. Postpaid on receipt 0/ price. Fleming H, Revell Company New York : 112 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 63 Washington Street Toronto : 154 Yonge Street / &^f^ OO THE GUILD TEXT\ BOOKS' ^ ^ ^ 1923 Our Lord's TeacHing By the Rev. James llobertson, D.D. New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company Publishers of Evangelical Literature AUTHOR'S PREFACE This book is of a kind comparatively new, as yet, in our country. Familiar as are our Lord's words in the Gospels, it has not been customary with us to isolate His teaching, or to inquire what and how much we may believe on His own direct authority. Nor have we gone first to Him for the form in which to hold our Christian beliefs. The theology of St. Paul so powerfully affected the Reformers, did so great a work through their means, and has continued so to mould our religious belief that, in reading the Gospels, it has been our unconscious habit to arrange what we found in them according to the system of doctrine which we owe to that great Apostle. In our practice the theology of the Apostle has been taken as primary, that of the Master as secondary. The teaching of Jesus has been greatly hidden behind that of Paul, and we have not been accustomed to see it in the form and outline natural to itself. By many recent influences the attention of the Church has been vlii OUR lord's teaching called to this, and there is now an increasing desire to go "back to Christ," as it has been expressed, and to know our Christian faith first of all in its most primitive, most authoritative, and most truly universal form. The chapters that follow are an endeavour to meet this desire, so far as it can be done in accordance with the require- ments of this series of text-books — that the language be plain, that the treatment be brief, and that previous acquaintance with theology be not required. I send out what I have written in no spirit of over-confidence. I am, indeed, so far from con- tent with it that I could willingly have written it again from the beginning, if I had felt assured that I could bring it much nearer to my own ideal of a book on our Lord's teaching. I en- courage myself by the thought that much that I have written has come to me as light from our Lord's words in the need and experience of life, and by the belief that truth so received can hardly fail to prove of some value to the young men and women for whom this series of volumes is first intended, as well as to other readers. All the four Gospels have been assumed as authentic sources of our Lord's teaching. The Gospel of St. John gives that teaching with so great differences that it is difficult to combine what we read in it with what we find in the others. But their fundamental harmony has had recently author's preface ix such successful vindication, that I have felt that the difficulty should not be insuperable, and that separate treatment of the discourses in St John should not be had recourse to. I had hoped to print on the margin, for greater distinctness, the central thought of each successive paragraph. As this has been found impracticable, may I ask the attention of readers to the summary of each chapter at the beginning of it ? The quotations of Scripture are, throughout, from the Revised Version. I have to acknowledge the help of friends, and especially of Dr. M'Clymont, Joint-Editor of the series, in revising the proofs. James Robertson. Whittingehame, May 1895. Him evermore I behold Walking in Galilee, Through the cornfield's waving gold, In hamlet or grassy wold, By the shores of the Beautiful Sea, He toucheth the sightless eyes ; Before Him the demons flee ; To the dead He sayeth : Arise I To the living : Follow me ! And that voice still soundeth on From the centuries that are gone, To the centuries that shall be I H. W. Longfellow. CONTENTS CHAP. rAGB 1. The Manner of our Lord's Teaching • i 2. The Method of His Teaching . , • 6 3. The Great Subject of His Teaching — The Kingdom of God 13 4. The Basis of His Teaching — God the Father ....••• 23 5. His Teaching about Himself . • • 31 6. His Teaching about Man .... 41 7. His Teaching of Righteousness , , 52 8. The Conditions of Entrance into the Kingdom of God 64 9. The Blessings of the Kingdom of God . 75 10. His Teaching about His own Death , 89 11. His Teaching about the Holy Spirit , 99 12. His Teaching about the Church and THE Family iii 13. His Teaching about the End of the World 126 OUR LORD'S TEACHING CHAPTER I THE MANNER OF HIS TEACHING Jesus, by general consent, the Great Teacher — His manner — His countenance, dress, utterance, and attitude — Spiritual features of His manner: (i) authority, (2) graciousness, (3) severity, (4) majesty — A transcendent Person. ' I "HE teaching of Jesus is a subject which in these days ■*■ it is fitting we should study afresh. In an age like ours when so many things are questioned, it is of great advantage if we can find something to start from about which there is general agreement ; and it is agreed among all men whom we need take into account, that Jesus is the greatest religious and moral Teacher whom the world has seen. Many in our day who refuse our creeds, and put them aside as full of doctrinal subtleties, still declare themselves believers in the Sermon on the Mount, and ready to listen to the teaching of Jesus. Even in heathen countries like India there are found not a few who, without joining themselves to the Christian Church, have come thus far, that they venerate Jesus as the Great Teacher. And within the Church itself a necessity is widely felt to go back to Jesus Himself, and to see what are the consequences of listening to Him afresh and alone, assuming only that, whatever else He was. He was and remains the world's Great Teacher in religion. WV may begin our study of His teaching with what OUR LORDS TEACHING is most outward in it. We may try to call up before us the aspect of the Teacher, and the characteristic manner in which He taught. His face we cannot picture to ourselves. No portrait of Him survives that is not hundreds of years later than His time ; and though in some ages He was spoken of as mean in aspect, and at other times as, in all respects, the flower of humanity, this was simply a reflection from the suffering or triumphant state of the Church at the time. The Gospels tell us of the lifting up of His eyes as He prayed, of His sigh at the sight of suffering, of His deeper sigh in meeting with moral perversity, and they tell of marked changes in His countenance ; but they describe no feature of it. He wore no distinctive dress, such as either the prophets or the Rabbis wore, but only the garments usual in the common rank of life from which He came forth. His voice and utterance were, in general, of a calm solemnity, without vehemence, and without agitation. Only this is consistent with His language and His attitude ; for He sat in preaching, whether in the synagogue, or on the mount, or in the boat when speak- ing to the people on the shore. But there were times when, being more deeply moved. He raised His voice — "Jesus stood and cried " (John vii. 37). Once His voice was broken with sobs and weeping, and there were times when the special feeling or sympathy in His tones so impressed the memory of those who heard, that the very syllables He spoke in the Aramaic tongue have been preserved (Mark v. 41 ; vii. 34). That His look had power we know from the effect it had on men's evil con- sciences ; as when it sufficed to drive before Him the traders who profaned the Temple. Passing from these external features, the great spiritual characteristic of His manner in teaching was authority. This was what first struck His Galilaean hearers, ** He taught them as one having authority, and not as theii scribes" (Matt. vii. 29). The scribes taught nothing without justifying it by quotation from the famous Rabbis Jesus appeals to none ; He seldom even reasons. It HIS MANNER 3 enough for Him to announce the truth. His own assur- ance of knowing the truth is absolute. Here a great contrast appears between Him and Socrates, the one teacher of our Western world with whom Jesus might be compared. Socrates did not profess to know, but to be in search of truth. Jesus never speaks as if in any doubt ; He is certain on every subject with which He directly deals. And He always speaks as if His word were enough — '* I say unto you," or "Verily I say unto you,** or "Again, I say unto you." He places His own words on a level even with the Old Testament Scriptures, of which He said that they ** cannot be broken," and that He came not to destroy them, but to fulfil. In the Sermon on the Mount He quotes commandments from these Scriptures, and then extends, or even corrects, them by His own authority — "Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill . . . but / say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother . . . shall be in danger." " Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself . . . but /say unto you, Swear not at all." ** Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth : but / say unto you. Resist not him that is evil " (Matt. V. 21 ff.). He does indeed say, " My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me," and "The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me " (John vii. 16 ; xiv. 24). But in this " high humility " His tone of absolute authority in the sphere of religion is not lowered. Two features of Jesus' manner in His teaching may next be named together, because they appear at first so opposite, and because it is remarkable that they should exist together in so high a degree, viz. graciousness and severity. How gracious are such words of His as these : " Daughter, be of good cheer ; thy faith hath made thee whole " (Matt. ix. 22). "Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom " (Luke xii. 32). "Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father'a OUR LORD'S TEACHING house are many mansions ... I go to prepare a place for you" (John xiv. I, 2). A tender graciousness ap- pears continually in His words to sufferers, and in His acts of healing. It shows itself in His taking up little children into His arms to bless them, and in the per- sonal attraction which even those who had lost character felt in Him. " Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto him for to hear him " (Luke xv. i). But side by side with this we must place His frequent sternness. How severe were His reproofs to His own disciples, as when He said to the foremost of them : ** Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art a stumblingblock unto me " (Matt. xvi. 23) ; or, in reference to another of them : " Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " (John vi. 70). How stern were His words to the Pharisees, especially in that last public discourse, of which the refrain, often repeated, is: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites !" (Matt, xxiii.). This discourse swells with indignant scorn, and comes nearer passion than any other of His utterances. Nor can we shut our ears to the exceeding sternness of tone with which Jesus speaks of the final judgment of God, as where He says, "Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark. ix. 48) ; or where He pronounces the words, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire " (Matt. xxv. 41). In all He utters there is an invariable gravity. Familiar and condescending as He is, and deeply com- passionate, no word ever comes from His lips which we can describe as light or humorous. There yet remain many sayings of Jesus whose tone and manner seem to require some stronger word than we have used as yet — sayings which have in them not authority only, but majesty^ and that beyond all the measures of men. One of these is the invitation, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " (Matt. xi. 28). What majesty of grace and power is in these words ! How great, too, this other saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink " (John vii. 37). And these proclamations of Him- HIS MANNER self—" I am the bread of life : " "I am the light of the world : " *' I am the resurrection, and the life : " *' Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice" (John vi. 35 ; viii. 12; xi. 25 ; xviii. 37). Some indeed have found fault with these sayings as going too far in self-assertion, and have rejected them as unworthy of Jesus. But in this they oppose themselves to the general consent of Christian souls, who have felt in all ages that Jesus had a right so to speak, and that what would be unfitting in others was fitting in Him. So now already, even in considering the manner and tone of His teaching, does it not begin to appear that we cannot rest in the assumption about Jesus with which we began ? We cannot call Him the greatest Teacher of religion and stop there. We must either deny Him that title and withhold it — describing Him rather as touched with fanaticism and self-delusion — or we must give Him a greater title still ; for no man, who is like other men, can fitly say in this world of so great trouble and sin, «* Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " ; or in this world of unsatisfied hearts, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." He who is great enough to speak thus, must surely far outreach the limitations by which other men are bounded. We may leave unfixed the title that should be His, and we may wait to learn more from what He taught about Himself; but very soon in our study of the words of Jesus we find it impossible to keep, even if we would, within the assumption that He was the greatest of human Teachers — that, and nothing more. OUR LORDS TEACHING CHAPTER n THE METHOD OF HIS TEACHING Importance of method — Jesus' teaching was (i) oral, (2) occasional, (3) adapted to His hearers, (4) popular, yet profound and universal — Its popularity helped by \a) simplicity of language, {b) use of examples, {c) use of similitudes, {d) proverbial conciseness — (5) His teaching often paradoxical — Reasons for this — (6) It was with reserve, and unfolded as men were able to bear it. A GREAT teacher of truth has usually something -^~*- notable in his method. The method is so im- portant, and contributes so much to make way for the truth, that we often perceive a teacher's success to be chiefly due to what we call his "way of putting things." We may expect, then, to find the method of Jesus greatly worth our study. Probably it will baffle us to apprehend it fully, or to discover all its reasons ; but what we can trace of it will certainly be instructive. At the very outset, we notice that this greatest reli- gious Teacher did not commit His lessons to writing. He left no book. His teaching from first to last was oral. He cast it forth upon the winds of Galilee, and com- mitted it to the memory of peasants. This need not for a moment suggest a doubt whether He expected His teaching to endure among men. He Himself said, ** Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matt. xxiv. 35). This confidence of His is the grander that He wrote down nothing. Nor was the teaching of Jesus systematic or scientific in its method. Any one will perceive this at once, who will consider what a difference there is between His HIS METHOD manner of teaching and a confession of faith, or articles of religion, or a system of theology. In contrast with these, His teaching was occasional. It took its shape from the opening, and the need, of the occasions that arose. It had, therefore, an extempore character. And yet it does not, on this account, lose universality of meaning. How obviously from the occasion Jesus spoke in His interview with the woman of Samaria ; yet how universal is the reach of the words, "God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John iv. 24). And along with this occasional character of the teach- ing of Jesus goes another and similar feature of His method, its invariable adaptation to His hearers. This is the quality for want of which, perhaps, preaching most frequently fails. It is conspicuous in the preaching of Jesus. Although He meant His teaching to be universal, it is expressly fitted for Jews, and Jews of that time. How expressly for them is such a saying as this : *' Ex- cept your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 20). He assumes also constantly that the Old Testament is believed and known ; and the errors, formalisms, and hypocrisies which He assails are those of the time and country. The teaching of Jesus, surviving as it does in such power to our day, is a proof that the teaching which is most true to the occasion and to the audience of one age, may be the most abiding in its instructiveness to the ages that come after. This double character — of adaptation to the audiences who heard Him and permanent significance — is partly accounted for by this next feature of the teaching of Jesus, its popular character. We do not so speak of it in any vulgar sense. It was as far as possible from being suited to flatter the people, or to tickle their ears by oratorical device. But it was fitted in the highest degree for popular apprehension, and "the common people heard Him gladly ' (Mark xii. 37). It had this fitness because 8 OUR LORD'S TEACHING He, more constantly than any other great teacher, directed his appeals to the instinct for truth and right that is common to man, and in respect of which rich and poor, learned and unlearned, are on the same level. He challenged the witness which the best in man bears to the truth of God. In harmony with this we find the teaching of Jesus simple in language, profound in meaning. "It joins in the highest degree possible," says Wendt, "popular intelligibility and rich signifi- cance." So it has a wonderful breadth of adaptation at once to great minds and to the simple in understanding. It is at once popular and universal. Its popular intelligibility is greatly helped also by simplicity of language, and by the constant use of apt example and felicitous comparison. Every one will re- collect how Jesus carried home His teaching, so that it could not be misunderstood or forgotten,by examples taken from life, such as the low expressions used in reproach (*' Raca," " Thou fool,"), the case of bringing the gift to the altar, and the incident of the widow who gave the two mites. Often a lesson of Jesus, stated shortly, in the form of an example, has wonderful clearness and reach. *' Whosoever shall give to drink a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall in no wise lose his reward " (Matt. x. 42). The abundance also of His use of comparisons may be observed in every page of the Gospels. The parables, unique perhaps in literature, come first to our mind as instances. But shorter com- parisons, with figurative and allegorical touches, are con- tinually giving vividness to what He says, and making it memorable to every mind. So the familiar objects and common human labours of the time and country appear in the Gospels, serving spiritual uses — the fowls of the air, the lilies of the field, the shepherd and the sheep, the bondman ploughing or feeding cattle, the lamp on the stand, the hen with the chickens under her wings. As we read the teaching of Jesus, we find it alive with example, figure, and similitude, and the similitude so fits, and is so subordinate to what is taught, that attention is HIS METHOD never drawn to it but to the truth. The "rich signifi- cance," named above, is given not only by the weight of the truth conveyed, but by the rare conciseness of ex- pression, often in proverbial and antithetic form. ** The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mark ii. 27). "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you " (Mark iv. 24). ' ' He that is not with me is against me ; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth" (Matt. xii. 30). "Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled ; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke xviii. 14). All these features of the teaching combine to make it at once popular, memorable, and fruitful of instruction. Another feature in the method of Jesus is, that He often puts the truth in a form intentionally surprising^ or paradoxical, or apparently impracticable. How surpris- ing, for example, the opening of the great sermon in St. Luke — " Blessed are ye poor : for yours is the kingdom of God." " Woe unto you that are rich ! for ye have received your consolation " (vi. 20, 24). These were especially surprising words to Jewish hearers, who thought riches a sign of the favour of heaven. How paradoxical again, such sayings as these — " I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark ii. 17). "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it : and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. xvi. 25). " If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke xiv. 26). How impracticable, again, seems this rule — " Whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twdin " (Matt. v. 41). Now it must be remembered, in order to appreciate this feature of the method of Jesus, that a great difficulty in the way of a teacher of new truth is, that the people he deals with may already think they know, while they do not. The Jews of that time thought they knew about the kingdom of God, but were greatly mistaken ; they thought that temporal prosperity was the foremost lo OUR LORDS TEACHING thing in it, and that they themselves had a sure right to that kingdom as children of Abraham. The great difficulty with such hearers was in what they had to unlearn. They must learn and unlearn at the same time. Now the often startling and paradoxical form of the sayings of Jesus was happily fitted for this. Their old beliefs received a shock ; they could not sup- pose that they knew already what He had to tell ; their minds were stirred to think afresh ; they were set a problem which it would do them good to think of. And, indeed, according to the character and aims of Jesus' kingdom, a supreme need of all men — not of Jews only — is the stirring and cultivating of moral thoughtfulness in themselves. The aim of Jesus, in teaching about duty, is not so much to secure that good deeds be done, as to make good men — to cultivate in men a spirit like His own. Now for this it is necessary that men have their con- sciences exercised to know good and evil. It is profitable for them to have the discipline of seeking the truth and coming to know it better the more earnestly they seek it. So their interest in truth is tested, and their love of it grows as they advance in knowing it. The search for truth brings blessing to the character as well as the actual knowledge of it. Accordingly, many of our Lord's teachings are so expressed j^s to be in a high degree stimu- lants of thought, and their purpose is quite as much to stimulate as to reveal. They are surprising, paradoxical, enigmatical, and arouse the mind by the difficulty of receiving them as true. The mind is kept by them in the attitude of inquiry and progress. We read, for example, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus : ** Thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things : but now here he is comforted, and thou art in anguish" (Luke xvi. 25). This has the strange appearance of teaching that the rule of God's judgment after death is simply to reverse the condition in the earthly life, and that the rich and poor will then exchange places. So some allege that Jesus does here teach. But surely HIS METHOD ii it is foolish to think so. The purpose of Jesus rather is to stir moral though tfulness about the great and unex- pected changes another life will certainly bring. These sayings again : ** Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also"; "Whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain " ; ** Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matt, v. 39, 41, 42), how powerful they have been, not in their literal fulfilment, for an actual turning of the other cheek might be done by a self-complacent legalist, but in stirring Christian hearts to think how to put away revenge, to forbear the assertion of rights, and to live in love with those that are evil. They serve their purpose by con- tinually setting us a moral problem to solve. They are intended *' to arouse the conscience, by baffling the under- standing." They indicate principles of conduct all the more plainly that they are impracticable or futile as rules. One other feature of the method of Jesus was that His teaching was with reserve ^ and unfolded as men were able to bear it. " I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now " (John xvi. 12). He kept back truths till the hearers might be more ready to receive them. A signal instance of this is the way in which he kept in the background His claim to be the Messiah, and delayed announcement of it. He spoke of Himself usually as '* The Son of Man," a title not current among the people for the Messiah. He delayed announc- ing Himself, because the expectation they had in regard to the Messiah was so carnal and earthly — that, namely, of a conquering king, who would give the Jews a supreme place among the nations. It is obvious that if Jesus had early given Himself out plainly as the Messiah, He would have been utterly misunderstood. He would have meant one thing by that name ; His hearers would have imderstood quite another thing. So He chose to labour among them, as it were, incognito for a time. It seems to have been His purpose that they should first have opportunity, in this way, to know Him 12 OUR LORDS TEACHING as He was in Himself, if so be that the reality of His character, and the spirit of His teaching might in time be felt by them to surpass what they expected in their Messiah — might displace their crude earthly expectations — and they might come to feel Him more worthy of the title. The Christy than the earthly king they looked for. There is an apparent exception to this reserve of His, which may be said to prove the rule. Early in His ministry at the well of Jacob, He said to the woman of Samaria, when she spoke of Messiah coming : *• I that 'speak unto thee am he " (John iv. 26). This is a startling and solitary plainness on the part of Jesus. It stands alone at that period. But it will be seen from the woman's words, " He will declare unto us all things," that her expectation was less of a king than of a prophet. Among the people of Samaria there was less to overcome of false expectation and earthly hope. Jesus could say among them what He could not say among the Jews ; and this plain announcement at the well of Jacob, '* I that speak unto thee am he," only brings more into view, by contrast, the long reserve of Jesus in His teaching among the Jews. The subject of this chapter — the method of Jesus — is seldom thought of by ordinary readers. Nor are they to blame for this. The very perfection of His method leads to its being unobserved. The result of this perfection is that the whole impression the mind receives is of the greatness and preciousness of the truths conveyed. But by study of His method we can trace it out in part ; we can obtain some glimpses into the wisdom of its adapta- tion to His great purposes, and sometimes our interpre- tation of His words will be the more just and the more sure that we have become aware of such features of His method as those which we have here reviewed. HIS GREAT SUBJECT 13 CHAPTER III THE GREAT SUBJECT OF HIS TEACHING His great subject, the kingdom of God — Shown to be so by a review of His teaching — The subject was suited to His hearers — It was in the line of God's preparation in history — His teaching was nevertheless new and original — Three distinguishing features of it : (i) The kingdom is one of spiritual, not material good things ; (2) It is to be brought in, not by earthly power, but by divine grace ; (3) It is already present, but is to come in future glorious perfection — Attempts to define the kingdom of God — Who is its King? — Objection to the title " Kingdom of God," and answer. SINCE it is so widely agreed that Jesus is our greatest Teacher, we come with interest to the question, What was the great subject of His teaching ? Probably many readers of the Gospels would say, if they must give an answer at once, that the great subject of the teaching of Jesus was — how a soul can be saved. That is what they look into the Gospels in search of, and they would think it safe to say that the great subject of Jesus' preaching must have been a sinner's salvation. Certainly Jesus did not forget that or leave it out, but His great subject we find, in reality, to have been — the kingdom of God. The three first Gospels ring all through with news of the kingdom, and it is also named in the Gospel of St. John. His preaching began with it — " From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say. Repent ye ; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. . . . And Jesus went about in all Galilee, OUR LORDS TEACHING teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom" (Matt. iv. 17, 23). In the Sermon on the Mount, which was the first great utterance of His mind and message, the kingdom of God — or the kingdom of heaven, which is the same thing — is spoken of all through. The sermon begins : "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." A large portion of the sermon has for its text, ' * Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Again we read in it, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness "; and " Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven." In fact, the Sermon on the Mount, and the corresponding one in the Gospel of St. Luke, might be summed up under two heads — the Kingdom of God, and the Righteousness of the Kingdom. When Jesus, at a later stage of His ministry, began His remarkable method of teaching by parables. He opened parable after parable with the words, ** The kingdom of heaven is like," or "Whereunto shall I liken the king- dom of God?" (Matt. xiii.). When He sent forth His twelve apostles, the com- mission He gave them was this, "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. x. 7). When He sent forth the seventy others. He bade them say, *' The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you," and if in any city the people would not receive them, they were to wipe off the dust from their feet and say, *• Howbeit know this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh" (Luke x. 9, 11). Many other sayings of Jesus will occur to readers in confirmation of what has been said, as, for example, these that follow : — " If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you" (Matt. xii. 28). *' Suffer the little children to come vmto me ; forbid them not : for of such is the kingdom of God" (Mark, x. 14). "Verily I say unto you. Except HIS GREA T SUBJECT 15 ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt, xviii. 3). " Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you " (Matt. xxi. 3 1 ). "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God" (Mark xii. 34). And the eminence of the subject shows itself very plainly in the Lord's Prayer, in which, after words which may all be described as of adoration, the first great petition put into our mouths is this, " Thy kingdom come." Now let us observe, in regard to this great subject of Jesus, that it was one very suitable for His hearers. It would catch their ears at once, because it was the very thing they were already thinking about and most in- terested in. "There is a good time coming." Often have people cheered themselves with this hope. Sometimes the whole population of a country gets filled with hope of " a good time coming," and is persuaded that it is at hand. History tells us what hope of a good time coming was in men's minds at the time of the French Revolution in the last century. An old world was passing away, and a new world coming in its place. The watchwords of the new time were. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The Rights of Man were eagerly dis- cussed. Not merely people in France, but many in other countries, and some of our greatest poets (as Words- worth, Coleridge, and Southey), were full of eager hope in the belief that a time of great blessing was near, especially for the large body of the people who had suffered unde^ disadvantage and contempt ; that a time was at hand when extreme poverty would be brought to an end, suffering immensely diminished, and all human life irradiated by love and honour. There is nothing perhaps in modem life so fitted as this hope to give an idea of the state of mind of the Jewish people, when Jesus began to teach and preach among them. They were expecting "the good time coming," but their name for it was "the kingdom of i6 OUR LORD S TEACHING God." Their ideas of what the good time would bring were different from those of our modem world, but also with strong resemblances ; and the hope of it, deep in their hearts, had been fanned into a flame just before Jesus began to teach, by the startling appearance and fiery preaching of John the Baptist, who announced to the multitudes who came to him, **The kingdom of heaven is at hand." The great subject, then, of the preaching of Jesus was signally fitted to catch the attention and enchain the interest of His hearers. It was directly in line with their most earnest expectations. Another thing we may observe about this subject — it was in line with the previous history of the Jews and God's guidance of that history. The subject Jesus spoke about was, in fact, that for which a divine preparation had been going on for ages. For, from whence did the Jews get that strong expectation of a good and glorious time? They got it from the prophets whom God had sent, who had helped to guide their history, and who had expounded to them its divine meaning. The old history, upon which they looked back with pride, had itself been a ** theocracy " — that is, a " kingdom of God." Their kings, from David downwards, had been vice- gerents of God, who was their real King. Such, at least, was the right understanding of their position and duty, and the glory of the history of the people was just in so far as they realised this ideal. And they had learned from their prophets to think of this, not as merely past, but as again to return — to return in a far more glorious form than it had ever attained in the past, in a form in which the real and the ideal would be one. The king would be another David (Ezek. xxxvii. 24), or Son of David, with a divine favour on Himself, and a divine bless- ing and prosperity on His people, in describing which the prophets use the noblest language, perhaps, in human literature. Where in literature do we find language so inspiring as in the seventy-second Psalm, in portions of the ninth, sixtieth, and sixty-sixth chapters of Isaiah, of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, of the fifth of Micah, and HIS GREAT SUBJECT 17 of the last of Amos? We see, then, that Jesus, in choosing for His great subject the kingdom of God was placing His teaching in line, not only with the ex- pectations of His hearers, but with the whole course of history and prophecy recorded in the Old Testament. In other words, He was making use of, and turning to account, the long preparation which God, as we believe, had made for that kingdom and for His coming. He was entering into His own. But though the subject which Jesus chose was in the Vine of this long preparation, and was familiar in name and title to the Jews of His time. His teaching was not at all identical with the common expectation of the Jews. It was in a startling manner fresh and original, and the kingdom of God which He spoke of differed greatly from what they looked for. It had, we may say, three principal distinguishing features. I. Their hope was of material good things. No doubt the more pious Jews, like Zacharias (Luke i. 77), looked for a kingdom of righteousness and salvation, such as a true understanding of the prophets would have pointed to. But, in the general mind of the people, marvellous plenty, abundance of the good things of this life, venge- ance on enemies, and political glory were the chief features of the kingdom of God which they were waiting for. The kingdom of God which Jesus preached was one, first of all, of spiritual good things, not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. In this respect the kingdom of God differs also from the various forms of socialistic aim and hope which are in- fluencing large numbers in our day. The opening words of the Sermon on the Mount touch this critical difference between Jesus and the Jews of His time, and also between His Gospel and the wave of Socialist hope in the present day. Jew and Socialist alike assume that the key to blessedness is in the possession of plenty, and in circum- stances that are advantageous. The average Socialist believes that with general plenty there would come general happiness, and an end of most moral evils. With Jesus, an i8 OUR lord's teaching the contrary, **A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth " (Luke xii. 15). Blessedness lies not in what men have^ but in what they are. It begins in character. And so, when "He opened his mouth" (Matt. v. 2), He said, *♦ Blessed are the poor in spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek. . . , Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness. . . . Blessed are the pure in heart. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called sons of God." This is the goal which Jesus has in view, a kingdom of God in which men are like God in character, are His true children, and share His own blessedness. 2. Another great distinction in Jesus' teaching of the kingdom of God is in regard to the means by which it is to be brought in. The Socialist believes that the good time he looks for can be brought in by changes in law, government, and social arrangements. He would put an end, for example, to individual rights of property. Property — or capital, at least — would be held only in common ; then all men would be labouring only for the common good, and by this one change we should have a practically new world. Besides this de- finite plan and scheme of Socialists, it has been the wont of many poets and philosophers, who have hoped for a golden age of the world, to assume that it will come by the natural, progressive powers of the human race. They have assumed that there is a law of progress in human history, working itself out naturally, and that in this way the long - hoped - for day of blessing will come. But Jesus said, " My kingdom is not of this world " (John xviii. 36) ; it does not draw its resources from this world. The kingdom which Jesus preached is something too high and too blessed to be set up by the ordinary means that men can use, or to come in the ordinary course of human progress. " The world will never evolve a golden age, or ideal state." As in the Book of Revelation the New Jerusalem, the Holy City, is seen coming down from God out of heaven, so it is with the kingdom of HIS GREA T SUBJECT 19 God which Jesus preached. It is something new, coming down from above ; it is built up by supernatural power on a supernatural foundation. Therefore we speak of it as a kingdom of grace. This word is not used by Jesus Himself in speaking of it, but it is a true word in describing the kingdom of God which He announced ; for that kingdom, as He expounded it, is a sphere in which not nature only is at work, but grace — a redeem- ing power from God which came by Jesus Himself. 3. A third distinction and mark of the kingdom of God preached by Jesus is that it is already present. Sometimes, indeed, He speaks of it as far off and to come in a latter day. "Ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God " (Luke xiii. 28). ♦* I will not drink from hence- forth of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come" (Luke xxii. 18), But when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God cometh, He answered, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation ... for lo ! the kingdom of God is in the midst of you " (Luke xvii. 20, 21, margin). The truth is that, as the kingdom depends on character — on the character of true children of God — it had already begun when Jesus Himself was in the world, living as a Son with the Father. It grew as disciples gathered round Him, believed in Him, and learned of Him. It made a great advance when the Spirit was fully given — that Spirit by which men are inwardly changed, bom into the kingdom (John iii. 3), and guided into all the truth (John xvi. 13). The kingdom is a kingdom of the truth (John xviii. 37), of which the " Word of God" is the seed (Luke viii. 11), and so it advances by dis- pensations and crises as men are able to receive the truth. Even the Old Testament dispensation was, in a sense, a first stage of it, and the Jews are spoken of as **the children of the kingdom" (Matt. viii. 12). It reached a new stage when Jesus was teaching in the flesh. " From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suflereth violence, and men of 20 OUR LORDS TEACHING violence take it by force" (Matt. xi. 12). Still another stage of the kingdom was reached when the Holy Ghost began to be given after Jesus ascended. So was given the divine power by which the kingdom grows and con- quers. Another stage yet — the last which Jesus tells of — will be ** When the Son of man shall come in His glory." Then the kingdom, as well as the King, will be revealed in glory. Outwardly and inwardly it will be glorious. " Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father" (Matt. xiii. 43). We may now attempt to give a definition of the kingdom of God. Jesus gives no definition of it Himself, and it is difficult for us to make one on account of the mani- fold meaning He gives the expression. Sometimes He speaks of the kingdom as consisting oi persons, as in the words, "Suffer the little children to come unto me ... for of such is the kingdom of God " (Mark x. 14). Often He speaks of it as a thing — the supreme good [summum bonum) of human life ; as in the words, ** Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness " (Matt. vi. 33). ** Fear not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom " (Luke xii. 32). Often again He speaks of it as a sphere or realm which men may be outside of, or may be within ; as in these other words, " How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God " (Mark x. 23). Yet, in spite of difficulty, it seems necessary that we should try to answer the plain question. What is the kingdom of God spoken of in the Gospels ? We may say, then, that it is (a) the name Jesus used for a good time coming among men — a golden age — which He came in the flesh to begin, comes in the Spirit to advance, and will come again in glory to perfect. Or [b) it is a sphere of life, higher than our natural sphere, into which men can be born anew (John iii. 3), and in which the Spirit works, imparting the life which is eternal. Or {c) it is a new society or commonwealth, which Jesus came to form, of men redeemed from sin, and in fellowship with God as His SODS, in which He is to them, and they are to Him and HIS GREAT SUBJECT 81 to one another, all that they are capable of being. So the old promise is gloriously fulfilled, ** I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." Who, it may be asked, is the king of this kingdom ? Jesus is its King, for He says, " The Son of man shall . . . gather out oihis kingdom all things that cause stumbling " (Matt. xiii. 41). But the Father is also its King; for Jesus teaches us to pray, " Our Father which art in heaven. . . . Thy kingdom come " (Matt. vi. 9, 10). Jesus founds and administers the kingdom for His Father, and St. Paul tells us that the end cometh, *' when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father . . . that God may be all in all " (i Cor. xv. 24, 28). In reflecting now upon this great subject of Jesus' preaching, we see it to be wonderfully high, noble, and inspiring. It is so, because it is so grandly hopeful for the future of men. It brings into view a "regeneration" (Matt. xix. 28), or new-making of men, of society, and indeed of all things. Jesus sees, as none ever saw, the strength of the evils by which men are beset ; yet still He preaches a kingdom with powers of divine grace at work in it so great that it shall prevail over sin, sorrow, and death in a glorious manner. His great subject is, as we said, not a soul's salvation, but that of a kingdom of souls. It is more than a man's own good, which, by itself, is not his highest blessing. It is a world-wide communion in good; it is "Joy in widest commonalty spread." "They shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God " (Luke xiii. 29). It has been objected to the title of this great topic of Jesus that, though it was most suitable and attractive to His own time and nation, it is not so now. People nowadays are not, as the Jews were, expecting and talking about "the kingdom of God." We do not find "the kingdom of God " a prominent topic in the newspapers, and it is in them that we see reflected the strong interests of the people. It has even been suggested that a title like this, in which the word '* kingdom " occurs, does 22 OUR LORD'S TEACHING not suit a democratic age like ours. The people of such an age are repelled, it is said, not attracted, by the word •'kingdom." It conveys to them an oppressive sense of authority and obedience, instead of liberty and joy. Should we, then, in preaching the Gospel, use this title *' the kingdom of God " but little ? Should we gradually drop it as not quite fit for our time ? Would Jesus Himself, had His preaching been in our time, have used "commonwealth" for "kingdom" (see Ephes. ii. 12)? Or would He have so adapted His teaching to hearers in this modern age as to have said, " The good time coming is at hand " ? But no title which leaves out God can truly express a state of blessing for men. And in the title " kingdom of God " His holy Name appears not merely because of His rule in the kingdom, but because of His gifts ; not merely because His will is obeyed in it, but because His unbounded love and grace work in it and make it what it is, — a blessed fellowship of men with God and with one another. It is the kingdom of the Father, THE BASIS OF HIS TEACHING 23 CHAPTER IV THE BASIS OF HIS TEACHING — GOD THE FATHER The Doctrine of God fundamental — Jesus' teaching expressed in one word, "The Father" — This peculiarly His own — Two great debts we owe to Jesus — We escape from uncertainty and error about God, not by philosophic argument, nor by scientific discovery, but through Jesus — His knowledge of the Father passes to us by spiritual contagion — His chaiacter interprets God's Fatherhood — His other teachings based on this — This the great spring of human hope. TTAVING found what is the great subject of the •■- -'■ teaching of Jesus — namely, The Kingdom of God — we go on to inquire whether His teaching has any one fundamental truth, on which it rests. The teaching of Jesus is on a great variety of topics, and it is not connected together by argument or logical deduction. The truths He utters stand by themselves and, with- out other support, find ready response in the true soul. But undoubtedly we do find such a single basis of all His teaching in His doctrine of God. On short reflection, we see that the character of the answers to be made to the greatest questions about ourselves and our destiny must depend ultimately on the doctrine we have of God. We possess life — this we know. But how have we it ? Whence have we come ? Why are we here ? Whither are we going? What is "right" and our duty? And why do we feel the claim of duty so imperative ? The answers to all these supreme questions are determined by the doctrine of God with which we start. Our doctrine may be that there is no God, or that man can know nothing 24 OUR LORDS TEACHING of Him, or that He is personal and our Almighty Creator. But, whatever it be, in it will be found the root from which spring our beliefs on all the great subjects that chiefly concern us. Looking, then, for the doctrine of Jesus concerning God, one word expresses it in such a manner that it is im- mediately recognisable, and easily distinguished from the teaching of all other religions, viz. '* The Father." In the teaching of Jesus that word was first uttered — so far as our records tell — at the well of Samaria. In the same sentence almost in which He said " God is a Spirit," He named God by this name, " The Father" (John iv. 21-24). We have said that this doctrine is distinctive of Jesus and peculiarly His own. Confucius in China, and Buddha in India, did indeed teach, centuries before Jesus, many good rules of life and conduct ; but they taught no doctrine of God. Both seem to have thought any knowledge of God quite beyond man's reach. It may be admitted that the ancient people of Hindostan, of the Vedic faith, looked up to the sky, from which came the blessings they valued most, and worshipped the "Heaven- Father." But they did not come near to the teaching of Jesus about God as a personal Father. They spoke only as we do when in poetry we use the expression "Mother Earth." Among the Greeks, again, we find in Plato's myths the title, " Father and Framer " of the Universe ; but the doctrine of God is vague, and He is thought of as far removed from men. To the Jews it was given to attain the highest place among all ancient nations in divine knowledge. They worshipped the same personal and eternal God of Whom Jesus taught. The holiness and righteousness of God are nobly expressed in their Scriptures ; His tender pity also ; and they attained sometimes to the thought of His being the Father of Israel as a nation, or of its theocratic King. We find such sayings as these in the Old Testament — ** Israel is my son, my firstborn" (Ex. iv. 22). "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt " THE BASIS OP HIS TEACHING 25 (Hos. xi. I). "I will make him {i.e. David, or the Son of David) my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth " (Psa. Ixxxix. 27). But the sublime faith that God is the Father of individual men, and of all men, was never reached in all the Old Testament. One sufficient proof of the immense difference between the teaching of Jesus and the highest level of Old Testament devotion is the single fact that in St. Matthew's Gospel alone Jesus speaks of God as Father—*' My Father," « Your Father, or "The Father"— more than forty times, while in the Book of Psalms— high, personal, and intimate as the devotion is — God is never once so addressed. The debt we owe to Jesus for this doctrine of God is profound, and it may be well to detain our thoughts upon it here that we may form some right estimate of it. Not merely Jews and men of that generation were indebted to Him for what He taught of God, but every generation since, and not least our own. Two things we owe Him, both of great price, the first, a strong assurance that God is ; the second, an assurance that He is "The Father." Vast multitudes of men and many nations have had very dim and uncertain thoughts about God. Even their best and highest men have had great doubts of His exist- ence, or painful doubts of His character, or sad errors and misbeliefs about Him. To good and righteous men it has always been painfiil not to be sure that the world is governed by a living, thinking Person. An awful and terrible world it would be if the stroke of death, and all the thousand woes of human life, came with no reason, but just by blind, unthinking chance. If human beings, so sensitive as they are, feeling so acutely and liable to so grievous suffering, were under the government of a dead, unthinking system which we call «' Nature"— dead and cruel as the stone that falls from the mountain, blindly inflicting on men whatever its chance directs— what a tyranny that would be ! " If I could not believe," said one, "that there is a thinking mind at the centre of things, life would be to me intolerable." There has been, of course, in all ages and countnes, 26 OUR LORDS TEACHING some idea of God abiding in the minds of men, with a tendency to worship and religion ; but good men every- where have longed for certainty. They have longed to find God, and they have longed to find Him to be just and good and interested in men. They have sought Him, but have not been able assuredly to find Him. These words of Job (xxiii. 3, 8, 9) express the heart and mind of many like himself, in many lands, especially in times when the riddle of their own or the world's sorrow pressed upon them — Oh that I knew where I might find Him, That I might come even to His seat ! . . . Behold, I go forward, but He is not there ; And backward, but I cannot perceive Him : On the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him: He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. Now, if we in this day, we who read these pages, have an assured knowledge of God and know Him as a Father, how have we come to this ? Is it by argument ? Is it that in these latter days we have so perfected the arguments for the existence of God, and smoothed away the difficulties which the world suggests as to His character? Hardly so. The arguments for God's existence have indeed great strength ; they outweigh, we think, those against it. But they do not suffice, when we lean upon them, to give us a steadfast assurance ; they do not sustain us in communion with God. ** Strange I" it has been well said, "God is the most necessary of all beings, yet no argument for His existence has ever been constructed that was satisfying to every mind." Is it, then, by science and its discoveries, of which we are so proud in our day, that we have come to assurance about God ? No, indeed ! To many minds these discoveries increase the difficulty ; they make the universe so vast and seem to put God so far away ; with THE BASIS OF HIS TEACHING 27 the enlargement of our knowledge, God seems to be more and more withdrawn from the world ; and, as a matter of fact, many men, eminent in science, are not believers. How, then, do we have that assurance of God and of His character which we have claimed ? The answer is, by the Lord Jesus and by His teaching. To Him this age is indebted for that faith, which, with its profound com- fort, might have died out or gone near to dying out, in spite of all the enlightenment and knowledge of which in these days we boast. The light of science, but for the abiding power of Jesus and His teaching, might have been darkness as regards what is highest and best in men, namely their faith in God, and those elements in their character which depend on that faith. Now, as in days long past, the words of St. John are true : " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John i. 18). But how is it that we find the teaching of Jesus so effectual in this matter ? How is it that He is able to sustain us in this great faith ? He is able to do this and does it because He had in His bosom so perfect a know- ledge of God, and so unique a sense of God as Father. Therefore He could convey it to us. He does not perhaps anywhere directly say that God is and is a Father. He assumes this — lives in it Himself ; and there is something in our Lord's converse about His Father, and with His Father, that carries assurance to our hearts. When we hear Him say, " My Father worketh even until now, and I work " ; •* I am not alone, because the Father is with me"; "The Father knoweth me, and I know the Father '*; "The things which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto me, so I speak " ; " The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth " (John v. 17 ; xvi. 32 ; x. 15 ; xii. 50; v. 20). As we hear Him so speak, a hush comes over our souls. We feel that He is speaking of One whom He knows. And when we read of Jesus lifting up His eyes to heaven and a8 OUR LORD^S TEACHING praying, "Father!" "Holy Father!" "O righteous Father ! " or of His saying, " Yea, Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy sight," we cannot doubt there was One to whom He spoke. If any should dare to say to us, ** There was no one ; Jesus spoke as the prophets of Baal did, who cried and there was no one to answer ; He may have been deceived as they were ; " we should put away the thought with pity for those who can entertain it. And when, as so often, He speaks to us of our heavenly Father, or when He says, •' I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God" (John xx. 17), we come by spiritual contact with Him to have an assurance about God and about the character of God, as great as the truth of Jesus, as strong as the authority of which we are conscious in Him, — ^nd this is sufficient as a stay for our life. There is, indeed, a further assurance which we get in intercourse with God. After Jesus has quickened in us a dormant faculty or weakened instinct for the knowledge of God as our heavenly Father, we then come to have a direct knowledge of God by com- munion with Him. But whenever this childlike instinct is again weakened, and that direct knowledge grows faint within us, and we come to be in doubt of God, we can fall back on the perfect knowledge we find in Jesus, and, by contact with Him, by habitually listening to His words, we can maintain a faith in God as the Father which will stand the utmost strain of our life. The name *' Father " is not indeed of itself sufficient to secure right thoughts of God. If this name is used without belief in Jesus, there is danger of God being misinterpreted. Men may call Him *' Father" and understand the name as if it implied weak indulgence, or tolerance of sin, and a slack government of men and of the world. But it cannot be so understood from the lips of Jesus, who is Himself so holy, and who prays with such reverence, *'Holy Father!" **0 righteous Father!" The word *' Father " has a sure meaning to us, when interpreted THE BASIS OP HIS TEACHING 29 by the character of Jesus, His Son, who Himself says, ** He that hath seen me hath seen the Father " (John xiv. 9). How truly this knowledge of God as the Father is the basis of Jesus' teaching, and how noble a superstructure of teaching it is fitted to bear, will readily appear. The Psalms express the faith and devotion of the Old Testa- ment, and in them the characteristic title of God is *«King." "My King and my God" (Psa. v. 2). "The King of Glory" (Psa. xxiv. 10). "The Lord sitteth as king for ever" (Psa. xxix. 10). If God be thought of as King, the highest place that can be given to men is that of servants of God. So the great Law- giver is spoken of as "Moses, the servant of the Lord," and the title of Messiah in that highest Old Testament prophecy in the second half of Isaiah is, " The servant of the Lord." But, with belief in God as the Father, the calling of men to be sons of God becomes possible. The way is prepared for the joyful cry, " Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God ! " (i John iii. i) The whole idea of the kingdom of God also is changed when it is thought of as the kingdom of the Father. Love becomes its great uniting bond rather than law, and the liberty of sons its characteristic feeling rather than the obedience of servants. The Fatherhood of God, again, is the one sure basis of the brotherhood of men ; and the hope of the inheritance of the sons of God springs from the same root. On the doctrine of God's Fatherhood follows also, as a natural consequence, the wonderful teaching of Jesus in regard to God's providential care of us during this present life — a care down to the numbering of the very hairs of our head. And this doctrine of God's Fatherhood is especially the root and basis of all that Jesus taught of grace and of redemption from sin. If God be King, we conclude that He will judge. If He be the righteous King, we conclude that He will judge and reward justly. But, if 30 OUR LORDS TEACHING He be the Father, we are prepared to know that He will seek His lost child until He find him, and that when the child comes to Him with the cry, " Father, I have sinned," he will be received with the welcome so wonderfully imaged in the parable of the Prodigal Son, a parable which has been truly said to have of itself alone exercised more influence on mankind than all the philosophies. It has been said, and indeed proved, that in the first centuries of our era, when throughout the Roman world faith had decayed, and liberty and worthy aims of life had failed, Christianity restored hope to mankind. The age we live in owes to Jesus and His teaching a similar debt. In this age we have seen pessimism advance its sad account of human life. The question, " Is life worth living?" has seemed in some circles open to debate. The loss of faith in God is a sufficient explanation. If there were no God, this sadness would be fully justified. To Jesus we owe it — to Him in whose earthly life, as in a glass, we see the image of the Father, and from whose words we catch the happy contagion of faith in the Father — to Him we owe it that hope grows instead of being quenched, that it animates thousands of souls, and that it inspires the onward march of the Church and of mankind. And what though earth and sea His glory do proclaim, Though on the stars is writ that great and dreadful Name ; Yea — hear me, Son of Man — with tears my eyes are dim, I cannot read the word that calls me close to Him ; I say it after Thee, with faltering voice and weak, ♦• Father of Jesus Christ " — this is the God I seek. Anonymous^ HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF 31 CHAPTER V HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF Jesus Himself the great problem — Avowed Himself the Messiah, but not plainly at first — Spoke of Himself as "The Son of Man" or "The Son of God"— Both titles practically new to hearers — "The Son of Man" implies that He was (i) true man, {2) ideal and repre- sentative man ; ' ' The Son of God " implies that He was (i) a true Son of God, proved by His intimacy with the Father, (2) such a Son as no other is (a) in perfect nearness, {b) in eternal being — Value to us of these titles — One assuring that God is love — Another assur- ing of human sympathy of Jesus — The title "The Christ " showing Him to be the core and goal of history. JESUS presented Himself as a problem to His country- men, and after He had been manifested to them for a sufficient time, the testing questions He put to His disciples were these — *' Whom do men say that I am ? " and, "Whom say ye that I am?" On the answer to this latter question it depended whether Jesus would find material for the foundation of a church ; and when Peter answered well, His Master accorded him solemn praise — " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah : for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. xvi. 16, 17). Still, in our time, Jesus is the great problem and the unexhausted subject of human inquiry ; still this question meets us and must be answered — "Whom say ye that I am?" To pass this question by woiild be to confess indifference to the highest things. The most searching and the surest test of character is what we think of Jesus. 32 OUR LORD'S TEACHING Brought up as we are in the Christian Church, and early taught its creeds, we cannot approach the subject without prepossessions. Nor can we forget the teachings about the person of Jesus given by His great apostles Paul and John. We have leant upon these, perhaps, in our life and they have become precious elements of our faith. But in an age of questioning, when we are anxious to make sure in regard to what we believe, there is great interest for us in the inquiry. What did Jesus teach aboat Himself? What was His own consciousness of Himself? In one respect there was great reserve in His teach- ing about Himself. Not till near the end of His ministry did He openly avow Himself, or allow Himself to be declared the Messiah, the Christ. Often before, indeed, the consciousness of such a greatness showed itself in incidental sayings. In the Sermon on the Mount, He assumed that He would be the final judge of men — ** Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils ? . . . And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work iniquity " (Matt. vii. 22, 23). It was of Himself He said — "A greater than Solomon is here " (Matt. xii. 42). An immense claim on men's allegiance was implied in these other words of His — ** If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple " (Luke xiv. 26). And how majestic these sayings — *' I am the bread of life," ** I am the light of the world," " I am the resurrection, and the life," ** I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John vi. 35 ; viii. 12 ; xi. 25 ; xiv. 6). But He long withheld from the Jews the plain announcement that He was the Christ. Obviously He did so because this title had been so tarnished and carnalised in their thoughts that He would have been quite misunderstood. Had He said to the Jews as frankly as to the woman of Samaria, " I am the Christ," He would have been taken HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF 33 to mean that He was an earthly King of an earthly kingdom such as they were looking for, and their rage of disappointment, speedily following, would have led to His death before He had had time to win true disciples by His life and teaching. It became necessary, therefore, for Jesus to present Himself for great part of His time among men, as it were, incognito. He was the Messiah long foretold and prepared for ; He accepted the title privately, and also publicly in the end (see Matt. xvi. 16, 17 ; and xxvi. 63, 64) j but He did not commonly or early use it. Two names He used, the one with equal freedom in Judaea and Galilee, The Son of Man ; the other mostly in His debates with the Jewish leaders at Jerusalem, The Son of God. Both of these were — so far as meeting the expectation of the Jews went — incognito titles. We must, in studying them, put aside the idea that Jesus took either of these names from the Old Testament and used it because it was an understood equivalent for the Messiah. Neither of them was such a title. That passage in Daniel (vii. 13), usually supposed to contain one of them should be translated, not, "like to the Son of Man," but "like unto a son of man," and it merely conveyed that the kingdom of the saints of the Most High was typified by a human figure, while the types of the former and lower kingdoms were bestial figures — a lion, a bear, a leopard. And again, although the Old Testament texts — "Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee" (Psa. ii. 7); "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam. vii. 14) ; and " I will make him my first- born" (Psa. Ixxxix. 27) — were taken as Messianic, it was only in a vague, honorific, and comparatively distant sense that the Messiah was expected to be a son of God. That these two names were not recognised by the people as distinct Messianic titles is plain from the fact that, after Jesus had long and often spoken of Himself as the Son of Man, and the Son of God, they still asked, " Who is this Son of Man?" and said, " If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. " 3 34 OUR LORD'S TEACHING From whence, then, came these two titles which Jesus applied to Himself? If they were not taken from the Old Testament as prophetic synonyms for the Messiah, and were practically new to His hearers, whence came they? We answer, they came out of His own heart. They were the expression of His own consciousness of Himself.^ Two things He felt and knew Himself in experience to be, the one of which brought Him into profound fellowship with men, while the other kept Him in intimate fellowship with God. Out of the former consciousness He called Himself "the Son of Man " ; out of the latter, " The Son of God." First let us study the title, " The Son of Man "—that pathetic title, in the utterance of which we may almost perceive a thrill in the voice of Jesus. Two chief truths are conveyed by it, the reality of the humanity of Jesus ("Son of Man"), and the uniqueness of it (** The Son of Man "). * ' Son of Man " is a Hebraism which expresses the possession of true human nature, with its characteristic weakness and creaturely dependence, with its character- Istic eminence in creation, also, and its characteristic glory on account of God's condescension to it. " When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained ; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honour " (Ps. viii. 3-5). Jesus by taking the name *• Son of Man " signified His sharing in this lot at once mean and high, of which Pascal said : " If you exalt man, I will abase him; if you abase him, I will exalt him." He expressed also by it His community of feeling with men. His sharing in human affections and interests, His true experience of human life. His liability to temptation, His exposure like other men to hunger and thirst, suffer- ing and death. 1 The title "The Son of Man," does indeed occur for the Messiah in the book of Enoch, written in the century before our Lord ; but that is a book which we cannot think of as either a source or a mould of our Lord's teaching. HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF 35 But, besides all this, in naming Himself, The Son of Man — of which the equivalent in English idiom is, shortly, The Man — He described Himself as the unique and ideal Man, the Man in whom humanity is summed up, and the "fulness of the race made visible," who is the Head and Representative not of the Jews only, but of all nations of men, in whom both sexes, and all ranks, learned and unlearned, men of thought and men of action find example and sympathy. This is a title by which Jesus de-judaises Himself, as has been said, and places Himself in such relation to the whole race of men that their enemies are His enemies, their sorrows His, their burdens His. He is bound up with their destiny. And as the race is so summed up and represented in Him, He is, in St. Paul's language, the second Adam. Coming now to the other name and title used for Him- self by Jesus, *' The Son of God " (which we meet with most frequently in the Gospel of St. John, though not there alone), we find here again two chief things implied — the reality of His Sonship, and the uniqueftess of it. In the discourses or debates of Jesus with the leaders of the Jews at Jerusalem, what we find Him most fre- quently pressing on them is the reality and intimacy of His Sonship with God. These debates are profoundly interesting, beginning with that unsurpassed example of them in the fifth chapter. As we read them we are startled at first, for it seems as if Jesus were violating His own rule, not to give that which is holy to the un- clean, nor to cast pearls before swine. To men incredu- lous and hostile He discloses the secret ways of His intercourse with His Father, and the beauty of the love that expressed itself in that intercourse. After His first words, so surprising for the nearness to God which they assume : '* My Father worketh even until now, and I work," He goes on to tell of the absolute dependence of the Son on the Father, and the entire acceptance by the Son of the Father's will. We think it worthy of a true child to say, " I cannot but obey my father." This 36 OUR LORD'S TEACHING •' cannot" is noble. It is in the same moral sphere as Luther's heroic, "Here I stand, I can do no other : so help me Godl" Similarly Jesus says, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner." *' I can of myself do nothing." '* I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (John v. 19, 30). ** I spake not from myself; but the Father which sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak " (John xii. 49); "I am come in my Father's name" (John v. 43). Jesus represents Himself also as constantly, like a true Son, watching the Father's example, and open in ear to the Father's words ; while the Father again in His love to the Son has no reserves with Him, and does not withhold from Him the greatest powers. ** The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth : and greater works than these will he shew him, that ye may marvel." "The Father hath given all judgement unto the Son ; that all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." "As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself" (John v. 20, 23, 26). What did Jesus intend by this openness to men so hostile ? His chief purpose doubtless was to influence their convictions, that they might be saved (John v. 34), to prove Himself the Son by the most direct and con- vincing of all proofs, viz. that of laying open to them His actual and constant filial intercourse with God, in the beauty and perfect naturalness of it which could not be feigned. The reality of it would be proved by its simple beauty. He allowed, as it were, ray after ray of His filial glory to shine forth upon them ; and had they not been utterly blinded by prejudice they would have felt how truly from the heart Jesus spoke, and would have seen those rays of His glory to be so sweet and heavenly that their faith would have been won. The Sonship of Jesus is real ; it is also unique. There is, indeed, in much that Jesus says about His intercourse HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF 37 with His Father, nothing different in kind from that son- ship with God which is possible for us, and is familiar in the experience of all true children of God. But there is a manifest difference in degree. His intercourse with the Father is perfect, complete, and unmarred by sin. All that Jesus says or does He knows to be of God. ** I do nothing of myself, but, as the Father taught me, I speak these things " (John viii. 28). Jesus was conscious of no barrier, "no film of separation between Himself and the Being of all beings. " *' He that sent me is with me; he hath not left me alone ; for I do always the things that are pleasing to him " Qohn viii. 29). So Jesus calls Himself the Son of God, or the Son. He is the Son as no one else is, from the completeness with which His Sonship is realised and constantly lived out. But another question is of profound interest to us. Does Jesus teach the uniqueness of His Sonship on other grounds ? Does He make Himself not merely the ideai. and perfect Son, but the eternal Son ? Does He teach anywhere His pre-existence before coming into the world, or His eternity of being, or His equality with the Father ? It is unmistakable that He is the Son of God as no one else is among men, in perfection of communion, un- broken and complete, not marred by sin, never wanting in full response either on His part or on the Father's. The terms in which this communion is described seem to require the doctrinal faith in which we have been brought up, that Jesus is of one essence with the Father, and one in eternal being with Him. But does Jesus anywhere say so much as this of Himself? In many pass- ages He speaks so that nothing short of it seems implied. His pre-existence is surely involved in such sayings as this : "I came out from the Father, and am come into the world : again, I leave the world, and go unto the Father " (John xvi. 28). We may say with much certainty that it is implied in this: "Glorify thou me , . . with the glory which I had with thee before the world was " (John xvii. 5). And, though the expression, ** I and the Father are one " (John x. 30) may be understood of a 38 OUR LORD'S TEACHING moral yinity, and not expressly of a unity of essence — though this may with difficulty be so taken — in that other saying of Jesus, ^'Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii. 58), that timeless " I am," cannot, we think, be understood as ex- pressing less than eternal being. The words were sacred to Jewish hearers as the name of the self-existent God revealed to Moses (Exodus iii. 14), and Jesus could not have spoken them to such hearers in a quite lower sense. Jesus accepted also that supreme confession of Thomas, in making which this last of the eleven disciples became the first — "My Lord and my God" (John xx. 28). Our faith, then, in Jesus as the Eternal Son of God, may stay itself not only on the unique communion with God which we see Him enjoying, but on His own belief and claim and testimony. It is not meant that there are no other grounds for this great faith. There is also the apostolic teaching to which reference was made in the beginning of this chapter. And perhaps if the faith of most Christian people were closely inquired into, it would be found to rest largely on their own experience. They have felt the change and blessing which have reached them through communion with Jesus to be nothing short of divine. He has to them, as it has been expressed, " the value of God," and they cannot give Him any lower name than that of the Eternal Son. We have been concerned, however, in this chapter only with our Lord's teaching and with what it, by itself, conveys. Let us end by taking account of the value to us of the truths about the person of Jesus, which we find con- tained in each 'of these three titles, The Son of God, The Son of Man, and The Christ. I. The Eternal Sonship of Jesus is not a doctrine of merely intellectual interest. Who Jesus was — on this depends our thought of God, the most vital thought in our moral and spiritual life. If Jesus be the Eternal Son, then how grand an act of condescension was His being sent into the world ! That God should have sent §ome exalted creature as His messenger, or have raised HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIMSELF 39 up a man of supreme goodness and gift, would indeed have been a token of His thought for men. But if He sent His Son, who was eternally with Him, He came in a true sense Himself. In Jesus we have God, as it were, translated into human speech. Jesus is the express image of God, and in His suffering and death, if He be the only begotten Son, we feel that God gives Himself for us. He does the utmost that Love prompts, or is able to do. We have final assurance that the world in which we find ourselves is governed by Love, that Love is creation's final law. In spite of all sins, sorrows, and contrary appearances, the most perfect optimism of faith is vindi- cated. God's name, " The Father," is justified and sustained. Our creed may well begin with the words, " I believe in God the Father Almighty." When once we have felt what the Eternal Sonship of Jesus implies, we cannot part with it. Without it God's love seems to fall greatly below His power. His power, shown in the visible universe of suns and stars, needs some exhibition of His love equally infinite and impressive, if the balance of the glory of His character is to be main- tained. This we find in the incarnation of the Eternal Son. 2. The title, the Son of Man, is of almost equal value to us. The reality of the manhood of Jesus, when first apprehended, has been as salvation to many, so great has been the impulse from finding Him so near us in kinship and experience. What comfort it has been to human souls to pray to One who can understand us so perfectly, because He lived and felt as we do ! In temptation or suffering how sustaining has been the thought: "Jesus was tempted as I am;" "Jesus suffered as I suffer ;" "Jesus learned obedience through the things which He suffered, even as I must now learn it." And as we think of the wealth of being now possessed by the Son of Man, and of the glory of His filial nearness to God, all human burdens seem lightened, and human hopes raised higher. The whole future of our race is brightened by the belief that the Son of Man belongs to the race, and is its Head and Representative. 40 OUR LORD'S TEACHING 3. The third title, the Christ (or Anointed One), has also to us still, and not only to the Jews of His time, its particular value and significance. It assures us that Jesus is He toward whom the great religious history of the Old Testament, and indeed of the old world con- verged. The working of God in that history culminated in Him. And now, as His words abide, *' All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth " (Matt. xxviii. 18), we believe that the course of the world's history is directed towards, and will finally culminate in. His second coming. HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 41 CHAPTER VI HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN I, Bright side : Worth of men taught by Jesus' words, by His deeds, and especially by His Incarnation itself. This worth rests on the Fatherhood of God. Contrast of non- Christian ideas and practice — 2, Dark side: Sin in man is (i) of awful magnitude and guilt, (2) universal, (3) original, (4) too inward for himself to cast out — !NIan not wholly evil — Are all men children of God ? — In knowledge, moral feeling, and freewill all akin to God ; so all potentially and ideally His chil- dren — In character and privileges otherwise ; so not all really — Full seriousness of Jesus' teaching completed by His doctrine of Satan — Tragedy and glory of man's state ; yet (i) all redeemable, and (2) redemption suffi- cient for all. T T may well seem strange to us that man is so difficult a ■'■ subject of inquiry for man himself. Mysteries pre- sent themselves in our own nature which are very bafiling to us. They have been subjects of discussion for the greatest minds since serious thought began, and still, in many cases, the questions that have been raised remain unsettled ; no answers have been agreed upon. We turn, then, to Jesus, of whom it is said that " He knew what was in man," and in whose teaching we have a confidence that is absolute. We ask, What is the character of His teaching about man ? Especially we ask,^ Is it bright or dark ? High or mean ? Hopeful or unhopeful ? I. The teaching of Jesus has this great and constant brightness, that it always conveys to us a surpassing sense 42 OUR LORD'S TEACHING of the value of men — of the worth, indeed, of every in- dividual man. Words of His readily occur to us of great weight on this subject, and questions He asked bearing on it, to which no answer was expected just because the truth implied was too great and evident for answer to be needed. "Fear not ... ye are of more value than many sparrows" (Matt. x. 31). "What shall a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life ? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life ? " (Matt. xvi. 26). "How much then is a man of more value than a sheep ? " (Matt. xii. 12). That in the view of Jesus the least important human being is of great value, according to the divine and true reckoning, comes out in His frequent language of deep consideration for the poor, in His surprising words about children, and in the indignation with which He was moved when His disciples forbade the children to be brought to Him for His blessing. "Blessed are ye poor " (Luke vi. 20). " The poor have good tidings preached to them " (Matt xi. 5). " Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me " (Matt, xviii. 5). "I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always be- hold the face of my Father which is in heaven " (Matt, xviii. 10). " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me " (Matt. XXV. 40). Perhaps nowhere in His teaching is the value of one human soul in God's sight more strikingly con- veyed than when he speaks the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, and adds the words, *' I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth" (Luke xv. 10). Besides express words of Jesus on this subject, there is even greater force in what He constantly implies. The weight of earnestness with which all His teaching is laden implies the preciousness of those He ministered to, and of all to whom His words would be carried. His earnestness would be without reason if the life of man were not eventful in its course, and most eventful in its issue. The deep compassion also of Jesus for individual HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 43 sufferers, and His gracious acts of healing, show the same estimate of their importance. But the very greatest indication of the value Jesus saw in men is His presence in the world at all — His coming into it, and the errand on which He came. *' The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matt. xx. 28). That the Eternal Son of God should become man is an event so stupendous that it taxes to the utmost our powers of belief, and that it should have taken place for the sake of men is a testi- mony to their value in God's sight that is beyond all words. By the incarnation, as by nothing else, it is brought home to us "that, in the sight of God, the stability of the heavens is of less importance than the moral growth of a human spirit." ^ If we ask here what gives so great worth to manhood in the view of Jesus, the answer is that the foundation of this, as of all His teaching, is His doctrine of God. If God be ** The Father," if the purpose of God in making men was that they should be His children, and if He has endowed them for so great a place in His universe, their value must be in a manner infinite. No limits can be set to the value of a man if he may be God's child, and may contribute to the beatitude of God by loving Him as a child. The meanest beggar, when thought of as capable of an immortal life in the fellowship of God, is clothed, to our vision of faith, with more than royal dignity. We shall appreciate better the element in the teaching of Jesus with which we are now dealing if we put it in contrast with what the opponents of Christianity have believed. All forms of atheism carry with them a pain- ful loss of value in human life. If, indeed, there be no God, man is a creature formed without love or thought, and destined soon to be nothing. He is (as some materi- alists have scornfully said) " a digestive tube." With the first great writer against Christianity — Celsus — the insignificance of man is a favourite theme. He scorns 1 The Foundations 0/ Belie/ {Pu J. Balfour), p. 347. 44 OUR LORD'S TEACHING the Christian ideas of man's importance. And in our day the discoveries of astronomy, which show the earth to be so small a speck in the universe, and the whole duration of man upon it so small a segment of time — these, it is urged, make man too insignificant for the Christian doctrine of his redemption to be credible. Even a religion like Mohammedanism, which confesses a personal God but thinks of Him only as Sovereign, not as Father, weighs down the human soul with a sense of its insigni- ficance under a God so remote and absolute. Christianity surpasses all other forms of belief in inspiring those who receive it with an elevating and strengthening sense of the infinite worth of their own being to themselves and to God. And in the actual world of affairs and the customary ways of nations we find, when we survey them, that everywhere respect for human life, concern for the good of men, interest in their happiness, and sympathy for their sufferings, rise in proportion to faith in Jesus and familiarity with His teaching. It is in Christian countries that hospitals for the sick, asylums for the insane, refuges for the tempted, homes for orphan children, and all the various energies of philanthropy originate and multiply. It is in Christian countries that the lead has been taken in the suppression of the slave trade, the abolition of slavery, the milder and more just punishment of criminals, and the endeavour to make punishment reformatory. In the one case of a pagan nation beginning to rise out of callous disregard of human suffering — the case of the Japanese — we find that, in organising bands of relief for the sick of both sides in war, they have unconsciously owned the teaching of Jesus to be the great spring of such merciful regard for the maimed and suffering, by enrolling the helpers under the flag of the Red Cross. 2. Thus far, the teaching of Jesus about man is bright and hopeful. But now we come to His teaching about human sin, and this is undoubtedly dark. (i) The whole tone of Jesus in speaking of the sin that is wrought among men shows that He reckoned it HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 45 to be of awful magnitude arid guilt. The judgment He foretells as awaiting sin is strict, not omitting to take account even of an idle word. It is also sternly severe, the punishment of one single sin which He names being solemnly declared by Him to be worse than for the man to have a great millstone hanged about his neck, and be cast into the depths of the sea. Nowhere do we get such an impression of the guilt and woe of sin as from the holy mind of Jesus, revealed in His life and teaching. (2) Jesus also speaks of sin as universal in men. He assumes this rather than declares it. He gives as His errand into the world of men, "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost " (Luke xix. lo). And speaking to His own followers, including even the men whom He had chosen to be with Himself, He took their sin for granted. " If ye, being evil," He said. (3) Further, sin, according to the teaching of Jesus, is original in men. Many endeavours have been made to take a lighter view of man's condition than this. In the last century the ideas of Rousseau had great currency — that men are born good, that left in a state of nature they would continue good, and that it is owing to outside influences, from corrupt civilisation and the artificial character of society, that they go astray and become evil. Almost nobody now would take such a view. The thought of our generation is far more serious about man's natural state than this. Certainly the view of Rousseau cannot be reconciled with the teaching of Jesus. "From within," He says, "out of the heart of men, e\al thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lascivious- ness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness : all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man " (Mark vii. 21, 22). This is a terrible list, and there is no doubt that Jesus represents these as natural products of the human heart. They come "from within." They do not need to be brought from without by example or contagion. Every man born into the world has sin of 46 OUR LORD'S TEACHING himself. The teaching of Jesus implies, and the universal conscience, rightly appealed to, gives assent, that sin is original in man. No one who has learnt of Jesus would say, ** Men are born good." (4) Sin is so deep in us that we cannot of ourselves cast it out, or rise above it. For this we need something which is beyond our own power, — a new birth by the Spirit of God. " Ye must be born anew," said Jesus. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6, 7). So sad an account of man's sinful state has been made a reproach to the teaching of Jesus. But it has commended Christianity to many of the best and wisest men. A missionary of the Church of Scotland, much honoured in his life and still remembered, owed the restoration of his faith in a time of great doubt specially to this feature of our Lord's teaching. As he read in the New Testament, the conviction came powerfully to him — " This book is true. I find here a true account of my heart." And to our great poet, Robert Browning, the first of arguments for Christianity was that it rejected the lie of men being born good. I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons ; this to begin — 'Tis the faith that launched, point-blank, her dart At the head of a lie — taught original sin. But, serious as is the teaching of Jesus about sin in man, we must not exaggerate it. He did not say that there is no good in man. Even that word of His which we quoted, *' If ye being evil," shows when we read its context that He did not reckon men wholly evil. He recognised that they had good affections, from the truth and warmth of which within their breasts they might rise to an apprehension of the affections of God Himself. ** If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matt. vii. II). He recognises here that they had a real com- HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 47 munity of character with God. Even in addressing publicans and sinners, or men still more remote in character from Himself — the Pharisees — ^Jesus took for granted that their moral nature could be appealed to, that their hearts might be rightly affected by such a story as that of the prodigal son, and that they were not without capacity to judge, of their own selves, what was right (Luke xii. 57). Thus far it appears that the teaching of Jesus about man is in part bright, in part dark. Very bright, because of the great preciousness He sees in every man ; very dark, because of the sin He sees — original, universal, and terrible in depth and prevalence. And though Jesus recognises the good that still is in man. He regards the sin as too deep and intimate for him to rid himself of it by his own effort. This double account of man is reflected in the differing answers given to the question. Are all men children of God, or only some men ? This seems a simple question, about which the followers of Jesus, to whom His teaching is supreme and final, should be agreed. But it is not so. Some answer confidently, Yes, others as firmly, No. In order to decide we must clearly see what we mean by men being children of God. The first necessity in settling dififerences of opinion is to be agreed about the meaning of our words and phrases, or to see in what varying senses we use them. Now when we describe men as "children of God," we may be thinking of their faculties^ or we may be thinking of their character^ or we may be thinking of their privileges. All men have faculties or capacities which constitute in them a likeness and kinship to God Himself. This dignity belongs to all men. We speak now, of course, of their spiritual part, the soul. Jesus (Matt. X. 28) recognises two parts in man, a material and a spiritual, of which the spiritual is the more important. In that spiritual part man has the faculty of knowledge^ which, however small it be in comparison, is like God's own knowledge. So a great astronomer spoke of him- 48 OUR LORD'S TEACHING self in his scientific discoveries as " thinking God's thoughts after Him." Man has also moral sense and moral affection ; he can know right from wrong, and is capable of loving the right — a truly God-like faculty. So a great philosopher likens it, in sublimity, to the starry heavens above us. And one thing more man has which completes his endowment as a moral personality, akin in nature to God, — he \ia.% freewill. Without this he could not be a son of God. Without it he might obey God as an automaton, or as a slave ; but to love and obey as a son he must be free. These faculties in men fit them to be children of God ; and in the fact that God has so endowed them, we have assurance that His design is that they should be His children. So far all men are His children. But if, when we speak of men as children of God, we are thinking of their character, or of privileges which they have which go with a certain character, if we mean the great privileges of children of God — a place in the heavenly Father's household, the special love He has to children who love Him, and the eternal inheritance which He has prepared for His children — if these are what we think of, we cannot say that all men are children of God. Very many have forfeited them by turning away from God, and rebelling against Him. If we must call such men sons, they are lost sons. The name of son in any sense of privilege, inheritance, or assured hope does not belong to them. It belongs only to those who turn to God in that freewill which they received for this very end, that they might give to God the trust and obedience of sons. So, while Jesus speaks constantly of God as "The Father," He is found to speak sometimes as if only some among men were God's children : " Blessed are the peacemakers : for they shall be called sons of God." '* Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you ; that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 9, 44, 45). We may say then, in accordance with the teaching of Jesus, that all men are potentially and ideally children of God ; this is HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 49 what they have capacity for, and are meant for by their Maker, and we may therefore call God " Father of all." But not all men are children of God really^ in standing, character, and royal heirship. In harmony with this St. John says, ** As many as received him (Jesus), to them gave he the right to become children of God " (John i. 12); and St. Paul says, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God " (Rom. viii. 14). The seriousness of the teaching of Jesus about man and about sin does not come fully into view unless we take note that, in the Gospels, Jesus makes us aware of a kingdom of evil in the background of human life, with a personal ruler of that kingdom and servants under him. The reality of this personal Evil One and his "demons," as they are called in the Gospels, is certainly a part of the teaching of Jesus. It stands out far more clearly in His discourses than in the Old Testament, as is evident from the number and character of the names by which our Lord speaks of this hostile power — "Satan" (Matt. iv. 10; xii. 26; Mark iv. 15; Lukexxii. 31; Johnxiii. 27). "The evil one" (Matt. v. 37; vi. 13; xiii. 19, 38; Johnxvii. 15). " Beelzebub the prince of the devils " or demons (Matt. xii. 27). Man is spoken of by Jesus as in mysterious contact, in those depths of his being from which his thoughts come, both with the kingdom of light and with a kingdom of darkness. He is open to suggestions and influences from God, to temptations from Satan. " Evil is . . . not merely a characteristic of humanity and of the moral atmosphere in which humanity moves, but a supernatural element affecting the world and man from the outside. Temptation is not merely a reality, address- ing man's sense and soliciting his will, but it is a living Power, the representative of a kingdom hostile to the Divine."! There is, indeed, nothing in the teaching of Jesus like the Persian doctrine of the Wicked One having an equal share with the Good One in the making of man ; and there is no countenance to the idea once so rife, of matter being essentially evil, and the body of man the 1 Tulloch, Christian Doctrine of Sin, p. 106. so OUR LORD'S TEACHING hopeless sphere of evil. Nor is the power of the wicked one put on the same level with that of God. By the finger of God Jesus casts out devils, and speaks of Him- self as the stronger, who is to bind the strong (Satan) (Matt. xii. 29). But that the power of the tempter is very great is seen in the temptations of Jesus Himself, who "suffered being tempted," and in the title He more than once gives to Satan, " The prince of this world " (John xii. 3 1 ; xiv. 30 ; xvi. 11), that is to say, the living head by whom human society, alienated from God, is swayed, and with whom it is in communion. Altogether the view which Jesus gives of humanity is one in which tragedy and glory are mingled. Guided by Jesus, we think of man as great in capacity and nature, akin in these to God Himself, great also in the value set on him by God, and the design God has in making him ; but hanging between heaven and hell, knowing good and responsive to it, while a power from hell — for such is sin — has a hold on his nature which he can- not shake off. He can hear God's voice, and he is open to suggestion and inspiration from God. But he is also open to suggestion from the head and source of evil, Satan. He has freewill ; his freedom cannot be overborne by any force of the tempter ; it is constantly implied that he need not sin unless he himself wills to do it. But in this freedom is involved the sadness that he can resist even the gracious will of God in His Son Jesus. ** Ye will not come to me, that ye may have life '* (John v. 40). ** How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !" (Matt, xxiii. 37). If man chooses rightly he becomes, in the full and glorious sense, a child of God. If by choice and habit he yields himself to evil, he becomes a child of the devil (John viii. 42, 44). But still the teaching of Jesus in regard to man leans not to pessimism and hopelessness, but to optimism and hope. This on account of two things : (i) His view of men implies that all are redeemable, capable of full HIS TEACHING ABOUT MAN 51 deliverance from the guilt and power of sin. If He teaches that that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that men cannot fit themselves for the kingdom of God, He also teaches that they may be born of the Spirit. That solemn word, "Ye must be bom anew," implies this joyful one, " Ye may be bom anew *' ; and to what a height of perfection and glory men may be brou^t appears from these words of Jesus in communion with His Father — *'The glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them ; that they maybe one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one" (John xvii. 22, 23). (2) Jesus announces a redemption that is meant for all and sufficient for all. That it is meant for all is implied in His words, ** Preach the gospel to the whole creation " (Mark xvi. 15). That it is sufficient for all is implied in the fact of Himself, the Redeemer, being the Eternal Son of God, and the Holy Spirit whom He sends being also divine. The scale of God's redemption — too great for belief by those who assume the insignificance of man — corresponds to the full greatness of the world's need ; shows infinite grace grappling with the immensity of human sin, temptation, and suffering ; justifies the joy of the mother when a child is born into the world (John xvi. 21), and makes hope prevail in our thoughts regarding man. 52 OUR LORD'S TEACHING CHAPTER VII HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS I. He corrects and raises the ideas of His time — i. In the direction oi inwardness: (i) illustrated from His dealing with (a) ceremonial, {b) the Sabbath, [c) fastings, and [d) externals in worship ; (2) true righteousness must be in thought as well as act ; and (3) it must be spon- taneous — 2. In the direction of width .- (i) He requires positive service to men — (2) magnanimity in conduct — and (3) gives their due place to the "feminine " virtues. H. He makes two still more fundamental changes, both of them by revealing " The Father " : (i) ^ new ultimate standard of righteousness ; the great Christian rule, * ' that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven " — Jesus' own life the model — (2) A new motive for righteousness — His teaching unequalled and final, but poorly realised in the Church. I. A S a teacher of righteousness, Jesus did not need to •^*' begin at the very beginning. Wherever He had appeared in the world, though it had been among people far lower than the Jews, He would have found that they already had some ideas of right and wrong. The Jews, to whom He did come, and among whom He preached, had been long disciplined by God and taught by His prophets from Moses downwards. They had those Ten Commandments which we still use as heads of duty to God and man. They had many other rules of life and laws of worship which we can read in the Old Testament. And they had, besides, a great system of traditions about conduct, whose purpose was to fence round these divinely- HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 53 given rules, and secure them against transgression. Jesus had this whole system to start from — a system partly of God and partly of man, in its nature partly permanent, partly temporary. His work, then, as a teacher of righteousness, in the time and country in which He appeared, was to correct and raise the ideas of righteousness which He found prevailing. He exhibits the true righteousness — that of the kingdom of God — largely by setting it in contrast with the righteous- ness taught and practised among the Jews of His day. The correction He makes of that righteousness shows itself in two main directions — in the direction of inward- ness and in the direction of width. As we listen to His teaching we perceive that the righteousness of the king- dom of God is not external, like that of the Jews, but inward or spiritual, not narrow like theirs, but wide. I. We shall illustrate first this inwardness. (l) {a) One element in the religion of the Jews which we nowadays have difficulty in appreciating was their ceremonial righteousness. We have to go to the East among Mohammedans or Hindoos to find parallels to it in our time. There we discover that it is against the religion of a Hindoo to eat cow's flesh, and that for a Brahmin the touch of a man of low caste — even his shadow falling on the Brahmin's food — is defiling. So among the Jews it was against the law to eat the flesh of swine, of hares, and of many other animals, and a man became religiously unclean if he touched a dead body, and in other physical ways. The Law of Moses so en- joined ; we believe therefore that there was a divine purpose in it for the time then present. But there is a great danger which accompanies all ceremonial religion. Wherever ceremonial righteousness has a place in religion side by side with true moral righteousness, the former is apt to get the chief place. It is a far easier way of being religious than to do right and to be good. There is thus a tendency to emphasise the ceremonial and neglect the moral element in religion, and you come in time to the monstrous result of people who are very religious and at 54 OUR LORD'S TEACHING the same time utterly immoral. So it is now among Hindoos, many of whom have far more sense of sin in eating cow's flesh than in lying. The Jews of our Lord's time had much of this evil leaven, especially the Pharisees, their religious leaders. Extortion, excess, and cruel neglect of parents, were compatible in them with punctilious religious strictness (see Mark vii. 9-13 ; Matt, xxiii. 23-25). Jesus did away at a single sweep with all this cere- monial righteousness. Even what had a place in the Law of Moses He abrogated. He did so with a plain appeal to the moral sense and common sense of His hearers. He called them to consider that meats could not defile a man morally, because they do not go into his hearty but into his belly ; they do not reach his spirity but only his body. So Jesus, in one word and appeal, " made all meats clean." He carried the thoughts of His hearers past this outward religion to what was truly moral, and to what was inward. He warned them of the great source of real defilement, the heart of man itself. " From within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed .... these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man" (Mark vii. 21). There are indications that Jesus Himself conformed to the ceremonial law, as being a Jew and living under the Old Testament dispensation, but His teaching in- volved the freeing of His Church and kingdom from all ceremonial bonds. {b) A similar change He made in regard to rules for the observance of the Sabbath. Strict abstinence from labour on the Sabbath had come to be regarded among the Jews as a thing in itself pleasing to God ; and this strictness was systematised by rules, many of which were foolish, as that a tailor might not carry his needle about his person on the Sabbath, because this would be bearing a burden, and a man might not wear on that day sandals weighted with nails. The Jewish teachers thus dealt with the Sabbath as if it were an end in itself, and as if man had been made for Sabbath- HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 55 keeping, as he had been made for purity, truth, devotion to God, mercy, and other graces of character inherently noble. But Jesus taught that "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath " (Mark ii. 27). Its observances were not ends in themselves, but means to an end — that end being man's true good in body and spirit. The whole system of Pharisaic rules thereby fell to the level of ceremonial, with no value in their punc- tilious observance. Jesus justified His disciples' neglect of them by the example of David, who disregarded the ceremonial rule against himself and his men eating the shewbread, which was only for the priests. In appealing to this, and in quoting the prophet's words, *' I desire mercy and not sacrifice," Jesus showed the Law, fully understood, to be on His side, and that He was not de- stroying, but fulfilling it, and bringing out its latent ideal. The Sabbath being made for man. He claimed, as the Son of Man — the Head of humanity, — to be Lord of it, that is to say, to make His own use of it, and direct His Church in using it. He refused to be hindered from healing on that day, saying, *' It is lawful to do good on the sabbath day" (Matt xii. I2). The Christian con- science, accordingly, has been set free by Jesus from bondage to formal rules about the Sabbath ; and in the use of this liberty Christian men and the Christian Church will lay upon themselves just such rule and ordering of the day as shall best turn to account this great means and opportunity for man's good. {c) Regular fastings on set days or at set seasons are also treated by Jesus as of the nature of ceremonial, and as no part of the righteousness of His kingdom (see Mark ii. 18-22). Abstinence from food and from the pleasures of life He does anticipate as a natural consequence of religious sorrow, but He does not command it. It must be the expression of inward feeling. His disciples did not fast while they had the joy of His company, and in the report of a saying of His in our authorised version, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" (Mark ix. 29), the last two words are an S6 OUR LORD'S TEACHING interpolation. Fasting fixed for recurring day or season is inconsistent with His kingdom, because it may be contrary to inward truth. " Can the sons of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them ? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast" (Mark ii. 19). In the Christian Church, which enjoys by His Spirit so much of the presence of the Bridegroom, fasting cannot have the place it had among the Jews. The Christian conscience has liberty here also, and the Christian man is free to fast or not to fast, to deny himself or to use what is pleasant in life, accord- ing as he is prompted by inward feeling and by experience of inward profit. {d) The great principle of spirituality and inwardness which underlies the changes now mentioned has sublime expression, in regard to worship, in the word which Jesus spoke at the well of Samaria — *' God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth " (John iv. 24). ** Such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers" (iv. 23). By this word Jesus taught that the acceptance of worship by the Father has no dependence on holy place or prescribed ceremony, or priestly mediation, or anything external to the inward truth of the worshipper — his true thought of God, and his sincerity in drawing near to Him. (2) Another advance of great importance in inwardness of moral teaching has prominence in the Sermon on the Mount. In that " Manifesto of His kingdom," we find Jesus dealing with some of the great abiding moral rules of life of which the Ten Commandments are a summary, — with those particularly which we reckon as of the second table, containing our duty to men. And here, while the Jews thought only of these being obeyed in deed, Jesus required that they be obeyed in thought. So He carried righteousness inwards. He quoted the sixth commandment, and, whereas it forbade murder, the act, He forbade hatred, the thought. He quoted the seventh commandment, and, whereas it forbade adultery, He for- bade the lustful look. He quoted the words, '* Thou shalt HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS $7 not forswear thyself" — a form of the ninth commandment — and required in His kingdom that inward truthfulness of character which expresses itself, without need of oaths, in plain simplicity of speech. Passing on to almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, He made the one great test of their value to be their inward motive. If they were done to be seen of men, if the thoughts in them were not true to God, they were worthless. (3) Yet another element of inwardness in the moral teaching of Jesus is too important to be left unnoticed. The righteousness of the kingdom of God which He preached was a spontaneous a.nd/ree righteousness. No righteousness is up to the level of that kingdom if it be done from fear, or even if it be done only from a sense of duty. A man is not at the height of the righteous- ness which Jesus pointed to, and exemplified in Himself, unless he does what is right of his own liking, unless he does it because he himself chooses it and prefers it, and his affection goes with it. So inward is the righteous- ness of the kingdom, it cannot be overlaid upon a spirit different from it ; it is the natural outgoing of a spirit that is good. "The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things : and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matt. xii. 35). ** Make the tree good, and its fruit good " (Matt, xii. 33). "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" (Matt. vii. 16). So the ethical teaching of Jesus in St. Matthew is in organic unity with the mystical teaching in St. John. The Sermon on the Mount requires the new birth spoken of to Nicodemus, and the kingdom of God brought in by Jesus is the beginning of the time of which our poet Wordsworth rejoiced to think, when liking and duty will be one, when love and joy will of themselves be sufficient guides of conduct, — Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be. When love is an unerring light, And joy its own seciu-ity. 58 OUR LORD'S TEACHING 2. We shall illustrate next the advance Jesus made on the Jewish idea of righteousness by zvidening it. (i) While the main idea of the Jews in regard to right- eousness was of not doing evil and not transgressing the Law, — for the language of the Law usually was, " Thou shalt not " — the righteousness taught by Jesus, both in word and example, was one of active well-doing. His own life was wholly one of beneficence. He went about doing good. He said that He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. In His farewell intercourse with His disciples He washed their feet — type of all humblest ministries — and then He said, " I have given you an example, that ye also should do as I have done to you" (John xiii. 15). He made greatness in the new kingdom to be determined by service. " Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister ; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant" (Matt. xx. 27). The great sin, as foreshown in His vision of judgment, was the good that had been left undone — ** Inasmuch as ye did it not," or the talent that had been hid useless in the napkin. (2) Another widening and elevating principle of con- duct is contained in His words, "What do ye more than others?" "If ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the Gentiles the same ? " (Matt. v. 46, 47). Jesus calls on His disciples not to be content with the customary ways that are approved in the world. They are to be pioneers of that moral advance which the world stands in need of in every department of life — in trade, in politics, in labour, in social intercourse. Especially the range of well-doing is not to be kept, as it was among Jews, within the bounds of sect or party. Nowhere was the narrowness of the Jew more conspicu- ous than in the limitations of his exclusive and sectarian patriotism. "Love thy neighbour" meant to him only that he should love some other Jew ; but Jesus extended HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 59 the word "neighbour" till it included the Samaritan, and the enemy (Luke x. 37). And when we take this principle, •* What do ye more than others?" along with those most stimulating precepts which we dealt with as examples of paradox in our Lord's teaching (Matt. v. 39-42), we see that the morality He calls for is of the noble kind we describe as heroic. An element of heroism and magnanimity He expects even in the common life of His disciples, in their salutings, lendings, compliances, and forbearings. (3) One other instance of widening. A whole class of virtues first came into their due place in the teaching of Jesus, those which have been called \.\itfe?ninine virtues, the virtues of gentleness and patience. The stronger virtues — those of courage, truth, and rectitude — had long been held in honour, and had found among the Romans and other nations illustrious exemplars. But only since Jesus came and taught among men, by word and by example, have virtues of the gentler class been fully owned as virtues. Before His time they were often despised ; now they are set highest. Patience under injury, forgiveness of enemies, charity of judgment, meekness and personal humility, pity and sympathy with the weak — these are now owned as the highest tokens of character and the most worthy of admiration. The thought of modern times differs radically here from that of ancient times. And the change dates from Jesus. There was before Him, an old world of thought ; since Him, a new world. He effected this partly by His teaching. Putting foremost this new feature of His righteousness, the great sermon began — "Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven " ; " Blessed are the meek"; "Blessed are the merciful"; "Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake." But still more by His example did Jesus change the ideal of righteousness, and widen the conception of it. He was Himself meek and lowly in heart. He was, above all else, the great, patient, loving Sufferer. His death on the Cross it is which has placed a gulf 6o OUR LORD'S TEACHING so wide between our modern ideal of what is good and admirable and the ancient ideal of it that we can never return back. Our modern life, our modern art, our modern social order, all feel the revolution which Jesus made by this great widening of the idea of righteousness. II. But the change which Jesus made cannot be fully seen by reckoning up even those great corrections on the Jewish or Roman rules and ideas of His time. His work in the teaching of righteousness was more funda- mental still and we shall set it forth under two heads : ( I ) He gave men a new ultimate standard of righteousfiess, and (2) He gave them a new motive for being righteous. He did these both at once in giving the new and higher idea of God which He expressed in the name of ♦' Father." (i) Let us first see how this is so in regard to the standard of righteousness. Our ultimate standard of right must be the character of God. With a new and higher thought of God, our sense of duty is also new and higher, for we know that it is God with whom we have to do ; and the human conscience has this divine grandeur in it that it cannot excuse any man from aiming at the highest which he knows. So, from the time when Jesus spoke of God as " The Father," and showed the Father in the mirror of His own life as a Son, all the moral ideas of men began to be raised. This is the root of all the changes in the moral standard which we have already mentioned. From the moment God is known as " The Father " the duty of man is to be a true son of God — to trust Him as a son should, and be like Him morally as a son should. '* That ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 45) : in these words Jesus gave His disciples the great Christian rule of life. What does this rule imply ? The best answer to this question is the life of Jesus Himself. He is the perfect example of the true son of God living in the world. He is the visible Christian ideal. His life and death, more even than His words, are the final Christian law of righteousness, answering the question how man is to be HIS TEACHING OP RIGHTEOUSNESS 6x God-like, and live as a son of God. From this ideal we learn that the central requirements in our duly toward God are filial trust and filial obedience. The trust is illustrated by Jesus' own dependence on His Father (John xvi. 32 ; Matt. xxvi. 53), and encouraged by His many comfortable words about our heavenly Father's care (Matt. vi. 25-33 > ^' I9> 20, 28-31). The obedience is illustrated by Jesus' own filial zeal, " My meat is to do the will of him that sent me " (John iv. 34) ; and by His filial resignation, "Yea, Father, for so it was well- pleasing in thy sight" (Matt. xi. 26) ; "The cup which the Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John xviii. II). From the same ideal of Jesus' life, our duty to men may be summed up in one word. Love — not any soft sentiment of love, but love such as God's own, and such as Jesus manifested in giving Himself for men's redemption, in sympathy, ministry, self-denial, and the Cross. Jesus, in a sublime manner, filled the part of a son of God among men His brethren, and His course is the supreme example of true righteousness to all who believe in Him. In virtue of His life and words together He is the Light of the world (John viii. 12) ; and He so ex- pects His followers to be like Himself, and to act for Him and for His Father, that He says to them, " Ye are the light of the world. . . . Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. v. 14, 16). "As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John xx. 21). (2) Let us now see how the revelation of God as "The Father" gives a new motive for righteousness, and how it is that while Christianity exhibits a far higher standard of what is right, it yet makes attainment more possible. If God is known as " The Father," bestowing His forgiveness on sinners, bestowing His love on the undeserving, blessing them with the rank and privileges of His own children, the impact of so great love and mercy on the soul inevitably calls forth a great answering love, which makes obedience to God a joy. To trust 62 OUR LORD'S TEACHING Him and do the things which please Him become passions of the soul. All the former inducements to righteousness remain, such as a sense of the claim and beauty and reward of righteousness, but there is added a heart won to the side of righteousness, the love of God being shed abroad in it by the Holy Spirit given to it. And not only does the impact of God's love draw forth an answering love to Himself, but a natural instinct requires us to pass on that love to our fellowmen. If we believe that God loves us, we cannot but feel moved to love and serve our brother. So the belief, which we owe to Jesus, of God the Father over all, acting as a moral magnet of infinite power, makes righteousness spontaneous ; for by that belief, when it is received, love is compelled, and love is the fulfilling of the law, according to that summary of righteousness which Jesus gave in two Old Testament texts, ** Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matt, xxii. 37, 39)- No teaching on righteousness equals that of Jesus. The teaching of the Old Testament prophets and psalmists is indeed often very high. But often, also, it drops, as in tones of complaint, or of loss of trust in God, and in prayers for vengeance on enemies. Jesus' teaching moves constantly and calmly at an elevation reached by the prophets only at times. Still more does it surpass the best moral teaching among pagan nations, which often reaches high truths, but is always partial and unequal. And there is this other supremacy in the teaching of Jesus, that His ideal or standard of righteousness is not more unique than is the *' Moral Dynamic," or motive power that He supplies, by which the standard becomes attainable. His teaching on righteousness is, we also claim, a final teaching. It perfectly satisfies the conscience and aspira- tion of man, and will never need to be improved upon. As we read in the Sermon on the Mount, or in the fare- well discourses in St. John, we feel that if men so lived HIS TEACHING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS 63 in act and spirit, they would be in a perfect state ; all the blessedness of right-doing would be theirs. For a higher ideal of righteousness than that of Jesus we should require to find a higher revelation of God than He has made, and a higher example than that of His own life and death. But though the teaching of Jesus is final as an ideal of life, and though we have access in Him to motive power so adequate, it is a reason for great humiliation to the Christian Church that His ideal has been so slowly, and is even still so partially, realised in the Church itself and in the society which is influenced by the Churcli. The moral advances of Christian civilisation have been slow. Evils have been long tolerated which were ulti- mately seen to be unworthy of followers of Jesus. The Church is not, as it should be, a shining testimony to the possibility of purity in an impure world, single- mindedness in a selfish and vain-glorious world, truth in a world of concealments, love in a world still so far from brotherly. And one of the best signs of the Christian Church at the present day is that it seems to be burdened with regret that the righteousness of Christ's kingdom is so little realised in the society of Christian countries even now. There is rising before Christian minds a vision of society penetrated and moved far more than at present by the love which comes of that sense of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, which we owe to Jesus. 64 OUR LORD'S TEACHING CHAPTER VIII THE CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD I. The terms of entrance easy — Salvation is a free gift — The one qualification, readiness to receive it — Faith in Jesus gives this readiness, and so faith saves. 2. The terms also difficult — Receiving salvation involves a great renunciation — This described as (i) repentance, (2) hating kindred and fife, (3) cross-bearing, (4) re- nouncing all possessions — Faith to do this is beyond power of men and needs the power of God — Salvation is therefore a divine mystery — It requires a new birth — Objection to mystery in salvation, and answer — The need of divine grace no bar to salvation. T^^E shall in this chapter apply ourselves to study * ^ what Jesus has taught in regard to the conditions of entrance into the kingdom of God — in other words, the terms of salvation for individual souls. We shall try to bring together His various answers to the questions, "What must I do to be saved?" "What shall I do that I may have eternal life ? " and see what is their full result ; for no one saying of His gives the whole truth : often, indeed, what He says in one place may seem to contradict what He says in another. Sometimes, for example, admission into the kingdom of God appears to be the easiest thing in the world ; at other times nothing seems, from what He says, to be more difficult. I. One thing stands out with plainness and certainty in our Lord's teaching, and our first step will be to set it down, namely, that the highest good, the kingdom o! heaven, is a free gift of God. Salvation is of grace, ENTRANCE INTO KINGDOM OF GOD 65 that is to say, gratis. This fact about it is in the strongest opposition to the idea of our Lord's contemporaries the Pharisees — an idea more or less congenial, perhaps, to every human breast — that salvation and eternal life are to be earned by righteous conduct, and that, in so far as they are gifts of God, they are bestowed first on the most righteous. Utterly opposed to this is the fundamental truth in Jesus' teaching, that the kingdom of God, with eternal life which is the central blessing of the kingdom, is of grace. Jesus says to His disciples, "Freely ye received, freely give " (Matt. x. 8) ; " It is your Father's good pleasure \.o give you the kingdom " (Luke xii. 32) ; " My sheep hear my voice . . . and I give unto them eternal life" (John x. 27, 28). The same truth Jesus sets forth with almost paradoxical emphasis in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matt, xx.) With that method of con- cession to the ideas of His hearers which He often uses, He speaks as if some of these labourers did earn the penny (that is to say, eternal life) by working in the vineyard all the day. This is no more than His concession in another place to the idea of there being persons who need no repentance. Here He uses it to make more distinct, by contrast, the case of the others in the parable who worked only portions of the day, and yet received the penny. So, in the manner most effectual with His audience. He sets forth the truth that eternal life will be given to many who in the service of God have fallen greatly short of earning it, and that, so far as their own righteous- ness avails, the grace of God puts all on one level. This doctrine has its root in that which was the basis of all the teaching of Jesus — His knowledge of God as the Father. If God were simply King, we should expect Him to judge and reward men according to their work. The legal view of salvation would be justified. But as God is a Father, it is in harmony with His character to deal according to grace. Now, if the kingdom is of grace, the condition of entering it must be that we receive the gift. This, accordingly, is the chief among the qualifications for 66 OUR LORD'S TEACHING admission — a readiness to receive it without any proud thought of a claim to it by righteousness, or any despair- ing thought of being excluded from it by unrighteousness. The spirit required is that of the little child — "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein " (Luke xviii. 17). And what makes this readiness to receive? It is faith — faith in Jesus, faith that He came forth from God (John xvi. 30 ; xvii. 8), faith that His gospel of salva- tion is true, and His promises of the kingdom gloriously sufficient. So, as John Wesley preached, " Faith is the beginning of all good in thee, O man ! First believe in Jesus." *• This is the work of God," said Jesus Him- self, " that ye believe on him whom he hath sent " (John vi. 29). But this faith is so sure to be followed by receiving the gift of God, that in the Gospels believ- ing and receiving are spoken of as practically one, and to receive Jesus is the same as to receive eternal life ; for He is the great source of that life. He is the living salvation. Some further proofs and instances may be given here in confirmation of the principle that the kingdom of God is of grace, and that the condition of entering it is not righteousness but faith to receive. Jesus spoke of it as expressly for sinners — " I came not to call the righteous, but sinners " (Mark ii. 17). Great sinners received it, and were filled with a joy and a personal love to Jesus which the ordinary world could not understand, as in the case of the "woman which was a sinner," to whom Jesus said, "Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace " (Luke vii. 36-50). No prefer- ence was given to those who had sinned least, as if they had the first right to be forgiven. Rather, in actual fact, the publicans and harlots went into the kingdom of God before the righteous men of the time (see Matt. xxi. 31). Our Lord told in memorable manner of one publican who entered the kingdom in uttering the prayer "God be merciful to me a sinner" (Luke xviii. 13), while a Pharisee who made his righteousness his claim ENTRANCE INTO KINGDOM OF GOD 67 was rejected. He ended the story with this, which seems to have been one of His often - repeated and favourite sayings — "Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled ; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." It is also a strong confirmation of the doctrine of salvation being a free gift that in every new generation in which it has been preached and believed, this grace of God has been magnified in the changed lives of men of every variety of culture, condition, and nation. 2. Thus far the terms of admission into the kingdom of God seem to be the easiest possible. But there are many sayings of Jesus in which entering the kingdom is spoken of as difficult, and the terms as very hard. ** Strive (He says) to enter in by the narrow door : for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able " (Luke xiii. 24). " Narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it" (Matt. vii. 14). "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children . . , yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple " (Luke xiv. 26-27). ** It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Mark x. 25). These are stem words. No words could be used to make the terms of admission more hard. How are we to understand them? This is the truth they express. The act of receiving the salvation of God is accompanied inwardly by a great act of renunciation. A man who receives the great gift of grace is like one who is offered gold and precious stones, and must first, before he can receive them, empty his hands completely of rubbish and worthless things, or of bad and hurtful things, with which they are filled. The earthly good things we cling to are, in comparison with the things of the kingdom of God, such rubbish : the sins we cling to are worse : and yet to give them up 68 OUR LORD'S TEACHING and cast them from us is very hard. This great act of renunciation is described by Jesus in many ways and by many examples. (i) He calls it repenting. The beginning of His preaching was, *' Repent ye, and believe in the gospel " (Mark i. 15). Repentance, in our ordinary speech, means sorrow for sin and ceasing from it. We cannot receive the gift of God and keep our sin. But when we inquire more deeply what is meant in the Gospels by repentance, we find that it is a complete change of mind and turning to God. The root of all sin is in departing from the living God, and to repent is to renounce our own will, and take the will of God as the guide and rule of our life. Nothing is harder at first than this, which a man feels to be, as it were, losing his own self, or parting from what made his life dear to him. It is self-renunciation. But Jesus says, " Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven " (Matt. vii. 21). To accept the will of the Father, to will to do that will (see John vii. 17), is a first condition of entrance into a kingdom of which that will is the blessed law. (2) Another example and test Jesus gave of the great renunciation, in words already quoted — ' ' If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple " (Luke xiv. 26). How stern this is 1 How startling it must have been to the multitudes who were following Jesus in easy mood when He turned and said it to them I We know, of course, that it is one of our Lord's paradoxes, and is not meant in the letter. He Himself taught as a commandment of God, " Honour thy father and thy mother " (Mark vii. 9- 1 3). He Himself cared affectionately for His mother even when He was on the Cross, and He strengthened greatly the bond between a man and his wife (Mark x. 5-9). Objection that has been taken to the Christian faith because of this saying ENTRANCE INTO KINGDOM OF GOD 69 of Jesus is singularly dull-witted. But we know that in these strong words — as in others, where He says, " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me " (Matt. x. 37) — He means that He Himself, who is the King of the kingdom of God, must be first in our affections ; that, if we would enter the kingdom, no pain of alienation from our kindred, even those nearest to us, on account of it, must be allowed to hinder. There were great separations in those days on account of the faith of Christ — a man's foes were often those of his own household — and still there are often painful alienations because of Christ ; but this hardness must be borne for the kingdom of God, and for Jesus who is the living salvation. " Yea, his own life also " a man must hate. The natural life must, in a true sense, be surrendered, if a man would obtain the eternal life, which is the natural life transfigured. So Jesus expresses the alternatives before us in this often-repeated paradox, " Whosoever would save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it " (Mark viii. 35. See Luke ix. 24). (3) Another example Jesus gave as follows — " Who- soever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke xiv. 27). How strong this language ! As if it were now said, " Whosoever does not follow me to the scaffold, he cannot be mine." No consideration of ease, no prospect of humiliation or suffering must hinder from following Jesus. (4) Another example still — "Whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple " (Luke xiv. 33). ^^Forsaketh not all that he hath " is our ordinary translation, and many have under- stood it literally. Jesus, indeed, demanded it so of one young man who asked. What lack I yet ? The answer was, " Go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come, follow me" (Matt. xix. 21). This saying was the beginning of monasticism. In the third Christian century a rich young Egyptian heard it read one day in church} 70 OUR LORD'S TEACHING and, obeying it to the letter, became the first monk, known as St. Anthony. How are we to understand this demand of Jesus ? It must mean some great thing ; and yet, if the best Christians now are not wholly in error, it does not always mean what Anthony did, and what that young man was called by Jesus to do. This is what it means. The tie must be broken which a man makes in his natural life between himself and his goods. He must cease to be owner of them in his own reckoning, and become only steward. He must think of them as God's, and as to be spent, not according to his own will but the will of God. Now, this change from owner to steward, if true and complete, is felt to be a real renouncing of all that he hath. It is hard to do, often as hard for the poor man who renounces earthly hopes, as for the rich who renounces actual possessions. " We may follow the guidance of Mammon beckoning from afar, with a trust as idolatrous as if we held his hand." The hardness of the terms of salvation and of entrance into the kingdom in this aspect of renunciation may be confirmed by many other sayings of Jesus. It was evidently the choice of His wisdom in dealing with men, that the full truth should be known by them. When a man offered himself and said, " I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," Jesus warned him to expect utter poverty — " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." When He called another to follow Him and the man said, " Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father," — meaning, perhaps, to bear his father company till death — ^Jesus said, " Leave the dead to bury their own dead ; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God." When another said to Him, ** I will follow thee. Lord ; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house," — ^Jesus answered, ** No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back (clinging, that is, in heart, to the things of the natural life), is fit for the kingdom of God " (Luke ix. 57-62). And in speaking of the rich young man, " It ENTRANCE INTO KINGDOM OF GOD 71 is easier," He said, "for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God " (Mark x. 25). There are, indeed, great compensations assured for the renunciation demanded by Jesus, compensations far outweighing those losses and separations. Salvation and eternal Hfe are great offers, for which great things may well be given up. And Jesus says, with expressive emphasis of detail, " Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions ; and in the world to come eternal life " (Mark x. 29, 30). Faith in Jesus whom God hath sent, that faith which our Lord declares to be the fundamental work of a Christian soul (John vi. 29) — faith which is the faculty of beholding what is unseen, and treating the promises of God as certain possessions — this might enable the man to make the great exchange and to accept the gift of eternal life, even at the cost which Jesus has in so many ways exemplified. But there is something to be learned about this from a saying of Jesus which we must not omit. In answer to His word about its being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven, His disciples said in astonishment and alarm, "Then who can be saved?" (Mark x. 26) — meaning who can, whether rich or poor ? Jesus accepted their dilemma; their fear was well founded. "With men it is impossible," He said. He carried His estimate of the difficulty of entering the kingdom to the height of placing it beyond human power in any case, and He gave the only solution of this enigma of salvation by adding the words, "But ... all things are possible with God^^ (Mark x. 27). From these words we learn that not only is eternal life a gift of God, free and unearned by man, but the 72 OUR LORD'S TEACHING power to renounce the things that hinder and to receive the gift needs the working of God also in the man. By him self alone man cannot raise his faith in Jesus, and in the gift of God through Him, to such power and vivid force as to be able to make the great exchange of the natural life for the eternal, the things of the world for the things promised by Jesus. Salvation is, we perceive, in the teaching of Jesus, a divine mystery, whether it is regarded on the side of God or on the side of man. We cannot divide it into divine and human parts saying that the gift is God's, the receiving is man's ; for even the receiving is impossible without God. And this mystery is not only in the teaching of Jesus ; it is in the experience of His followers. If we take the evidence of those whose entrance into the kingdom of God has been most fully conscious, and is most vividly remembered, we shall find that while there was a human element in it, and they acted accord- ing to those words which call for the utmost energy of man in seeking salvation, ^^ Strive to enter in" (Luke xiii. 24), "The kingdom of heaven suflfereth violence, and men of violence take it by force" (Matt. xi. 12), yet their actual entrance was accomplished only when, in the ex- tremity of their own inability, they cast themselves upon God. It was not by strong resolution that they entered the kingdom, but by a surrender to God in which they looked for that which was impossible with men to be proved possible with Him. There remains one discourse of Jesus yet to be con- sidered in regard to admission into the kingdom, a dis- course which is usually felt to stand alone. The discourse of Jesus in the third chapter of St. John is alone in one respect, that only there in that Gospel is '* the kingdom of God" so named. Why the title is so frequent in the first three Gospels and so rare in the fourth we may be unable to explain. But the thing which in this discourse has been counted very exceptional is the declaration of Jesus to Nicodemus, "Except a man be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and again, '* Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the ENTRANCE INTO KINGDOM OF GOD 73 kingdom of God " (John iii. 3, 5). Many have objected to this teaching in the fourth Gospel as mystical, super- natural, and inconsistent with the plainer teaching of the first three. But from what we have already reached in our study of sayings taken from these, we may see that the place of divine mystery is no higher in the Gospel of St. John than in the others. Jesus does, indeed, in that Gospel require a new birth. He plainly teaches that the things of the kingdom of God are spiritual, and so different from the earthly good things for which Nicodemus and others hoped, that a divine change in the nature and affections is needed before a man can see those higher things— see them in their truth and beauty, and so love them as to be at home in the enjoyment of them. Without this change wrought by the Spirit of God, the things of the kingdom of God do not exist for a man as good things ; he is unable to receive them and unable to re- nounce the things of the natural life. «' That which is born of the flesh is flesh " ; only ' ' that which is born of the Spirit is spirit " (John iii. 6), only this can enter the kingdom of God. It is expressly declared to be a mystery. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spirit " (John iii. 8). But the mystery is in full harmony with what we have learned from the teaching of Jesus in the other Gospels. They, too, represent salvation as an enigma of which the only solution is God. In them, too, a man's entrance into life is by the power of God, on whom he has cast himself, that He may work in him to will and to do. We may now recall from the beginning what we have found in our endeavour to put together the many sayings of Jesus about admission into the kingdom of God and about its terms. First, admission is of gc^ce, gratis. Salvation is a gift so free that sinners may have it, even ** publicans and harlots " ; it is expressly for sinners, and it requires only faith to receive it. But for this receiv- ing, we learn from the teaching of Jesus in all the 74 OUR LORD'S TEACHING Gospels, a mystery of divine working in us is needed. We read in St. Mark, ** With men it is impossible, but not with God : for all things are possible with God " (Mark x. 27). We read in St. John, " Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God " (John iii. 5). The faith in Jesus, which moves us to receive Him and commit ourselves to Him, is too high a thing to be wholly of man. Two observations may yet be made. 1. This teaching has no need to fear objection on account of its mystery. The demand often made for religion without mystery is a very superficial one, and the attempt to meet it fails to satisfy. When salvation has been so explained as to be brought down to a natural human level without any mystery, it ceases to command the faith and reverence of men. They are inwardly conscious that they need a great and divine change ; and all who are partakers of the salvation of Christ attribute it to God that they have attained to this grace. ** It was the good pleasure of God (says St. Paul), who separated me, even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, to reveal his Son in me " (Gal. i. 15, 16). A similar account Christian people still give of their standing in the kingdom of God. And every authentic record of a soul being brought into the king- dom is felt to be worthy of reverent attention, because God has been in it. 2. This doctrine of a mystery of divine grace in the salvation of a soul places no barrier in the way of any one's salvation, even though Jesus says expressly, ** No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me draw him " (John vi. 44). Salvation is not on this account in any degree less possible. We are only thrown thereby upon God, and this makes salvation certainly possible. It is no bar to entering the kingdom that we must depend on God to bring us into it ; for if there is one truth more sure than another from the revelation of Jesus regarding the Father it is, that in the salvation of any soul God may be depended on. BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD -js CHAPTER IX THE BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD X. The great Gospel promise of blessedness belongs to a future and eternal life — This contrasts with Old Testa- ment teaching. 2. The blessedness promised is spiritual — This contrasts with the common expecta- tion of Jews of our Lord's time. 3. Present blessings of the kingdom of God : {a) forgiveness ; [b) life, of which Jesus is the source and support — Mystery of this life — Its meaning and value — Result of these two blessings great and eternal ; {c) Other blessings con- sequent on them. 4. Jesus' teaching in regard to earthly good things. 5, Two objections to His teach- ing of eternal reward, and answers to these. 'T^HE whole ministry of Jesus, in gracious word and -'■ mighty deed, breathes an atmosphere of blessing for those who believe on Him and are admitted into the kingdom of God. We shall in this chapter try to dis- tinguish and reckon up the blessings He promises. I. First we perceive that the great hope announced by Jesus belongs to a future life and future world. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vi. i fF.) a reward with the Father in heaven is spoken of as the great gain of true righteousness, the sadness of the case of hypocrites being that *' they have received their reward " — that is to say, all the reward they will get is an earthly one, the praise of men. The kingdom of God, to be sought first as the supreme good — also spoken of as the hid treasure and the pearl of great price — is, in its main sense and full accomplishment, a thing of another life than this present. It is at the judgment day, when men 76 OUR LORD'S TEACHING are raised from the dead, that the Judge will say to the righteous, ** Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world " (Matt. xxv. 34. See also Mark ix. 47, 48). Accordingly, another name for this greatest good is "eternal life," which in the first three Gospels refers only to the future — " in the world to come eternal life " (Mark x. 30). " Lay not up for yourselves (says Jesus) treasures upon the earth . . . but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven" (Matt. vi. 19, 20). And among the hopes with which He comforted His disciples when about to part from them this was the first, " In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you " (John xiv. 2). This is a great change from the teaching of the Old Testament, in which, for the most part, the good things promised to the righteous are things of this present world. Jesus '* abolished death, and brought life and incorrup- tion to light," and having thus vastly widened the view and hope of men. He placed in the world beyond death the great experience of God's favour to the righteous. Instead of prosperity in this life being the sure portion of God's people, Jesus warns His disciples very plainly that they will suffer persecution, that the world will hate them ; and He sometimes calls on them to rejoice in those persecutions as certain marks of fellowship with Himself. " If ye were of the world, the world would love its own : but because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you " (John XV. 19. See also John xv. 18, and Matt. x. 25). "In the world ye have tribulation " (John xvi. 33). In this language of Jesus about temporal prosperity there is some basis for the paradox of Lord Bacon, " Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity of the New." 2. Next we find that the blessings of the life to come are, in the view of Jesus, spiritual blessings. This is in strong contrast with the beliefs of the Jews of His time. They had attained to believe much more than their fore- BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD jj fathers did in a life after this present. They had made such advance upon the faith of former days that they believed — the Sadducees excepted — in the resurrection of the just to a blessed life. But the blessings to which the righteous would be raised were, in their expectation, simply temporal blessings — abundance of the good things of this life. The kingdom of God, in their view, was to bring a time of overflowing wealth, of miraculous plenty in corn and wine, and of extraordinary earthly splendour and happiness, which the just would be raised again to share. In Jesus' teaching the blessings of the life to come are spiritual. The great joy of that life He does, indeed, often present under the symbol of a feast, as in the parable of the great supper (Luke xiv. 15-24), and in that of the marriage-feast of the king's son (Matt. xxii. I- 1 4); and the great future woe He represents under the form of being excluded from the feast, and left outside in the dark. But it is most plain that when He speaks of reclining at table, and of eating and drinking in the future kingdom of God, He means the bliss of spiritual joy and of spiritual fellowship. It is such blessedness as the pure in heart have in seeing God (Matt. v. 8), as the true children of God have in being with Him in His house, and as they have in perfect fellowship with one another. When Jesus prays for His disciples before His death, the great thing He asks for them is that they may be with Him where He is, and may behold His glory ; also "that the love wherewith thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them *' (John xvii. 24, 26). Such spiritual blessings are those which are called by Jesus "the true riches " in contrast to the wealth of this world, "the unrighteous mammon" (Luke xvi. 11). And, unlike the treasures of earth, neither moth nor rust doth consume them. Thus far we find that the great promises of Jesus refer to the life to come, and are of a spiritual character. 3. Are there, then, no blessings promised by Jesus for this present life ? Do His promises belong entirely to the world to come ? Has He foretold nothing for His followers 78 OUR LORD'S TEACHING while they are here but the persecutions of which He warned them ? Does He, for this present time, bid them only wait and hope saying, "Fear not, little flock ; for it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Very far from this. Jesus represents His followers as much more blessed even here and now than men of the world. He does so, however, in full harmony with His great preference of spiritual blessings over temporal, in full harmony with His saying, ** A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth '* (Luke xii. 15). His followers are so greatly blessed, be- cause spiritual blessings can be enjoyed in large measure even in this life. For though we are here in the body, our spiritual part is by far the more important. It is in the heart that we are truly blest or unblest ; and the kingdom of God begins here in the heart and soul. (a) The first of the blessings of the kingdom received in this life is the forgiveness of sins. This had a great place in the teaching of Jesus. In one of His parables He likened it to the cancelling of a debt of ten thousand talents (Matt, xviii. 24). In a most solemn hour He spoke of His blood as "shed for many unto remission of sins " (Matt. xxvi. 28). And when He had risen from the dead He announced as a divine purpose, to which the Scriptures bore witness, "That repentance and remis- sion of sins should be preached in his name unto all the nations " (Luke xxiv. 47). It is also plain from His teaching that forgiveness follows immediately on repent- ance. It is a grace of the very entrance into the king- dom of God. Often it was the happy experience of sinners who came to Jesus to hear Him say in their first hour of converse with Him, " Thy sins are forgiven," or " Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace," or " Her sins, which are many, are forgiven" (Mark ii. 5 ; Luke vii. 47-50). And not only while He was on earth did Jesus speak this word, " Thy sins are forgiven." Even now when any man is visited by that sense of sin which came like a lightning- flash into the heart of Isaiah at the vision of God (Isaiah vi. ), and into the heart of the Psalmist at the thought that he BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 79 had done evil in God's sight (Ps. 11.), and the man who is so visited comes to Jesus truly believing in His power to forgive, He makes the same answer, and usually in such a manner that it is heard in the depths of the spirit. The truth of Jesus responds to truth in the heart that seeks Him. By the influence of His Spirit, using perhaps the instrumentality of His word or His sacraments, a deep and sweet persuasion is wrought in the penitent heart of forgiveness received, and His blood, shed (as He Himself said) for the remission of sins, is an abiding seal and assurance of this grace. No blessing can be felt greater than this, which is received in first entering the kingdom of God ; for thereby the pain of self-con- demnation is relieved, and the burden of God's condem- nation taken quite away. The walls of separation between God and the soul are broken down, the man is brought to God as a child to a reconciled Father, and in this very beginning of salvation there is often an experience of joy as profound as any in its whole earthly course. In the prayer which Jesus taught His disciples, evidently as a form and model of daily prayer. He bade them say, ** Forgive us our debts, as we also have for- given our debtors" (Matt. vi. 12). This does not imply that forgiveness is daily lost by the sins and imperfections to which human infirmity is liable, or that by these sins the once forgiven man is thrown daily back into the fear and terror of God's condemnation. Jesus said, " He that is bathed " — in other words, he that has received a great forgiveness like the washing of the whole body — ** needeth not save to wash his feet " — that is, from daily partial defilements — ** but is clean every whit " (John xiii. 10). The great forgiveness remains ; the peace of it should be unbroken ; and the daily prayer, '* Forgive us our debts," serves simply the purpose of asking and receiving from the reconciled Father the forgiveness daily needed because of sinful infirmity. With the very accept- ance of our service of each day there needs to be mingled forgiveness of its faults ; and the sense of this forgiveness is kept fresh within us by such confession and prayer. 8o OUR LORD'S TEACHING [fi) A second great blessing of the kingdom of God is life. This is a divine gift much spoken of by Jesus in His discourses in St. John's Gospel. It has by no means the same meaning with that which we ordinarily call ** life." Indeed those who have only the ordinary natural life of men are spoken of as dead in comparison with those who possess this life. These last are said to have "passed out of death into life" (John v. 24). The full name for this new life in St. John's Gospel is ** eternal life " (v. 24), by which is still meant a gift that is bestowed now in this world, but one which is of an origin and quality above the natural and temporal life of man. To give this life Jesus declares to have been His great errand in coming into the world — " I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John x. 10). He declares Himself to be the source of it — '* I am . . . the life" (John xiv. 6). "Whoever hears His word and believes in it, receives the gift — "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life" (v. 24). "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that be- lieveth hath eternal life" (vi. 47). The beginning of this life is in the new birth spoken of in the third chapter of St. John ; and though this is by the Spirit (iii. 5), Jesus is none the less the source of the life, having Himself received it from the Father in order that He might bestow it among men — "As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself" (v. 26) ; " Thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he should give eternal life " (xvii. 2). Jesus is not only the source but the support of this life, as He declares in the words, " I am the bread of life" (vi. 35) ; " I am the living bread which came down out of heaven" (vi. 51). He gives Himself for the life of the world specially in His death, and the promise is to those who feed upon Him thus sacrificed — '* He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life ; ... for my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (vi. 54, 55). In this teaching about " life " there is, no doubt, BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 8i great mystery. But as it is the fact that, with all our science, we can little explore the mystery of our natural life which we received in coming into the world, we need not be surprised that the mystery of this divine life, which Jesus came from heaven to give, should surpass our knowledge. And what Jesus says of eating the bread that came down from heaven — eating His flesh and drinking His blood — may cease to be such a hard saying when we find, by putting together different utterances in the same discourse, that coming to Jesus, believing on Him, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, are all names for similar spiritual acts of faith in Jesus, and communion with Him for our salvation. Thus, while we read, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves " (John vi. 53), we also read, "This is the will of my Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life " (vi. 40). *' Crede et manducasti," said St. Augustine : ** Believe, and thou hast eaten." The meaning and value of this blessing of the kingdom may be made clearer in the following manner. The story of the prodigal son (Luke xv.) is an image of man's return to God and his forgiveness. But if the son, after his return and after the first joy of his welcome home, found himself without love to his father, without relish for his father's society, and without interest in his father's affairs ; if his tastes and likings had been so degraded by his habit of life in the far country that he could not care for the way of life in his father's house, it is plain that, even though forgiven and welcomed and restored to the place of a son, he would be unblessed, miserable, and without strength to live the life of fellowship with his father. Not other- wise would it be with any man who had received the first-named blessing of the kingdom, forgiveness, and had been brought to the Father, if he were without the filial mind toward God, had not similar tastes, and lacked the moral strength to do the will of God. He would be miserable. His reconciliation to God would be a failure 82 OUR LORD'S TEACHING if he did not also receive the gift of the true son's heart toward God, with the nature and disposition to love Him, and to love what He loves. Now the gift of life — this divine and eternal life in the soul of man, of which Jesus is the one source, and which He gives more and more abund- antly to those who believe in Him and seek to live by Him — is a spring and living source of those pure affections by which a man is raised above the world, truly dwells in the kingdom of God, is at home in that kingdom, and has the love toward God, the zeal for God's honour, and the strength in His service which befit a child of God, and which constitute his true happiness. No doubt a sense of reconciliation to God does naturally stir great gratitude and earnest moral purpose ; but when we think of the instability of our human nature, and how much our will has been weakened by yielding to sin, we shall value exceedingly this divine gift of life, in receiving which we have quickened in us the will to obey the Father as children, and are also endowed with power to do it, with moral strength, and with affinity of nature to the truth of God. These two blessings of the kingdom, forgiveness and life, already involve so much in their first bestowal that they can hardly be added to except by the life being given more abundantly. For by forgiveness we have God for our reconciled Father, and by the gift of divine life we receive the heart and affections of children of God. So we are made in a deep sense one with God, which, in itself and in its consequences, is the true and final blessedness of our being. And while the experience of this blessedness begins now, the •* life " is " eternal " not only (as before said) in respect of its origin and quality, but also in respect of its duration. Being divine in its source, and of a quality above the natural life, the death of the body is unable to destroy it, and loses significance as a real death. The man who has it "shall never see death" (John viii. 51). It attains its goal and com- pletion in the raising of the body itself to a new and un- dying life. The climax of the promise of life is in the BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 83 word repeated again and again, "and I will raise him up at the last day " (John vi. 40, 44, 54). We have also this great saying of Jesus, " I am the resurrection, and the life : he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die" (John xi. 25).. {c) Other great blessings which Jesus promised for this present life, will occur to readers of the Gospels. It is needful only to name some of them shortly, because they are all implied in these two fundamental gifts, or consequent on them. They are consequent on our be- longing to God by reconciliation as His children, or on our sharing the divine life. There is the great blessing of the Father's keepings which Jesus asks for His disciples with urgency, on account of their exposure in a hostile world — "Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me " ; *' I pray not that thou shouldest take them from the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one" (John xvii. 11, 15). There is the Father's sanctifying^ or more exactly, His consecrating of the disciples of Jesus to their work for Him in the world, so that, renouncing self-gratification, they maybe entirely devoted to it — "Sanctify them in the truth : thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth" (John xvii. 17-19). There is the Father's discipline, which comes through the word of Jesus, and, when more is needful, through affliction experienced in the natural life, and checking the carnal will. " My Father is the husbandman . . . every branch [in me] that beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear more fruit " (John xv. i, 2). There is the shepherd-care of Jesus, who intimately knows His flock, guides each one of them, and will suffer none of them to perish — " He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out " ; " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow roe j and I 84 OUR LORD'S TEACHING give unto them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand " (John x. 3, 27, 28). There is the fellowship with the Father and the Son promised in the words, "If a man love me, he will keep my word : and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him " (John xiv. 23). There is the fellowship of believers with one another for which Jesus prays, ** that they may all be one" Qohn xvii. 21). There is the answering of all prayer offered in the name of Jesus — that is to say, offered in the faith revealed by Jesus, and so truly prompted by the Spirit whom He sends that He Himself speaks in it, and we speak in His name — *' I chose you . . . that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" (John XV. 16. See also xiv. 13, 14; xvi. 23-26; Mark xi. 24). There is the blessing that comes of being occupied^ like Jesus ^ in the service of man — " He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto the Father " (John xiv. 12). *' He himself said. It is more blessed to give than to receive " (Acts xx. 35). Other great blessings, which may be regarded as all consequent on the gift and possession of divine life are freedom^ rest, peace, and full satisfaction of the heart's aspirations. Life and light are closely connected. It was so in the creation of men, as St. John says, •' The life was the light of men " (i. 4). So from the divine life which Jesus came from heaven to give, an inner light springs up. Whoever receives the life has also moral and spiritual light, which grows in clearness with the growth of the life. This light agrees and coincides with what Jesus calls " the truth," and of which He says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free " (John viii. 32). Sin keeps its dominion by deceit and fascination. When the truth is seen, the chains are BLESSINGS OP THE KINGDOM OF GOD 85 broken. The follower of Jesus, accordingly, who receives ** the light of life " (John viii. 12) has also freedom. Again, as the life which Jesus gives is divine and raises our nature into conscious harmony of will and affection with God, the yoke of obedience to the Father, which Jesus bore and invites us to take upon us, becomes, as He said it would be, an easy yoke (^latt. xi. 29, 30). All the burdens of life, being known as our heavenly Father's choice and appointment, are lightened. That all is well with us is assured beyond doubt or anxiety by the Son's revelation of the Father, and so these great promises of Jesus are fulfilled, *' Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matt. xi. 28). ** Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you " (John xiv. 27). In a similar manner, as the nature of a true child of God finds its full satisfaction in His love and in His service, the gift of divine life implies the fulfilment of the promise, ** He that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst " (John vi. 35). *' If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John vii. 37). 4. It will be observed that in our enumeration of blessings promised by Jesus no mention has yet been made of any of the good things of this earthly life. Does, then, our Lord make no promise in regard to these things? Does He even condemn them as not good, so that there is a merit in refusing them and living an ascetic life, mortifying the flesh as much as possible ? We answer, He does not condemn them. He speaks of the sunshine and the rain from heaven as good gifts of God (Matt. v. 45). He speaks of food and raiment as bestowed by our heavenly Father, who knoweth that we have need of these things (Matt. vi. 26-32). He bids His disciples offer the prayer, ** Give us this day our daily bread," and in regard to our temporal life we are assured of a providential care so minute that the very hairs of our head are numbered. But earthly gifts are never placed on the same level of value with spiritual There cannot be the same certainty of promise about 86 OUR LORiyS TEACHING them, because they may be withheld in order that we may gain spiritually. Even in that promise (Mark xvi. 17, 18), "These signs shall follow them that believe , . . they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them," the hurt that is assured against may or may not be bodily hurt ; the promise will be kept if they are protected from hurt in their better part. The promise in regard to food and clothing, ** Seek ye first his kingdom . . . and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. vi. 33) may, in general, be literally fulfilled. But nowhere are earthly riches promised as a reward of fidelity to Jesus. It is indeed true that Christian uprightness often leads directly to a man's promotion or wealth, and promotion and wealth so acquired are to be received as good gifts of God. But very often, also. Christian fidelity brings worldly loss ; poverty, not riches, may be the higher testimony to that fidelity. We must read with circumspection that promise of Jesus, plain and absolute as it seems — "Verily I say unto you. There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father " (or wife, Luke xviii. 29), *' or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this tif?ie, houseSy and brethren^ and sisters^ and mothers^ and children, and lands, with persecutions^^ (Mark x. 29, 30). We must read this with caution, remembering how often the meaning of Jesus is deeper than the surface. Certainly this promise does convey that to follow Him brings us to a greatly more blessed life even in this present time than theirs can be who live for the world, and that losses for Christ's sake will be splendidly compensated even here. But we shall not expect the promise to be fulfilled in the very letter. We count it profane that Mormons should argue in defence of polygamy by saying that Jesus here and in St. Luke promised "manifold more " to those who for the Gospel's sake forsook wife or children. And if we refuse to take this literally of fathers, mothers, or wives, need we take it literally of houses and lands? But the promise is kept in ways BLESSINGS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 87 which are visible to faith. Dr. Arnold said of his long invalid sister that from her devout unselfishness she so enjoyed the interests of life and the beauty of the world that no one seemed to him so fully to " inherit the earth " as she did. Is not this a glimpse of how lands lost for Christ's sake may be recompensed a hundredfold in this present time? When St. Paul speaks of the mother of Rufus having been a mother also to him (Rom. xvi. 13), do we not get a glimpse of how those who have lost friends or been alienated from kindred through their faithfulness to Christ, have in the welcome of Christian brethren and the blessings of Christian fellowship found their lives enriched beyond all their loss? And when the same Apostle could think of so many in all the churches whom he knew as his children in the faith, was not this promise fulfilled to him of "children a hundredfold in this present time " ? The most solitary man or woman ceases to be solitary who enters into that saying of Jesus, " Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt. xii. 50). Our Lord's teaching fully justifies these words of St. Paul's old age and ripe experience, " Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come" (l Tim. iv. 8). But the promise of the life which now is must not be understood of mere earthly gain or glory or pleasure, and the greatly blessed in this present time have been, for the most part, men and women who had little of these things and were not dependent on them, being rich in "the life which is life indeed" (i Tim. vi. 19). 5. The Gospel has been assailed by some in our day on account of that feature of it with which we began this chapter, that the great hope and promise of Jesus is for the life to come. Preachers of the Gospel have been scornfully spoken of as men who preached about heaven when they should have been seeking the gocd of their fellow-men in this present life, which (it is said) is the only life of which we have any certainty. We might 88 OUR LORD'S TEACHING answer in the words of a French writer: "Wonderful gospel, which, in preparing us for an unseen and eternal life, so greatly blesses us in this ! " No influence has so advanced the good of men, even in this world, as Christianity. But we rather reply. How great a loss to men it would be if in this life only we had hope ; if we had to go back to the idea of man's absolute mortality, which held the ground among Greeks and Romans at the time when the Gospel began to be preached to them ! What could make up to men for all that consolation in life's sorrows and separations which has been drawn from the thought and hope of Heaven since Jesus came, Himself the " Divine Word," which the friend of Socrates longed for, to assure us of a life to come ? ^ \\Tiat heart- rendings have been healed, what sweet anticipations nourished, by that promise of Jesus, so gracious and distinct, in which the homeliness of heaven, its width and room, its fitness for our abiding, and the actual preparation in it for our renewed and unending life and for the fellowships of that life, are assured to us by His truth and by the contagion of His calm certainty — *' In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were not so, I would have told you ; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also " (John xiv. 2, 3). Another assault on our Lord's teaching has been made on the ground that the hope of eternal reward which He gives makes men's virtue selfish, and so lowers it or destroys it as virtue. But, we answer, could we justify the government of the world if blessing did not follow upon righteousness ? And does virtue remain itself, and praiseworthy, only in a universe the government of which is hostile to it or indifferent? We answer also that, since the blessings promised in the Gospel are spiritual, the reward which Jesus offers to goodness is primarily this unselfish one, the attainment of perfection in goodness itself. I Plato, PhcedOf xxxv. HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS O WN DEA TH 89 CHAPTER X HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS OWN DEATH Present need for inquiring into this — Results of inquiry. I. The long shadow cast before by His death shows its high significance. II. According to His own indications of that significance He was, in His death — i. A martyr in the cause of truth — 2. A martyr in the cause of love — 3. More than mart)T ; [a) Redeemer, [b) Sin offering and ground of human forgiveness — Confirmations, and answers to objection. 'X*HE death of Jesus is the event in His earthly history ■■■ which has been cherished above all others in the memory of His Church. In the full narratives of all the four evangelists, in the writings of the apostles, in the preaching of missionaries, in the devout thought of Christian souls, nothing has received so great place or significance as the story of the Cross of Christ. If we were asked to name the power of the Gospel, by which It has won its way in the world, and by the loss of which it would be, as it were, disarmed, we should reply in one word, the Cross. In this chapter we are to inquire what Jesus Himself taught about His death, and, in particular, what mean- ing and significance He attributed to it. This inquiry has become the more necessary because some, who believe that Jesus manifested God's mercy to sinners, have ceased to believe that His death was an atonement for men's sins, and the ground of their forgiveness. Those who are of this opinion remind us that we are called upon to forgive a wrong done to us if the wrong-doer is penitent. 90 067? LORD'S TEACHING although there be no atonement made for the wrong, and God (they urge), being infinitely more generous than we, will do no less Himself. They count an atonement unnecessary, and even derogatory to the grace of God. There is therefore serious reason for inquiring what is the full teaching of Jesus on this subject — a subject which is of so great concern to all Christian people. It is not meant that we must limit our belief about the death of Jesus to what He Himself taught during His earthly life. We cannot assume that this is all His mind about it, in face of His well-known words, *' I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth : for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak" (John xvi. 12, 13). These words justify the belief that what the apostles taught by the Spirit after Jesus had gone into heaven is, in a true sense, part of the teaching of Jesus. But it is of import- ance for us to assure ourselves that Jesus' own recorded teaching and that of the apostles ai-e in harmony, and that the latter has unmistakable roots in the former. On first examining with this view the pages of the Gospels we may be surprised to find Jesus speak so little about the efficacy of His death for our salvation. It has pained some, and almost shaken their confidence, to find that saving efficacy not nearly so frequent a subject in Jesus' own teaching as in the letters of His apostles. His own doctrine about His death seems much less full and explicit than theirs. But, on second thoughts, and when we compare Him with other great men, the remarkable thing rather is that He says so much of His death by anticipation, and attaches so much significance to it. It is not a usual thing for a great teacher to make his own death his subject ; and that Jesus should have done so is the more striking that His disciples could so little believe it, or bear to hear of it, before it happened (Matt. xvi. 22 ; Mark ix. 32). We believe there is enough, even in Jesus' own teaching before His death, to HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS O WN DBA TH 91 show that it had great divine significance, to indicate the nature of that significance, and to assure us that the doctrine of the apostles is rooted in that of their Master. I. The importance of the event in the thought of Jesus appears first from the shadow that it cast before on His whole ministry. Even early in His ministry we find serious reference to it, as if it was from the beginning the dark background of His prospect. It was early in His ministry that He referred to it in the words which follow : *' Can the sons of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them ? . . . But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them " (Mark ii. 19, 20). It was early in His ministry that He made enigmatic reference to it in the words, " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up " (John ii. 19). It was early in His ministry that He said to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life " (John iii. 14, 15). Already, we see, the death of Jesus casts its shadow on His own spirit, and already He teaches that there is a divine necessity for it in God's plan of His earthly course, and in God's plan of salvation for men. When the crisis of His ministry in Galilee arrived the same thoughts were implied in the emphatic words, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves " (John vi. 53). On the mount of transfiguration, when the inner glory of Jesus became an outwardly visible glory, and heavenly com- panions talked with Him, the subject of their converse was " His decease which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke ix. 31). From about this time the shadow of His death darkened upon Jesus in anticipation, and it became habitual with Him to tell His disciples that it must befall Him, and to prepare them for the sad details of it. '* From that time began Jesus to shew vmto his dis- ciples, how that he must go untojerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up" (Matt. xvL 21). 92 OUR LORD'S TEACHING •' He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke ix. 51)' Obviously He was under pressure of a great sense of duty in view of what He must suffer and would accomplish by His suffering. Once He was going before His disciples in the way, and with such purpose and emotion written on His countenance that " they were amazed ; and they that followed were afraid " (Mark x. 32). Jesus took the twelve yet again and said, '* Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him unto the Gentiles : and they shall mock him, and shall spit upon him, and shall scourge him, and shall kill him ; and after three days he shall rise again " (Mark x. 33> 34)' Another saying of this time is, "I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ! " (Luke xii. 50). We cannot doubt that here He means His death and the load He was feeling in the anticipation of it. These expressions thicken as the time advances, and drop from Him as at the feast at Bethany, *' She hath anointed my body aforehand for the burying " (Mark xiv. 8). In the whole of the farewell scene and discourses recorded by St. John (in chapters xiii.-xvi.) His approaching "hour" forms the very atmosphere of the thought, solemnising all ; but He Himself no longer feels what is impend- ing as shadow^ rather as glory. All struggle being over, and the issue being fully accepted, He thinks of it as virtually accomplished; and since "perfect self- sacrifice, even to death, issuing in the overthrow of death, is the truest glory," He cries, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him" (John xiii. 31). The shadow returns at its very deepest in the garden of Gethsemane, and is again dispelled by the thrice-uttered prayer, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me : nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matt. xxvi. 39). This review is of itself enough to bear us out in the belief that, in the thought and teaching of Jesus Himself, HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS O WN DEA TH 93 His death was of the very highest significance. It was the goal of His life's effort. *'For this cause," He says, •* came I unto this hour " (John xii. 27). The actual significance of it may not be explicit in any of the words we have quoted, but they imply a meaning in it quite beyond that which belongs to death in the case of other men. No other man could have spoken of his death as Jesus does, or given it that place in the aim and purpose of his life which He gives it. And in instituting the Lord's Supper as a feast in memory of Himself till He come again, and choosing that one event to be showed forth in it, Jesus gives His death an importance for us surpassing all else in His earthly course, even surpassing the marvel of His birth. H. The place thus given to His death in the teaching of Jesus is so great that we cannot avoid asking what is the value and significance of it, and inquiring what indications He gives of that significance. I. The very least that can be concluded from His teaching is that, in dying, He was a martyr in the cause of truth. All who in this evil world are faith- ful to truth in a high degree, provoke hostility by their faithfulness, and suffer for it. Yet truth has this right and this claim on men, that they should be faithful to it even unto death. Thousands have been thus faithful. Jesus was ; and this is practically all the significance that many Unitarians see in His death. They explain His forethought about it, and His clear prophecies of it, as just what might be expected from a good and discerning man who saw the force of the evil currents of His time, knew the hatred that was in the breasts of the Jewish leaders, and was conscious of His own unyielding faithfulness. Certainly Jesus Himself does recognise His death as — like the deaths of the old prophets — that of a martyr to the truth. " It cannot be," He said in reference to Himself, "that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem " (Luke xiii. 33). But the pressure with which the forethought of His death often weighed upon Jesus, and the divine necessity implied in 94 OUR LORD'S TEACHING the ^^ must suffer," ^^ must be lifted up," do not seem to be accounted for, if He was only to be, as the prophets had been, a martyr to truth. 2. He was further, in His death, a martyr in the cause of love. It is a law of human life that no great service can be done by us to others except at cost to ourselves. We must deny ourselves, we must sacrifice our own pleasure or gain or glory, if we would be profitable in the world. Except we have love enough to give up what is precious to ourselves, we cannot do good ; and the greatly fruitful lives have been those in which there was a long death to self. The world advances by this law of sacrifice. " There was never a country cleared for civilisation, and purified of its swamps and forests, but the first settlers paid the penalty of that which their successors enjoy. There never was a victory won, but the conquerors who took possession of the conquest passed over the bodies of the noblest slain, who died that they might win."i Now Jesus Himself saw His death in the light of this law that progress is to be won for men by the sacrifice of self. He so expounded it by an analogy from inanimate nature : ** Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone ; but if it die, it beareth much fruit " (John xii. 24). In willing obedience to this law, which reigns both in the moral and in the natural world. He yielded Himself up. He was sustained and cheered by anticipating the **much fruit" of which through death He would be the seed. He taught also, and leant upon, the companion truth, that the path of self-sacrifice is that of truest personal gain to a moral being, as would assuredly be made manifest in the eternal world. Of all the sayings of Jesus, this alone is re- ported by each of the four evangelists — the paradox of self-sacrifice — ** He that loveth his life loseth it ; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal " (John xii. 25. See also Matt. x. 39 ; xvi. 25 ; Mark viii. 35 ; Luke ix. 24 ; xvii. 33). 1 F. W. Robertson, Sertnons, I. (ix.) HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS O IVN DEA TH 95 3. So far as we have yet traced the significance of the death of Jesus, it is not singular, but accords entirely with general laws of human experience and influence. His life and death constitute together the most splendid example of the power for good that resides in self-sacrifice. But there are expressions that dropped from Him dur- ing the time when His death was impending which indicate His own private thought about it, and give it such a meaning and value as make it quite tran- scend even the most truly self-sacrificing deaths of other men. (a) One of these sayings of Jesus is the following : "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many " (Matt. XX. 28). He had before said, "The Son of man came ... to save that which was lost " (Luke xix. 10). Here He looks forward to doing this by redemption — by giving His own life in exchange for that of others. The actual words used by Jesus are literally, ** A ransom instead of many." '* Ransom " was an idea very familiar to those to whom Jesus was speaking. That men should be liberated from slavery, or from under sentence of condemnation, on account of the payment of a sufficient ransom was a thing readily understood. And we can- not doubt that the slavery or condemnation from which the " many " needed to be delivered was that of sin, or that in Jesus' view His death would be the sufficient price of that redemption. The hearers of Jesus could not but understand the "ransom" according to the use of the same word in such a passage as Exodus xxx. II -16, in which we read how for each soul, when numbered and recorded by name within the old cove- nant, a " ransom " was paid — " to make atonement for your souls." Such a ransom Jesus expresses His purpose to pay in giving up His life. So He interprets that supreme act, which He declares to be of His own free will — " I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John X. 15, 18). Not without ground, then, in the 96 OUR LORD'S TEACHING teaching of Jesus Himself, have St. Paul and the other apostles written in terms of great assurance of "the redemption that is in Christ Jesus " (Rom. iii. 24), of our being ** bought with a price" (i Cor. vi. 20), and *' redeemed . . . with precious blood . . . even the blood of Christ" (i Pet. i. 18, 19). Not without ground in the teaching of Jesus does all Christendom speak of Him as " The Redeemer," and believe that by His death something has been done to liberate us from sin, which no martyrdoms of holy men are ever thought to effect. {b) Another saying of Jesus, still more explicit in regard to the value, power, and significance of His death, was uttered when He instituted the Lord's Supper. As He gave the cup to His disciples, He said : ''This cup is the new covenant in my blood, even that which is poured out for you" (Luke xxii. 20). "This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many unto remission of sins " (Matt. xxvi. 28). That Jesus should speak of a new covenant would be no strange thing to His disciples, familiar as they were with the promise in Jeremiah (xxxi. 31), that in days to come God would make a new covenant with His people. Nor would " blood of the covenant " surprise them, for the first covenant had been ratified by blood, as we read in Exodus (xxiv. 5-8) that they offered burnt offerings, and the blood was sprinkled, half of it on the altar and half of it on the people. The disciples of Jesus would understand their receiving the cup to be in place of that sprinkling of blood on the people, by which their entrance into the first covenant had been signified. If, now, Jesus had said only, " This cup is the new covenant in my blood," we might have felt bound to interpret His death as a burnt offering (as in Exodus xxiv. 5); and this would have left us in doubt whether it had any propitiatory value, for burnt offerings in the Old Testament do not usually imply expiation, but express simply the offerer's consecration to God. But Jesus says more than "This cup is the new cove- nant in my blood," He adds, "which is shed for many unto remission of sins." In these words He HIS TEACHING ABOUT HIS O WN DEA TH 97 evidently declares His death to be a sin ofTcring, and His blood to be an expiation of sin. He evidently regards the death in which He is about to offer Him- self without spot to God as a sufficient ground on which God can, consistently with Himself and with eternal righteousness, bestow forgiveness on sinners. Here again, accordingly — by these words in which He inter- prets His death beforehand and links forgiveness to it — Jesus gives most certain ground for what His apostles teach with such emphasis and joy, of "redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses " (Eph. i. 7) ; of our '* being now justified by his blood" (Rom. v. 9); of our being while enemies "re- conciled to God through the death of his Son" (Rom. v. 10) ; and of Jesus being " the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world " (i John ii. 2). This conclusion is in harmony with the general belief of Christian people from the beginning, that there is something very awful in sin ; that before sin can be for- given there is something very awful to be got over (if we may so say) in God, and in the moral order of the universe which is centred in God's character ; and that the offering which Jesus made of Himself in death avails gloriously to meet this necessity. Such a conclusion is in harmony, also, with the great place which we have seen His death had in the thoughts of Jesus all through His ministry, and with His saying in regard to it, "For this cause came I unto this hour." Can we now answer the objection to which we re- ferred at the beginning of this chapter, that God might be expected to forgive sins, as we are called to forgive wrong done to us, without "atonement"? Two things are overlooked in this objection. First, God does far more in forgiving than we do. We put away our re- sentment, but we cannot clear from guilt. A woman wronged by her husband may on her death-bed forgive him freely all he has done, but his guilt is not thereby removed. He is still liable to judgment for wrong and 98 OUR LORD'S TEACHING failure in duty.^ When God forgives any one, He also removes the guilt. The sinner is no longer liable to the punishment that awaits sin. Some who have per- ceived how great a thing this is have denied that it can be. They conclude from the order of nature that a man cannot be separated from his sin or the consequences of it. It is indeed a miracle of grace that this should happen ; and we need not wonder at something being first required, which we call "atonement." But from the teaching of Jesus we conclude both that true for- giveness is possible, God removing our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, and that this cannot be done on the easy terms on which one sinner may put away resentment against another. In the objection with which we are now dealing it is also overlooked that God, out of His infinite mercy, has without atonement dismissed His resentment against our sinful race ; for it is He who sent His Son into the world, and so provided the atonement. All that the most forgiving among human souls can do without atonement He has done, and this besides, which is un- speakably more and greater. The propitiation of the Cross, while meeting a divine requirement, magnifies the forgiving love of God by which it was provided. One confirmation of the belief that our Lord's offer- ing of Himself is a propitiation for sins cannot be omitted — that of experience. This belief has been in all the Christian ages profoundly welcome to human souls when deeply conscious of sin, and such souls have attained by the iDlood of Jesus a present peace, a near access to God, and an enduring confidence in the divine mercy, which are attained through no other faith. This will be manifest to any who will study the Christian hymns that are of widest acceptance, and observe the peace and joy connected in them with the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, " in whose death our sins are dead." 1 Dr. Dale, Christian Doctritu, p. 343. HIS TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT 99 CHAPTER XI HIS TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT Permanence and growth of the kingdom of Jesus due to His sending "another Paraclete." i. This Paraclete (imperfectly named Comforter) is a Person — He is a divine Person. 2. He is a Teacher of the truth, and gives inward certainty in regard to it. 3. Not Him- self, but Jesus, is the subject and source of His teach- ing — Though in us, He does not efface our personality. 4. He brings us into communion with Jesus. 5. Through Him the divine hfe is imparted — Accord- ingly : {a) by Him we are enabled to enter the kingdom of God, and [b) to fulfil the righteousness Jesus taught ; [c) the means of grace are efficacious, and {d ) the Gospel advances in the world — This g^eat gift of the Spirit is associated with the Gospel only. 'X*HE great subject of the teaching of Jesus being the ■'■ kingdom of God, and the great purpose of His coming being to set up the kingdom of God among men, let us hear some words of a great man in regard to His success. Napoleon Bonaparte is not one whom we would readily quote in matters of religion. But he set up a mighty kingdom among men, and the genius by which he accomplished this was as great probably as ever showed itself in the world. So the opinion we shall quote has undoubted value. ** I search in vain in history," he said, '*to find the like of Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the Gospels. You speak of Caesar, of Alexander, of their conquests, and of the enthusiasm which they enkindled in the hearts of their soldiers ; but can you conceive of a dead man making 100 OUR LORD'S TEACHING conquests, with an army faithful and entirely devoted to his memory? My armies have forgotten me even while living, as the Carthaginian army forgot Hannibal. Such is our power ! A single battle crushes us, and adversity scatters our friends. . . . Alexander, Caesar, Charle- magne, and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius ? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love ; and, at this hour, millions of men would die for Him." This is a testimony to the reality, the growth, and the permanence, through ages and millenniums, of the kingdom of Christ, which recalls the words of the Psalmist — " Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." Why has this characteristic of permanence belonged to the kingdom set up by Jesus ? Great earthly king- doms have been set up by powerful men, but in more or fewer generations they have crumbled ; the power by which they were established was gone with the great men who founded them, and they had not enough of internal cohesion to endure. The course of the kingdom of Jesus has been quite different. It began with but a few ; in the time of its Founder it was like a grain of mustard seed. But, as He intended and foretold, it has grown into a great tree, and it is still spreading forth its branches. What is the secret of this permanence and growth? The chief answer to this question is to be found in the fact that after Jesus had gone from this world, He sent another in His place. A great man may found a kingdom, but he cannot provide successors like himself. Jesus promised and sent "another Para- clete," an expression which implies that He was Himself a Paraclete, and that the other would supply His place. Nay, the other Paraclete would do more and better than supply His place. His disciples would find it a gain to lose Himself if thereby they had the other. "It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away, the Para- clete will not come unto you ; but if I go, I will send him unto you" (John xvi, 7, margin). Let us study HIS TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT loi what Jesus teaches about this Paraclete, His successor and substitute, whom He calls also "The Spirit of truth" and '*The Holy Spirit." I . From the teaching of Jesus we can have no doubt that the other Paraclete is a person. Again and again Jesus speaks in this fashion — ** He shall teach you all things"; ^^ He shall glorify me." And personality is implied in the title " Paraclete," which in our Authorised Version is imperfectly translated "Comforter." The word means "one who is called upon to stand by us, especially in difficulty or conflict." It is, accordingly, the word for an advocate, and is so used of Jesus Himself in I John ii. i, where it is said — "We have a Paraclete (advocate) with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." But as the word means " one who in any circumstances by his presence makes strong," it may be translated also Helper, Cheerer, Encourager. It designates one who by his companionship supports in duty, as well as comforts in sorrow. And on account of the emphasis with which Jesus represents Him as taking part with the disciples against a world in its very nature hostile, it may well be translated also Succourer or Champion. In the foreview which Jesus gives so distinctly of the hostility of the world in John xv. i8-xvi. ii, and of the conflict and witness against the world which His disciples would have to maintain, the Paraclete appears as a Champion whose intervention in the conflict would be decisive. " AMien the Paraclete is come ... he shall bear witness of me." "And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement : of sin, because they believe not on me ; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more ; of judgement, because the prince of this world hath been judged" (John xvi. 8-11). The intervention of the Paraclete is " robust and energetic," ^ even more than soothing or comforting. It is implied also in the teaching of Jesus that the Other Paraclete is a divine person. Jesus could not well "^ Dale, Christian Doctritu, p. 130. 102 OUR LORLfS TEACHING say that it was expedient for Himself to go away, if His substitute were less than divine. Nor could He have taught that "whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him : but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come " (Matt. xii. 32), Nor again could He have joined "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," as He has done in the formula of baptism (Matt, xxviii. 19), if all three were not divine. 2. Another great feature of this Paraclete whom Jesus promised to send is that He is a Teacher^ a heavenly Teacher. The truth is His great instrument of succour to the disciples of Jesus, and so He is again and again called " The Spirit of truth." And how do we reconcile this with the claim of Jesus — •* I am the truth," " I am the light of the world." Jesus, we understand, is the great Revealer of God, and of the truth of God which is needful for man's salvation. How, then, can there be another Revealer? Why should Jesus say of this other, ** He shall teach you all things " ? The answer is, that this heavenly Teacher does His work in us — " He abideth with you, and shall be in you." His part is to teach inwardly. All the truth He uses is already presented in Jesus, — in His life, His work. His death, and His person. But we greatly need an inward power to behold the truth. We lack that holiness without which there is no divine vision. And this Spirit of Truth, who is also the Holy Spirit, purifies our hearts, rights our wills, corrects our purposes, and removes the veils of sin which dim our spiritual vision. The truth that was outward to us, but which we had not the power to apprehend. He gives us inward posses- sion of. He clears our spiritual sight, so that we see what we could not have seen before ; and when from the Scriptures, or any other source, the truth of Christ is brought to us, we know it to be true, as a man whose vision has been cleared knows the light. Uncertainty about the truth in the things of God and HIS TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT 103 salvation is a great pain to many souls who feel unable of themselves to attain to certainty. Must they, then, go to an earthly authority ? No earthly authority can do more than present truth outwardly. It may be able to commend the truth to our acceptance by the respect we have for its character, and the experience we have already had of its wisdom ; but still the truth it presents remains outside of us. Even Jesus Himself, though all He said was with absolute authority, re- cognised the need of His disciples for an inward teacher. This inward Teacher brings no new truth of His own, but He gives the capacity more and more to apprehend the truth that is in Jesus, ^\^^at was for- gotten He brings to remembrance ; what was given in germ He carries forward fully to its issues. Through Him the great Revealer continues to enlighten the Christian mind — "He shall teach you all things," said Jesus, "and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you " (John xiv. 26). "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth" (John xvi. 12, 13). When Jesus avowed Himself a King to Pilate, He indicated that His kingdom was a kingdom of the truth. But how shall such a kingdom keep its ground, or make way in a world such as the present? We say, "Truth is great, and will prevail " ; but how often experience seems to belie this proverb ! How slow the progress of truth in con- flict with the evil dispositions of men ! But if the truth which appeared in the person and work of Jesus be brought home to men by the power of a divine witness, and if those who are "of the truth" are put into fuller and fuller possession of it by the Spirit of truth abiding with them for ever (John xiv. 16), then the permanence and prevalence of the kingdom of the truth are indeed secured. And those who are taught by the Spirit have an assurance of knowing the truth and standing in the light, which can be given by no external authority, as of Pope, or Council, or Priesthood, I04 OUR LORD'S TEACHING 3. From what has now been said of the inward character of the teaching of the Spirit, we may see how it is that, though this heavenly Teacher is a person, we are conscious of Him, in our experience as Christians, only, or usually, as an influence. "While working in us. He does not seek to draw our attention to Himself. His work is to reveal Christ to us. He takes of the things of Christ, and declares them to us (John xvi. 14). There is a solemn unselfishness — if we may use the word — disclosed by Jesus in the relations of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit to one another. The Father would have all men honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. The Father, indeed, accepts no honour to Himself if like honour is refused to the Son — ** He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which sent him" (John v. 23). The Son, on His part, seeks only to glorify the Father, and to finish the work which the Father has given Him to do — "I honour my Father ... I seek not mine own glory" (John viii. 49, 50). And so in like manner the aim of the Spirit is that we may behold the Son. He hides or effaces Himself. It is even said as a guarantee of His teaching that He shall not speak from Himself, or by His own initiative. He waits to hear from Jesus, who is the fountain of revelation, the special truth for which the time has come that it should be apprehended ; for still Jesus teaches His people step by step as they are able to bear it, and as the time requires it. "He shall not speak from himself ; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak" (John xvi. 13). And Jesus says further, ** He shall glorify me : for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you" (xvi. 14). So, when the Spirit works most powerfully in us, we may be least conscious of Him, but most vividly conscious of Christ and of the things of Christ. Nor does the Spirit, though personal, efface our per- sonality by His dwelling in us. We are not less ourselves, but more ourselves, by His working in us. So intimate is His union with our spirit, He does not see and obey U/S TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT 105 the truth for us, but we find we can ourselves see and obey it. Love, joy, peace are indeed fruits of the Spirit in us ; but they are our own love, our own joy, our own peace. We have become enriched in what we ourselves are. 4. Another feature of the work of the Spirit in us : He not only reveals Jesus to us. He brings us into com- munion with Him. In this way the ever-living Spirit per- petuates the presence of the great Founder of the kingdom of God in His kingdom. Other kingdoms fell because their mighty founders died. Jesus lives, and the Spirit whom He sends into the souls of believers, to dwell in them, keeps them in such vision of Him and communion with Him that, in a true sense, He is perpetually with them. Thus is fulfilled the word which Jesus spoke to the twelve in His farewell discourse: "I will not leave you orphans : I come unto you " (John xiv. 18, margin). There are two comings of Jesus which have pro- minence in His teaching, and which may here be distinguished. There is His final coming in glory to end this dispensation by judgment. There is also a present coming, in order that His disciples may not be desolate, or "orphaned," by His ascension into heaven. It was of this latter He said in that farewell discourse, ** I come unto you. Yet a little while, and the world beholdeth me no more; but ye behold me" (John xiv. 18, 19). Without such a promise as this His disciples would indeed have been orphans ; for what their hearts re- quired was present communion with their Master Him- self. And this they received ; for, though the Spirit He promised was undoubtedly another than Jesus, the two are so connected, so "inseparable though separate," and the Spirit so reveals Jesus and so brings into com- munion with Him, that His disciples, through the presence of the Spirit, experience an inward presence of their Master. Not bodily indeed, but real: the bodily presence was to end ; the spiritual presence was to be for ever. 5. One other aspect of the work of the Spirit — the io6 OUR LORD'S TEACHING other Paraclete — may yet be mentioned. The Spirit is one, and His work one, but that work is manifold in its aspects and gifts. Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of it — the basis of all His working — is this, that through Him is imparted to believers the life of Jestis. He makes them sharers in that life. We cannot read the words of Jesus in St. John's Gospel, nor can we listen to the testimony of Christian people in all ages, without being made aware that a new life, a life of higher power, has been introduced into humanity by the coming and work of Jesus. This He declares — as we found in a former chapter (ix.) — to be the purpose of His coming : *• I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John x. lo). The Father is the first source of this new life, as of all life and all blessing. But the Son is the fountain of the life for us men, the well from which we draw it — *'The Father gave the Son to have life in himself" (John v. 26); and "The Son quickeneth (giveth life to) whom he will " (v. 21). "If thou knewest the gift of God," said Jesus at the well of Samaria, "and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink ; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water . . . Who- soever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life" (John iv. 10, 14). From what He further teaches we believe that this life is ministered to us through the Spirit. It is by the working of the Spirit that the Son quickeneth whom He will. The new birth is by the Spirit (John iii. 6). The life that is in the Son passes into all who are united to Him by the Spirit whom He sends, and they are kept living and fruitful while they abide in Him, as the branches of the vine are kept living and fruitful while they abide in the vine-stem, and receive the flow of its life (John xv. 1-8). We may venture to illustrate this further from a notable resource in modem surgery. If through loss of blood a man's body is dangerously weakened, blood may be HIS TEACHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT 107 transfused into his veins from the body of a friend willing that his own abundance may be drawn upon for the great need of the other. This friend gives, as it were, of his own life to supply that which is weak and fainting in the other. So it is a provision of the kingdom of Christ that those who believe in Him have imparted to them, through the Spirit, of His own blessed, pure, and inex- haustible moral life, and in this manner the enfeebled powers of our human nature are replenished out of the fulness of God. It follows that the Gospel of Christ is not only world-wide in aim, not only takes for its work the redemption of mankind, and accepts for Jesus the title of "Saviour of the World" (John iv. 42; vi. 51), but brings with it a force adequate to the accomplishment of this great task. We are now enabled to complete the teaching of Jesus at points at which, apart from His doctrine of the Spirit, that teaching can be only imperfectly stated. (