Wi& teaching of Jesus THE SCRIPTURES * AP^ • A 1805 *, %SiE^ BS 2415 .A2 T4 v. 4 Teachings of Jesus concerning the THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS Edited by JOHN H. KERR, D. D. THE TEACHING OF JESUS CONCERNING THE SCRIPTURES David James Burrell, D. D., LL. D. THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS CONCERNING HIS OWN MISSION. Frank H. Foster. Ready. THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE CHURCH. Geerhardus Vos. Ready. GOD THE FATHER Archibald Thomas Robertson. " THE SCRIPTURES. David James Burrell. HIS OWN PERSON hi preparation. CHRISTIAN CONDUCT THE HOLY SPIRIT THE FUTURE LIFE THE FAMILY THE CHRISTIAN LIFE A Series of volumes on the " Teachings of Jesus " by eminent writers and divines. Cloth bound. i2mo. Price 75 cts. each postpaid. AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. THE TEACHING OF JESUS CONCERNING THE SCRIPTURES David James Burr ell, D.D., LL.D. AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 150 NASSAU STREET NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, I9O4 BY AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY PREFACE /f MAN named Jesus claims to be yl the incarnate Son of God. Whence has he come ? From " the glory which he had with the Father before the world was." What is he doing here ? He says that he has come into the world to teach the truth ; " To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth" (Johnxviii. 37). He finds a book in the hands of the people which is generally regarded as true and trustworthy every way. They hold it to be an " infallible rule of faith vi Preface and practice," that is to say, it is their ultimate authority in doctrine and ethics. This book is constantly before him. What will he do with it ? What will he have to say about it ? This question is one of supreme im- portance to those who profess to follow him. As to others, they are at liberty to believe what they like ; but those who call themselves disciples of Jesus have no alternative but to renounce him or to accept what he says. His Court is the Court of Last Resort, for them. It is just as well to remember this, in these controversial times. There are teachers and teachers, but there is only one teacher for Christians. When Hillel and Sham- mai have spoken their last word, we await his " Verily, verily, I say unto you." Any man is at liberty to quit Christ ; but no man can cleave to Christ and withhold aught of loyalty from him. CONTENTS PAGE I. Antecedent Presumption as to the Attitude of Jesus toward the Scriptures I II. The Actual Attitude of Jesus TOWARD THE SCRIPTURES . . 1 8 III. The Specific Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Scriptures . 87 IV. The Provision of Jesus for the Writing of the New Testa- ment 162 V. The Silence of Jesus as to Al- leged Errors of the Scriptures. 163 VI. Summary and Conclusion . 180 Appendices 195 A. The Incarnation . . 195 B. Other Incarnations . 196 C. Errors in Scripture . 198 D. Kenosis 199 Indices 203, 209 vii CHAPTER I Antecedent Presumption as to the Attitude of Jesus toward the Scriptures. /F there were no Bible we should all be wondering why ; nor would our wonder cease until we had made a Bible, however full of faults, to satisfy it. This is why there are so many " sacred books" in the world. They represent not only a universal longing but a uni- versal sense of the fitness of things. Men want a Bible and must have it. " There is a spirit in man " and " the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." We were 2 The Scriptures made in God's likeness and, fallen though we are, the glory is not all departed. There are memories, hopes, desires, as- pirations that bind us back to God.* One of the lingering echoes of our pris- tine dignity when we walked with God in the Garden in the cool of the day is the feeling, everywhere prevalent, that he somehow still holds converse with us. To the calm judgment of a Baconian logician this proves nothing. Is it not just possible, however, that there are more things in heaven and earth than the inductive sages can demonstrate by their system of reasoning ? Is it quite neces- sary to assume that all truth, particularly such as falls outside the province of the five physical senses, must be classified under the formula quod erat demonstran- dum ? How, then, about the things that are " spiritually discerned " ? This is not to say, however, that a dem- * The word " religion " is held by many to be from re- ligare, meaning " to bind back." Antecedent Presumption 3 onstration of the truth of Scripture can- not be made. Far from it. But we thus justify our beginning this little book with certain universal facts which furnish only circumstantial evidence ; facts which, like the ergo in cogito ergo sum, draw on the imagination. They do not land us in the safe harbor of convic- tion ; but they make it pretty certain that the harbor is somewhere and that, with favoring winds, we may presently sail into it. In other words, they create a presumption in favor of the argument lying farther on. I We say, then, at the outset, that // there is a God anywhere in the universe, and if we are his children, he cannot fail to com- municate with us in some way. To think otherwise would be to assume that he is either unable or unwilling to do so. In the former case he would not be om- nipotent ; in the latter case he would 4 The Scriptures not be kind, and in either case we should have no practical interest in him because he would not be God. II Our second step brings us to the as- sumption that // God reveals himself at all it will probably be in a human form. He is said to have created man in his own image and after his likeness, the highest of and dominant among the orders of life. Is not this, therefore, the form in which he would probably em- body himself, if he is to embody himself at all ? It is worthy of note that the doctrine of the incarnation, so far from being the sole possession of the Christian Church, is practically universal ; though often- times so vague and even grotesque as to furnish a pathetic commentary on the inadequacy of human wisdom to answer human need. From which we infer that it is manifestly in accord with reason, Antecedent Presumption 5 in so far as reason is represented in the intuitions of the race. The false reli- gions abound in avatars and theophanies, vain gropings toward a true embodiment of God.* Men search for God in nature ; and be- hold the Pantheon ! Here are gods from hill and valley ; nymphs, dryads, nereids, deifications of nature in every form. Men worship the sun, the scara- baeus, great Moloch with his fiery arms, a lizard, a crocodile, an onion. O the lamentable depths to which the race * " God's general revelation of himself is by fixed laws of order which know no pity, which show no forgiveness, which are indifferent to the interests of individuals, which conceal the divine character in some respects while they reveal it in others. God's special revelation of himself by intervening among these laws in miraculous acts and inspired words brings him nearer to individual hearts, and yet it leaves him far away ; for, after all, but signs and sounds have been given, not him- self ; he is himself still shrouded in darkness, still hidden where no man can approach him. Can he come yet nearer man, that man may draw closer to him ? Christianity an- swers, and its answer is Christ, — the person, the character and the work of Christ." Doctor Robert Flint in " Faiths of the World." 6 The Scriptures has fallen in its eagerness to find or make a suitable symbol of the invisible God! They search for him in philosophy with no better result. The thinkers of the Orient ended their researches in a poly- theistic deification of the universe ; affirm- ing that all things are God. The Occi- dentals, on the other hand, arrived at pantheism ; affirming that God is all things. These ultimates were equally false and equally true.* Shall God be evolved, then, from the inner consciousness ? The utmost that a man can do in this direction is to project himself in large dimensions on the skies, like the Brocken of the Alps. As there are many men of many minds the result * Thales professed to have discovered in water the potency of life. Xenophanes proclaimed that nothing could be more divine than thought. Plato anticipated the investigations of modern scientists who declare that the Ultimate is all-pervad- ing law or force. The Stoics were Agnostics, giving up the quest in despair ; saying, like Fichte, " We know nothing, not even that we know nothing." Antecedent Presumption 7 must be a corresponding multiplicity of gods- How then can God unveil himself ? We have exhausted our resources. The world grows weary of seeking him. The fulness of time is the hour of despair. He now appears, as announced in the protevangel, " The seed of woman shall bruise the serpent's head." The great Father desires to communicate with his children. Our human medium of communication is language. The "word" of the Father shall be articu- lated for his children's use. The Word is made flesh and dwells among us.* God is manifest in flesh. Theanthropos ! The child wrapped in swaddling bands is the very God that sat upon the circle of the universe and called into being things that were not. The little hand, that lies, pink and dimpled, on its mother's breast, is the same that spun the new- created worlds into space, and rolls the * See Appendix A. 8 The Scriptures rattling thunders through the skies. The lips that murmur in response to her lul- laby are destined to speak the words whereat, in the process of the centuries, the thrones of the Cassars shall fall in ir- remediable ruin and give way to a king- dom of truth and righteousness. H e hath upon his vesture and his thigh a name written — a name to be made clearer and clearer in the logic of events — " King of kings and Lord of lords." The truth thus stated is fundamental to Christianity. It bears the same relation to our doctrinal system that a mainspring bears to a watch. Every pin and wheel and lever of the mechanism is more or less important ; but break the main- spring and the watch stops. Not only so, this doctrine is the touch- stone of Christian sincerity ; as it is written, " Hereby know we the Spirit of God : every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is of God : and every spirit that confesseth Antecedent Presumption 9 not Jesus is not of God" (1 John iv. 2).* Ill This brings us to the third step in our presumption ; namely, If God were to re- veal himself in human form he would prob- ably supplement and complement that In- carnation by a Scripture. Otherwise how would the Incarnation be of any practical use beyond its own place and time ? The true religion must, presumably, be coextensive with all races and generations. It must extend its beneficence not only " from the river to the ends of the earth" but from Adam to the last man. In order to accomplish this an Incarnation of God, unless other provision was made, would have to be not only ubiquitous but contemporane- ous with the whole human race ! Now Christ lived in a small corner of a remote portion of the earth, during a brief period of only thirty-three years. It is claimed, * See Appendix B. io The Scriptures however, that the benefits of that short and circumscribed life are made both universal and perpetual by the Scriptures which contain the record of it. In the Old Testament he is set forth prophetic- ally as One who should, in the fulness of time, be born of a virgin, and whose name should be called Immanuel, "which is, being interpreted, God-with- us." In the New Testament he is set forth as the historic Incarnation of Deity. In the Old and New Testaments com- bined he is presented to all ages and gen- erations, from the beginning to the end of the world, as God manifest in flesh for the deliverance of the world from sin. It is difficult to imagine how God could have made himself known to men in any other way. We are not unaware of the importance of natural theology ; but nature "speaks a various tongue." The vernal winds whisper one thing and Euroclydon screams another. A stranger in a strange land, gazing at the stars, Antecedent Presumption 1 1 solaces his loneliness with the thought that they are shining also on his distant loved ones ; but that does not answer the purpose of a letter from home. Cole- ridge in the Valley of Chamounix hears " all the signs and wonders of the ele- ments " echoing God ; but this falls in- finitely short of the satisfaction he feels on opening the Book and seeing his Father's name ; a satisfaction which he expresses thus, " It finds me." It is not unnatural, I say, that God's children in the far country should look for such a letter from home. And they all do. Witness the sacred books of all the nations. Poor counterfeits, indeed, but how pathetic ! They certify to a universal longing. The expatriates have been " watching the mails " from the beginning of the ages. Is there, then, no word from God ? Enter, the Bible with its claim. But how shall we know that the Bible is the veritable Word of God ? Why 12 The Scriptures not the Vedas, the Tripitaka, the Zend-Avesta, the Analects of Con- fucius or the Koran ? Reason must an- swer. All, including the Bible, are bound to stand or fall upon their com- parative merits. And the question is not, Which is the best ? but, Which is the one ? For truth is one, absolute and exclusive. And it should be obvious that when God reveals the truth, he makes no mistakes ; he kindles no false beacons ; he tells no lies. In this inquiry we must be guided by internal evidence. Here is one of the functions of scholarship. It kindles the fires under all the sacred books ; if they burn, so be it. The true Word must come from the flames without so much as the smell of smoke upon it. Let those who doubt the veracity of Scripture turn on the fuming and corrosive acids of adverse criticism. It must abide the issue. And, perpetually, the world looks on. Antecedent Presumption 13 As to the result, every man must judge for himself whether the Bible verifies its claim or not. But history has some- what to say. The "logic of events" is irrefutable. It is a significant fact that the pathway of the centuries is lined with discredited and discarded oracles. The sacred books of antiquity were weighed successively in the balance and found wanting. Where is the Egyptian " Book of the Dead " ? It survives only in frag- ments deciphered from mummy-crypts and bands of byssus. Where are the mythologies of the Greeks, the Romans and the Norsemen ? Where are the philosophies of Greece ? Of devotees they have practically none ; the spectres of disappointment are their only mourners. And of the sacred books of Buddhism, Brahmanism and Islam, which still survive, three things must be observed : first, infallibility is not claimed for them ; second, they have no calculable following among the civilized nations of 14 The Scriptures the earth ; and third, they represent re- ligions which are stricken with death. Meanwhile, what of the Bible ? It is the Book of Christendom — that charmed circle which includes practically all the light and life of these days. It is the center of a controversy which represents the mental and moral energy of the world. It counts among its friends and defenders an ever increasing number of those who are distinguished for character and culture. Its enemies contribute to its triumph and perpetuity by their as- saults upon it. " Hammer away, ye rebel bands ; your hammers break, God's anvil stands ! ' It may be confidently affirmed that more people are reading the Bible to-day than ever before ; and — as certified by the roll-call of the uni- versal church — more people than ever are affixing their faith to it. We do not say that this proves the truth of the Bible, by any means, but only that it opens the way. It warrants us in affirming that it Antecedent Presumption 15 looks as if there might, perhaps, be something in the claim that it is the veritable Word of God. IV Our fourth step brings us to a full statement of our antecedent presumption, to wit : If God were to reveal himself in both human form and in Scripture, the Man and the Book would be in perfect accord with each other. On the one hand, the Book would be not only true, in the necessity of the case, but a complete setting forth of God so far as it is important that man should know him. It does not fall within the writer's province, at this time, to traverse the argument for the authenticity and trustworthiness of Scripture except so far as that is covered by the teachings of Christ. Let it suffice here to say that the Bible claims to be the written Word of God. On the other hand, a man claiming to 1 6 The Scriptures be incarnate God would have to be, in the necessity of the case, a true and com- plete revelation of God in all his practical relations with us. He would need to be, as it were, the articulate speech of God addressed to men. And this is precisely the claim which is made for Jesus Christ. " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth" (Johni. 1, 14). As we are made acquainted with one another through the medium of language, so the eternal Logos in his in- carnation becomes, as it were, the artic- ulated speech of God, by means of which we know him. If these respective claims of Christ and the Bible are true, we should expect them to agree, each with the other, perfectly. If they meet this requirement, we must conclude that the argument for the truth Antecedent Presumption 17 of either is strengthened an hundredfold. This then is the question : Does the Bible bear an unequivocal testimony to the claims of Jesus as the Incarnate Word, and does Jesus bear witness, correspond- ingly, to the claim of the Scriptures as the written Word of God ? If so, in the two together, constituting the binomial Word, we may confidently rest as in a full, true and final revelation of God. It is only with the latter half of this question that the writer has to do. His task is to discover and state, as clearly as possible, what the Incarnate Word has to say respecting the Written Word of God. CHAPTER II The Actual Attitude of Jesus to- ward the Scriptures. ~\ TO amount of a priori argument, / \ such as the patient reader found in Chapter first, can settle the matter in hand. It is easy enough to lay down antecedent presumptions and probabili- ties ; but the question, after all, is purely a question of fact : What was Jesus's attitude toward the Scriptures ? The obvious way to arrive at a satisfactory answer is by making a comprehensive survey of his life and teaching, so far forth as they have any reference whatsoever to the matter before us. 18 Actual Attitude 19 /. The Preparation Observe, at the outset, Jesus knew the Scriptures. In his childhood he was in- structed in them. He was surrounded by a religious atmosphere. The mezuzah with its passage of Scripture * was affixed to the doorpost of his home. Joseph and Mary were loyal Jews and, as such, nur- tured and instructed the Holy Child in the sacred Word. At the first this duty would naturally devolve on the mother. " It needed not the extravagant lauda- tions, nor the promises held out by the rabbis," says Edersheim, " to incite Jew- ish women to this duty. If they were true to their descent, it would come al- most naturally to them. But while the earliest religious teaching would, of ne- cessity, come from the lips of the mother, it was the father who was ' bound to teach his son.' To impart to the child knowledge of the Torah conferred as * " The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore " (Ps. cxxi. 8). 20 The Scriptures great spiritual distinction, as if a man had received the Law itself on Mount Horeb. Every other engagement, even the neces- sary meal, should give place to this para- mount duty ; nor should it be forgotten that, while here real labor was necessary, it would never prove fruitless. That man was of the profane vulgar (an Am ha- arets), who had sons but failed to bring them up in the knowledge of the Law." * At the age of five or six Jesus was sent * Directly the child learned to speak, his religious instruc- tion was to begin — no doubt, with such verses of Holy Scrip- ture as composed that part of the Jewish liturgy, which an- swers to our creed. Then would follow other passages from the Bible, short prayers, and select sayings of the sages. Spe- cial attention was given to the culture of the memory, since forgetfulness might prove as fatal in its consequences as ig- norance or neglect of the Law. Very early the child must have been taught what might be called his birthday-text — some verse of Scripture beginning, or ending with, or at least containing, the same letters at his Hebrew name. This guard- ian-promise the child would insert in its daily prayers. The earliest hymns taught would be the Psalms for the days of the week, or festive Psalms, such as the Hallel, or those con- nected with the festive pilgrimages to Zion." Edersheim's " Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah." Actual Attitude 21 to the rabbinical school, where the Bible was the only text-book. The course of study began with Leviticus and continued through the Pentateuch ; after which the prophets and then the poetical books were taken up. Much attention was given to the memorizing of certain por- tions, particularly the important pre- scripts of the law and the acrostic Psalms. At ten years of age the pupil was per- mitted to enter on the study of the Gemara and the fundamental doctrines of the Jewish faith. In this connection the further words of Edersheim, himself a Jew, are signifi- cant : " From his intimate familiarity with Holy Scripture, in its every detail, we may be allowed to infer that the home of Nazareth, however humble, possessed a precious copy of the sacred volume in its entirety. At any rate, we know that from earliest childhood it must have formed the meat and drink of the God- man. The words of the Lord, as re- 22 The Scriptures corded by St. Matthew and St. Luke, also imply that the Holy Scriptures which he read were in the original Hebrew, and that they were written in the square, or Assyrian, characters. Indeed, as the Pharisees and Sadducees always appealed to the Scriptures in the original, Jesus could not have met them on any other ground ; and it was this which gave such point to his frequent expostulations with them: ' Have ye not read ? ' But far other thoughts than theirs gathered around his study of the Old Testament of the Scrip- tures. When comparing their long dis- cussions on the letter and law of Scripture with his references to the Word of God, it seems as if it were quite another book which was handled. As we gaze into the vast glory of meaning which he opens to us ; follow the shining track of heaven- ward living to which he points ; behold the lines of symbol, type, and prediction converging in the grand unity of that kingdom which became reality in him ; Acttial Attitude 23 or listen as, alternately, some question of his seems to rive the darkness as with flash of sudden light, or some sweet prom- ise of old to lull the storm, some earnest lesson to quiet the tossing waves — we catch faint, it may be far-off, glimpses of how, in that early child-life, when the Holy Scriptures were his special study, he must have read them, and what thoughts must have been kindled by their light. And thus better than before can we understand it: 'And the Child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him."'* In the single authoritative glimpse which we have into the early life of Jesus we find him, at twelve years of age, in the temple sitting in the midst of the doc- tors, " hearing them and asking questions and answering " (Luke ii. 41-50). It was probably in that apartment of the temple known as the Hall Gazith ; and in all the * Edersheim's " Life and Times of fesus the Messiah." 24 The Scriptures world there was no more distinguished body of scholars than those accustomed to assemble there. Of the number were Annas, the high priest and president of the Sanhedrin ; Ben Uzziel, the Targum- ist who wrote the Chaldee Paraphrase; Joseph of Arimathea, a man of wealth and character ; Ben Buta, who had been blinded by Herod for his devotion to the Jewish cause ; Nicodemus ; the aged Hillel, and Shammai, his rival ; and Ga- maliel, a professor in the University of Jerusalem, known as " the Flower of the Law." In the midst of such a distin- guished assemblage stood the boy of twelve, "hearing, asking questions and answering them." No intimation is given as to the themes traversed in this remarkable conference ; but we cannot go far wrong in suppos- ing that it had to do particularly with the supreme problems of life to wit : God, man and the reconciliation of man with God. The basis of the con- Actual Attitude 25 ference was doubtless the Holy Scrip- tures, for here the wonderful Boy and the learned Rabbis were on common ground ; and the one truth about which the conversation turned was, to a moral certainty, the prophecies of the com- ing of the Messiah, which were called " the Hope " or " Consolation of Israel." It would be scarcely possible for such a company of Biblical experts, under such circumstances, to refrain from discussing it. The Boy in the midst of them would ask, " Who is this Messiah ? When he cometh, how will ye know him ?" And they would answer, "He is to be King of Kings, 'great David's greater Son.' In the fulness of time he will appear to deliver Israel ; and he will reign in glory among us. " The Boy would ask, " What then is the meaning of this scripture, ' A virgin shall conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel, which being in- terpreted is, God with us '; or of this, ' He is a man of sorrows and acquainted with 26 The Scriptures grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him ; he is wounded for our trans- gressions and bruised for our iniquities, that by his stripes we might be healed ' ? Or what is the meaning of your sacrifices ? Why is the blood of the Paschal lamb sprinkled on the lintel of every doorway and upon all the sacred things of the tem- ple ? Why this blood, blood, blood every- where?" And they could only say in their bewilderment, "It is written that if a man sin and bring a lamb without spot or blemish to the altar, his sin is taken from him." "But how can the blood of a lamb atone for sin ? How can it wash away the crimson stain?" And they knew not. This boy of twelve was their Messiah ; and they did not rec- ognize him. He was himself the anti- type of all their sacrifices. His was the blood that should cleanse from sin. Was he aware of his personality and mission ? Aye ; always. The realization of his mission began with his dawning Actual Attitude 27 consciousness. He knew who he was, whence he had come and what his errand was. Else what did he mean when he said to his mother, " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" It is true that, in assuming mortal form, he " emptied himself" of the outward tokens of his Godhood ; but never for a moment in such manner as to become ignorant of his mission or unable to perform it.* II. His Inauguration into His Ministry The time having come for the begin- ning of his great work, he one day closed the carpenter shop and never returned to * The proof-text of "the Kenosis" or emptying of Christ is Philippians ii. 5-1 1. It affirms of Christ that he laid aside not his Godhood but the "form " of it ; not his essential glory but the "fashion" of it. In taking upon him "the form of a servant " he held the exercise of his divine attributes in abey- ance ; as a King lays aside his crown, scepter and purple robe, but always within reach. On frequent occasions he exercised his omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence ; and never was he so divested of them as to endanger the perfect exercise of his functions as the Christ of God. 28 The Scriptures it. The work to which he had looked forward with desire, saying, " I have a baptism to be baptized with and how is my soul straitened until I shall ac- complish it," was before him. Observe how, from this time forward, he made the Scriptures his rule of faith and practice. He betook himself, straight- way, to the Jordan, where John was baptizing, and presented himself " to be baptized of him." And when John re- fused saying, " I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thus to me ? " he had immediate recourse to the Scrip- tures, replying, " Suffer it now ; for thus it be cometh us to fulfil all righteousness''' (Matt. iii. 13-17). In the Law it was prescribed that Aaron and his sons should be inaugurated into the holy office of the priesthood by being " washed with water at the door of the Tabernacle of the con- gregation " (Ex. xxix. 4). It was incum- bent on Jesus, as he entered upon the work of priestly sacrifice and intercession, Actual Attitude 29 to comply with and complete that law. In this experience he struck the keynote of his entire ministry, which was in per- fect accord with the Scriptures every way. The divine approval of this act was signified at his baptism by the descent of the Spirit and the Voice from heaven, saying, " Thou art my beloved Son ; in thee I am well pleased." He was a loyal Jew, and the New Economy had not yet begun. If a son of Levi must be washed at the brazen laver on assuming his ministerial func- tions, so should Jesus ; but instead of the temple we have the deep valley and the overarching skies ; instead of the laver, the swift-flowing Jordan ; instead of the anointing, the descent of the dove. Now this Jesus is the source and center of all right precepts and injunctions ; his heart is the throne of law ; the writings of Sinai are the flashings of his eye ; yet under the Law he bows and passes into servitude. Though equal with God, he 30 The Scriptures takes upon him the form of a servant and becomes obedient. The inaugural rite is his bounden duty ; to obey is better than sacrifice. " Thus it becometh me, as the ' Son of man ' — that is, the ideal and representative Man — to fulfil all righteousness." If he thus respected the humblest duty, surely the same is becom- ing in us. His next step was equally significant. From the Jordan he was " led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." In the continuous conflict of those forty days, thrice did the ad- versary assault the citadel of his character and thrice was he met and repelled with the Sword of the Spirit. To the first temptation which was addressed to the physical infirmity of Jesus he answered, " It is written, ' Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- ceedeth out of the mouth of God. ' ' ' To the second, which was directed at his Messianic consciousness and fortified by Actual Attitude 31 a cleverly distorted reference to Scripture, he answered, " It is written, ' Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God/" To the third, which was a specious at- tempt to divert him from his purpose of establishing the kingdom through his vicarious death, he answered, " Get thee hence, Satan : for it is written, ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' Then the devil leaveth him ; and behold, angels came and min- istered unto him." "It is written!" " It is written ! " " It is written ! " Where? In the Scriptures. Thus Jesus not only vindicated his own character, as against all approach of evil, but tested triumphantly the mettle of his weapon, " the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God " (Eph. vi. 17). Then back to the Jordan he turned his steps. The Baptist was still preach- ing and baptizing there. On seeing Jesus he said, " Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 32 The Scriptures world ! " Here is a plain reference to the Messiah, in whom all the sacrificial rites of Israel were to find their fulfill- ment, whose blood was to be shed for the cleansing from sin. Jesus accepted the title without demur, and then and there gathered about him the little group of disciples who were to follow him dur- ing his earthly ministry, forming the nucleus of that great and ever increasing multitude who were destined to serve him through the ages. The record states that John and An- drew "abode with him that day." It would appear that in their interview with Jesus he must have opened the Scrip- tures unto them respecting the " Hope of Israel ; " for Andrew immediately sought his brother Simon saying, " We have found the Messiah (which is, being interpreted, Christ)." And the day fol- lowing, Philip, after a like interview, sought his friend Nathanael saying, " We have found him, of whom Moses in the Actual Attitude 33 law and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." And when Nathanael objected increduously, " Can any good thing come out of Naz- areth ? " he answered, " Come and see ; " from which we infer that Christ, in all such conferences with his early disciples, made it clear that he was the one " whom kings and prophets longed to see and died without the sight." Such a result could only have been achieved by an argument based upon the Scriptures to which these men affixed their faith. III. The Judean Ministry Thus Christ began his public work by opening, expounding and putting into practice the Holy Scriptures. And thenceforward during the three years of his eventful life, we observe how inces- santly he preached the Word. The first authoritative act of his minis- try was at the Passover, A. D. 27, when he purged the temple with a scourge of 34 The Scriptures small cords. In answer to the religious leaders who indignantly asked, " What sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things ? " he said " Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." That this was in- tended to be a reference to such proph- ecies as bore upon his resurrection is evident from what follows : " When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this ; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said " (John ii. 13-22). The next incident in the ministry of Jesus was his interview with Nicodemus (John iii. 1-21). This, also, illustrates his habit of teaching along Scriptural lines. The doctrine of regeneration, an- nounced as a mystery, was followed by the practical and consequential doctrine of justification by faith, which he set forth in terms of kindergarten simplicity by an object lesson, " As Moses lifted up Actual Attitude 35 the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life." Thus his last appeal was to the Scriptures. In the practical appli- cation of truth, the great Preacher always brought his hearers back to the Word of God. IV. The Galilean Ministry The interview of Jesus with the wom- an of Samaria on his way to Galilee, is another instance of his Scriptural method (John iv. 1-42). The references to the well which Jacob digged, to the moun- tain of worship, to the Judaic source of salvation and to the spiritual nature of the Deity are all biblical. And when, at the climacteric point of his interview, the doctrine of the Messiah was reached, it was like the lifting of a veil. Is there anything anywhere in the teaching of Jesus, clearer, more positive or more il- luminating as to his relation to the rites 2,6 The Scriptures and symbols and prophecies of the Old Economy, than his closing words " I that speak unto thee am he " ? The first reported sermon of Jesus was at Nazareth. He had been teaching and working miracles for some months, in Judea and Galilee, when he returned to his native village. It is safe to say that his townsmen were on the qui vive to hear him. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue "as his custom was." It was the rule to open the service with the singing of a Psalm. Then came the reading of a portion of the Pentateuch, followed by a lesson from the Prophets.* It was customary at this point to request any distinguished stranger, known as a loyal Jew, who chanced to be present, to act as Sheliach Tsibbur, or " Messenger of the Congregation," on whom de- volved the special duty of expounding the lesson of the day. The lesson on this * See Edersheim's Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Book III. Chap. X. Actual Attitude 37 particular day was from the sixty-first of Isaiah, and Jesus was invited to read and discourse upon it. The chazzan or " minister " approached the chest and brought from it reverently the scroll of the prophecy, which, being carefully un- wound from its cloth wrappings, was placed in the hands of Jesus, who opened it and read : " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor ; he hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke iv. 18, 19). The interest of the congregation is indicated in the words " And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him." His discourse is not given in full ; but it is said to have been distinctly expository, and its personal bearing on the great question of the Messiahship is affirmed in the brief summary : " To-day hath this 38 The Scriptures scripture been fulfilled in your ears." At the conclusion of his discourse all were agreed in bearing him witness and won- dered at the words of grace which pro- ceeded out of his mouth ; " but they were not prepared to accept his interpre- tation of Isaiah's prophecy as applying to himself. " Is not this Joseph's son ? " they asked. And when they demanded " a sign," he reminded them, with Scriptural illustrations, that " no prophet is acceptable in his own country ; " whereupon they " were filled with wrath and rose up and cast him forth out of the city." The sermon at Nazareth may serve as an example of the Master's method in all his subsequent preaching. Ex uno, disce omnes. Wherever he went he preached the Word. "And many hearing him were astonished, saying, Whence hath this man these things ? and, What is the wisdom that is given unto this man?" (Mark. vi. 2). In all such cases Actual Attitude 39 the comprehensive answer of Jesus was " My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me " (John vii. 16), which, while in- dicating his mysterious essential union with the Father, was but another way of expressing his absolute loyalty to and ac- cord with the written Word of God. On leaving Nazareth he came to Caper- naum which was to be, thenceforth, the center of his work. " And straightway, on the Sabbath day, he entered into the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching ; for he taught them as having authority and not as the scribes " (Mark i. 21, 22). The word here rendered "authority " is the Greek e^ovaia, which designates an inward source. He taught not as the scribes, who referred for their authority to other teachers, but as one who could say, " I am the Truth." He taught not like the prophets, who introduced their discourses with "Thus saith the Lord," since he and the Father were in such complete 40 The Scriptures harmony that their word was one ; where- fore he spoke on this wise : " Verily, verily, I say unto you." How bold is this manifesto ! Who is this that sets his ipse dixit against precedent, tradition, the teaching of all ancient worthies ? How this " I say unto you " goes crashing through the elaborate fabrics which had been set up by ecclesiastical courts and councils ! Here is a tone of authority which finds no parallel except in the thunders of Sinai. No other preacher can dogmatize in this manner. He could speak thus not only because of his singu- lar oneness with the Father but because, also, of his deep insight into the meaning of the divine Word and his absolute loy- alty to it. With Capernaum as his center of opera- tions he made a number of memorable itineraries among the villages of Galilee, " preaching the good tidings of the king- dom of God." His plan was to enter the synagogues and discourse from the Actual Attitude 41 Scriptures, according to custom, respect- ing the great doctrines of which his own Messiahship was chiefest of all. The second Passover in the ministry of Jesus found him back at Jerusalem (John v. 1). On his arrival he visited the porches of Bethesda, where he healed a paralytic on the Sabbath. The religious leaders at once accused him of violating the Sabbath law ; whereupon he preached the wonderful discourse recorded in the fifth of John in which he showed his devotion to the Scriptures, even to their last jot and tittle, while overwhelming the scribes and Pharisees with the most scathing denunciations on account of the sacrilegious liberties which they had taken with them. In these discourses he not only vindicates his own authority by rea- son of his singular relation to the Father as his incarnate Word, but yokes with it inseparably the authority of the written Word ; as when he says, " The works which the Father hath given me to ac- 42 The Scriptures complish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me. And the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. And ye have not his word abiding in you : for whom he sent, him ye believe not. Ye search the Scriptures ; because ye think that in them ye have eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness of me ; and ye will not come to me, that ye may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in my Father's name, and ye re- ceive me not : if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory one of another, and the glory that cometh from the only God ye seek not ? Think not that I will accuse you to the Father : there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, on whom ye have set your hope. For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Actual Attitude 43 me : for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John v. 36^7). All his preaching, during this brief visit at Jerusalem, was of the same tenor. It was a continual tribute to the truth and trustworthiness of Scripture. When the disciples were taken to task for going through the tilled fields on the Sabbath and rubbing the wheat in their hands in order to satisfy their hunger, he defended them by an appeal to Scripture ; " Have ye not read in the law, that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are guiltless? But I say unto you, that one greater than the temple is here. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have con- demned the guiltless" (Matt. xii. 5-7). A little later, while in attendance at one of the synagogues, he healed a man with a withered hand ; and when there was an outcry against this obvious viola- 44 The Scriptures tion of the rabbinical toldoth, his answer was an appeal from the false interpreta- tion and superfluous citations of the rab- bis to the original design and true signif- icance of the law (Matt. xii. 9-14). On returning to Capernaum he was " followed by a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did." He spake to them, again and again, in the streets, on the hillsides, by the shore of the Lake : and always the burden of his discourse was " Return to the Word of God!" It was somewhere about this time that he preached the Sermon on the Mount. Its Golden Text is, " Think ?iot that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets : I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all things be accom- plished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom Actual Attitude 45 of heaven : but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the king- dom of heaven " (Matt. v. 17 - 19). In the whole of this wonderful discourse he shows not only his perfect acquiescence in and devotion to the teachings of Holy Writ but his divine insight into its signif- icance. He ruthlessly exposes the errors in the Biblical expositions and interpre- tations of the scribes and elders — their toldoth, their eisegesis, their " tradi- tions " — and insists imperatively on get- ting back to the original and down into the uttermost meaning of things. It is not the voice of the destroyer but of the restorer that we hear in his " Ye have heard — but I say unto you ! " One reason why " the common people heard him gladly " was because his preaching was so distinctly Scriptural. They believed in the Scriptures ; if ever there was a people against whom the charge of bibliolatry could justly be made it was these Jews. When they went to 46 The Scriptures the synagogue it was with the desire and expectation of hearing a doctrinal or ethical discourse on that particular por- tion of the Scripture which was desig- nated as " the lesson of the day." An expression of personal opinion on the part of the preacher was of little interest to them ; as litde, indeed, as it is to the people of these days. Who cares, at the back and bottom of the matter, what this or that Doctor of Divinity thinks about the great problems of eternity ? His breath is in his nostrils ; wherefore his experimental pilgrimages and peregrina- tions in Terra Incognita are no more im- portant than those of any other man. One can guess as well as another ; and every one can conjure up enough " ifs " and " perhapses " of his own without going to church for them. The people go to church to hear a preacher set forth plainly not what he supposes but what God says. They want the clear light of a Thus saith the Lord on the Actual Attitude 47 problems along the heavenward way. If the man in the pulpit has nothing better to offer than hypotheses, based on no better authority than personal opin- ion, they may lend an ear for a while to his fine phrases but sooner or later they will quit him for another who can lean on Scripture and say Yea and Amen. Jesus preached in this positive manner. To his personal authority as the divine Son — an authority which he shared with no other preacher whatsoever — he added a constant appeal to the ultimate and con- clusive authority of the Scriptures : he "preached the Word" (Mark ii. 1, 2, et al.). In his miracles of healing he con- sistently honored it ; as when he said to the leper at Chorazin, " Go shew thy- self to the priest, and offer for thy cleans- ing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them" (Luke v. 14). It was about this time that John the Baptist, a prisoner in the castle of Machaerus, sent messengers to him ask- 48 The Scriptures ing, " Art thou he that should come or look we for another?" The question having been answered in a most satisfac- tory and conclusive manner, he called the attention of the multitude to John himself as set forth in ancient prophecy ; and his words are in notable contrast with certain views of prophecy which are ad- vanced in our time. Hear him ; " What went ye out into the wilderness to be- hold ? a reed shaken with the wind ? But what went ye out to see ? a man clothed in soft raiment ? Behold, they that wear soft raiment are in kings' houses. But wherefore went ye out ? to see a prophet ? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet. This is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater than John the Baptist : yet, he that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is Actual Attitude 49 greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elijah that is to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear " (Matt. xi. 7-15). His credentials, as the divine Son, being called in question by the scribes and Pharisees, who clamored for a sign, he answered them by falling back on a notable sign given in the Scriptures (Matt. xii. 38-40) and put their unbelief to shame on this wise, " The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it ; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon ; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here " (Matt. xii. 42). A woman who chanced to be among his hearers was so carried away with enthusiasm that she cried, " Blessed is D 50 The Scriptures the womb that bare thee and the breasts which thou didst suck ! " to which he answered, "Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it ' ' (Luke xi. 27-28). Was greater tribute than this ever paid to the Word of God ? At this point his teaching was largely in parables, and this method having been challenged he defended it by a reference to Scripture, showing that he was pursu- ing the divinely appointed path of in- struction : "Unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive : for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and un- derstand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them ' (Matt. xiii. 14, 15). And when his disciples asked, in par- Actual Attitude 51 ticular, for an interpretation of the par- able of " the sower who soweth the Word," he said, " He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man " (Matt. xiii. 37). In the last of the series of parables, ut- tered on this occasion, he laid down a comprehensive rule of homiletics for all preachers and for all time ; " Have ye understood all these things ? They say unto him, Yea. And he said unto them, Therefore every scribe who hath been made a disciple to the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old " (Matt. xiii. 51, 52). The preacher is here likened to an oriental host who receives a stranger into his home. Desirous of entertaining him he brings forth his wealth and spreads it before him. There were no banks or other places of safe deposit in those days. Treasure was buried in the ground or kept in a recess in the wall. The house- holder here goes to his treasury and brings 52 The Scriptures out things new and old : antique coins ; necklaces worn by princes of long ago ; golden shields bearing the dint of old- time battles ; precious stones plucked from the crowns of captive kings ; the loot of the campaigns of ages. All these are spread before the eyes of his wonder- ing guest. Now, says Jesus, the scribe is the custodian of God's treasury. The preacher is a " scribe." It is his special function to expound the divine Word. The key is at his girdle. His business is to bring forth the wealth of Scripture, new truths and old truths, to dazzle the eyes. The Pharisees having brought an ac- cusation against Jesus, that he was "the friend of sinners " and that he "ate and drank with sinners," he made his defense on Scriptural grounds ; " Go and learn," he said, " what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matt. ix. 13 cf. Hosea vi. 6). In this saying he intimated his reliance on Scripture, in its deep spirit- Actual Attitude 53 ual significance, as the final arbiter in all questions of right and wrong. In his discourse at Capernaum, on the day following the miracle of the loaves, his assertion that he was himself the living bread of which if a man ate he should hunger no more, was openly resented by the Pharisees ; to whom he replied, " // is written in the prophets, * And they shall be all taught of God.' Every man that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me" (John vi. 45, cf. Micah iv. 2 et al.). This is no vague reference to an all-pervasive voice in nature, nor yet to the specific word of any inspired writer, but rather to the whole tenor of the Scriptures as pointing to Christ. And he goes on to explain by an allusion to the manna in the wilderness : "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which 54 The Scriptures came down out of heaven : if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world " (John vi. 47-51). Thus, over and over again, he shows himself not merely a preacher of the Word but a consistent and unwavering believer in it. A complaint being made against the disciples for " transgressing the traditions of the elders " by eating without having previously washed their hands, he an- swered " Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition ? ' ' (Matt. xv. 2, 3). He thus tore up the very foundations of their reasoning by announcing that no ecclesiastical prescript or human requirement whatsoever is for a moment to be compared with the Scrip- tures in binding force. They go for naught when they are at variance with the divine law. And, having laid down this fact, as a general proposition, the Master went on to emphasize it : " For Actual Attitude 55 God said, Honor thy father and thy mother : and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is given to God ; he shall not honor his father. And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you saying, This people honoreth me with their lips ; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men " (Matt. xv. 4-9). Could anything be stronger than this " God said — but ye say ? " Is it not obvious that to the mind of Jesus the Word was ultimate and there was no going beyond or getting behind it ? V. The Perean Ministry As Jesus purposed to be present at the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, 56 The Scriptures he set out with his disciples for the Holy City. This was that historic journey of which it is written, " He set his face steadfastly to go." The shadow of the cross was over him, but he swerved not an inch from his appointed path. Up to this time he had not clearly informed his disciples as to the fate awaiting him ; but now, as they journeyed, " he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and be killed and, after three days, rise again " (Mark viii. 31). How was this " teaching" done? If anything is to be inferred from his in- variable custom, it was by " opening unto them the Scriptures." It is easy to im- agine him, who from his childhood had dwelt in the atmosphere of revelation, reminding them not only of the many, many prophecies, but of the deep signifi- cance of all the sacrificial rites and sym- bols of the Old Economy, and showing how they pointed to him as the Lamb of Actual Attitude 57 God. Indeed it is difficult to imagine how the truth which he desired to con- vey could have been impressed upon them in any other way. And when Peter, revolting at the thought of the Master's death, exclaimed " Be it far from thee ! Lord this shall not be unto thee ! " he rebuked him for offering a satanic suggestion against the vicarious sacrifice, saying, " Get thee behind me, Satan ; for thou mindest not the things of God but the things of men." If this means any- thing, it indicates that Jesus, in foretell- ing his death, was following the red path of divine prophecy leading all through Scripture from the protevangel to the cross. It was not the path of human wisdom but the one which, in the Scrip- tures, was divinely marked out for him. It was in the course of this journey, probably, that the transfiguration oc- curred. Six days after the departure from Capernaum Jesus turned aside, with three of his disciples, and climbed the 58 The Scriptures mountain where he was transfigured before them. In this scene he is significantly presented in converse with Moses and Elijah, representatives of the law and the prophets. Thus the written and the incarnate Word stood face to face. Moses, looking backward over the lapse of fifteen hundred years, knew now the real significance of all that he had been divinely moved to write in the ceremonial law ; and Elijah, also looking back, through a vista of nine hundred years, perceived the fulfillment of prophecy in Christ. And to empha- size this fulfillment of the written Word in its living complement, a Voice from heaven was heard, saying, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him ! " It is further recorded that, as Christ and the three disciples were coming down out of the mountain, they asked him, " Why say the scribes that Elijah must first come ?" His answer is in di- rect contravention of those who allow Actual Attitude 59 that any Scripture can come to naught ; " And he said unto them, Elijah indeed cometh first, and restoreth all things : and how is it written of the Son of man, that he should suffer many things and be set at nought ? But I say unto you, that Elijah is come, and they have also done unto him whatsoever they would, even as it is written" (Mark ix. 12, 13 ; cf. Matt. xvii. 10-13). The word " verily " is used in the teaching of Jesus to emphasize only the most important truths. And in showing these disciples "how it is writ- ten it is evident that again he " opened unto them the Scriptures " with refer- ence to his sufferings as the Son of man. Thus the Book is ever open before him. On reaching Jerusalem the Master went up to the temple and began to teach. So wonderful were his words that " the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned ? ' ' Let it be remembered that the education of the Jews from childhood up was in the 60 The Scriptures Bible and in such literature only as bore more or less directly upon it. So that when they spoke of Christ's acquaintance with " letters" they referred to his fa- miliarity with the Scriptures and their interpretation. The profound grasp of the Scriptures exhibited by a peasant, a mere carpenter, this was what amazed them. His answer was, " My teaching is not mine but his that sent me " (John vii. 15—18) and, that his reference was dis- tinctly to the teaching of the Scriptures is clear from what follows : " Did not Moses give you the law ; and yet none of you keepeth it ; " and he proceeded to give a specific illustration of their depart- ure from the clear meaning of the Word (John vii. 19-24). On the last day of the feast, during the imposing ceremonies known as " the Effusion of Waters," Jesus stood and cried, " If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, from Actual Attitude 61 within him shall flow rivers of living water " (John vii. 37, 38). Here again we note the ever recurring, " It is writ- ten " which characterized the preaching of Christ. He did not take a text of Scripture as the headline of his discourse ; but his discourse was shot through and through with the Word of God. One morning, a little later, he went early into the Temple and taught the people who came thronging about him. He was interrupted presendy by a mob, led by scribes and Pharisees, who, drag- ging a woman taken in adultery threw her on the pavement before him, saying, " Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned ; but what sayest thou ? " They intimated that he had been giving them a surfeit of Moses' law ; let him take his own medicine. There was no shrinking on his part ; but what scorn ! What unutterable scorn in his silence ! " He stooped and wrote upon the ground." Perhaps he merely read what 62 The Scriptures he had written there, when, looking on the woman's accusers, he said " Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her. " Here was not a word, not a syllable, against the law, such as they had ex- pected, but the broadest, deepest, truest interpretation of it (John viii. 2-11). This incident led to a discourse on the relation of Jesus to the Father, and on the testimony of the Father to his Son- ship : " TV is written in your law that the testimony of two witnesses is true. I am one that bear witness of myself ; and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me." The reference here is to the Scrip- tures ; it cannot be otherwise. And the whole discourse on t' is occasion, as re- corded in John viii. is a far-reaching state- ment of the absolute accord of Jesus with the written Word, putting to confusion those who called themselves children of Abraham while refusing to obey Abraham's God and driving them to a very frenzy of hatred by his sublime Actual Attitude 63 peroration " Before Abraham was, I am ! At the Feast of Dedication (Dec. 20), Jesus having made several itineraries in Perea and elsewhere, was again present in Jerusalem. As he was teaching in Solomon's Porch the Jews renewed their attack on his Messianic credentials; "Tell us plainly," they said, "if thou be the Christ." He told them plainly ; and they charged him with blasphemy, "be- cause thou, being a man, makest thyself God." He again defended himself by falling back on the Scriptures, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods ? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came {and the Scripture can- not be broken), say ye of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the Son of God ? " (John x. 34-36). Being driven out of Jerusalem again by the malignity of his enemies, he took refuge in a city called Ephraim ; 64 The Scriptures where he remained until the cross beckoned him. The time of the fourth Passover was drawing near when he set out for the Holy City. It is a singular fact, that in sending out his disciples to preach in the villages along the way, not a word occurs in their commission to indicate specifically what they were to preach. It is left for us to assume that they were to follow the example of their Leader in pointing out his Messianic office and work, as a fulfill- ment of the law and the prophets ; that is, they were to preach the written Word as setting forth the incarnate Word. And that this was their mode of proce- dure seems clear from the words of Jesus on their return, " Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see ; for I say unto you, that many prophets and kings desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not ; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not " (Luke x. 23, 24). Actual Attitude 65 It was somewhere on this journey that a certain lawyer (i. e. theologian) stood up and tested him saying, " Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? Now mark his answer, " What is written in the Law ? How readest thou ? " (Luke x. 25-28). Would that all his ministers were as faithful as Christ himself in referring sinners, learned or otherwise, to the Scriptures as the oracles of life ! In his preaching at this time he was most unsparing in his denunciation of the scribes or "lawyers." There was good and sufficient reason for this in their in- efficiency and malfeasance as interpreters of the divine law. This was their special and particular function ; to open the Scriptures to the people. They were the "Biblical experts" of that time. But how wretchedly they botched their work ! On the one hand they empha- sized the minor requirements of Scripture to the neglect of truth and righteous- ness ; and on the other they added super- 66 TJic Scriptures erogatory precepts of their own ; the re- sult being that their version of the Scriptures bore about the same relation to the original as the " Polychrome Bible " does in these days. Wherefore the Lord denounced them, saying " Woe unto you, lawyers (that is, instructors in Biblical literature,) for ye have taken away the key of knowledge ! Ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered " (Luke xi. 45, 52). The " key of knowledge" here referred to was the doctrine of Messiah, his incarna- tion, atonement and triumph over death in behalf of all believers ; a doctrine which opens the true meaning of the Scriptures, and without which they are as meaningless as an indecipherable hieroglyph. This doctrine was rejected by those who were specially appointed to use it for the enlightening of the people, wherefore the Lord's " Woe unto you." The close application of his words on this occasion to certain par- Actual Attitude 67 ticipants in current Biblical controversy affords a striking illustration of the ad- justment of Christ's teaching to the prog- ress of the centuries and to the needs of every age. The religious leaders, particularly the Pharisees or orthodox party, were so in- furiated by his teaching and so carried away with envy by reason of his hold upon the people * that they openly ridi- culed him ; whereupon he rebuked them on this wise, " Ye are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men ; but God knoweth your hearts : for that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God " (Luke xvi. 15). And continuing he said, " The law and the prophets (that is, the Scriptures) were until John ; from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man entereth violently into it. But /'/ is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, * Being "covetous" (