29 chapters
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29 chapters
Preface.
Preface.
Of the general purport of this book, and of what led to the writing, I have said all that is necessary in the Introductory Chapter. The ideas it contains were growing into distinctness during the five and thirty years of my College work, and to many of my old pupils they will offer little that is new. But although the book took its source from teaching; and instruction—but instruction divorced from examinations—is in some degree my object still, yet it is meant, not so much for professed student
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Introductory Chapter.
Introductory Chapter.
Changes are brought about in the disciples by an education, superhuman indeed in its wisdom, superhuman in its insight into the habits of mind which were wanted, and into the modes by which such habits might be fostered, but not superhuman in the means employed. We can analyse the influences which are brought to bear, judge what they were likely to effect, and estimate fairly well what they did effect, because they were the same in kind as we now find working in the world. Christ's ways, therefo
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Chapter II. Human Freedom.
Chapter II. Human Freedom.
So, that I may not serve my readers in this way, I give them all I have myself. I can no more tell them “How” or “Why” God brought about the present state of things, than I can solve the great mystery which is at the bottom of all mysteries: “How, or Why, God and the world ever existed at all?” But I think I can shew that free agency in men, and the existence of evil, and also a reserve in the revelation of God's ways—a question I shall have to deal with next—are consistent with our situation in
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Chapter III. Of Revelation.
Chapter III. Of Revelation.
Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now chiefly concerned. For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge are truths revealed by God . How is this element of absolutely certain knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is only
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(1) The attraction of hearers.
(1) The attraction of hearers.
One effect of signs on the beholders lay on the surface. They awoke attention; they caused men's eyes to be turned to the Son of Man. Jesus won a mastery over men's souls both by what He did and what He said; but the doing had to come first, because without this He would not so soon have gained a hearing. From a district of small towns and scattered hamlets a crowd was not drawn together without some cogent influence. It was the rumour of the things “done in Capernaum” 26 and of other mighty wor
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(2) Selection.
(2) Selection.
I have said in a previous chapter that education and selection are inseparable. Any process that unfolds the powers which lie within men, emphasizes, so to say, the differences between them. The witnessing of wonders, declared to be wrought by the finger of God, must have stirred men's minds, and so brought about in them a species of education, well calculated to winnow out the chaff from the grain. But the quality, which this kind of education seizes upon and develops, is not intellectual abili
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(3) Preparation.
(3) Preparation.
We have a distinct instance of the use of “Signs” to produce preparation . The seventy were sent working these Signs, “in every city unto which He Himself would come.” This preparation would consist, partly, in the drawing out from the mass those who were likely to profit. When our Lord Himself came, these latter would be eager to hear Him, and the great announcements He made would not strike them as altogether strange. The district over which these messengers were sent probably lay outside the
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(4) Setting forth the Kingdom of God.
(4) Setting forth the Kingdom of God.
They shew not only how close this Kingdom is to us but they also convey visible lessons, to help men to conceive it aright. We learn from our Lord's own lips that one purpose for which He wrought Signs was to make men sure that the Kingdom of Heaven was come upon them. When He was charged with casting out devils through Beelzebub, He says, after disposing of the accusation, “But if I by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you .” 28 Whether Our Lord preached in
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(5) Teaching wrought by signs.
(5) Teaching wrought by signs.
The Signs shew us, not only that the Kingdom is God's, but something also of the nature of that Kingdom as well. Our Lord speaks of the power displayed in miracles as God's power working through Him. It is “by the finger of God” that He casts out devils and the man who is healed is bidden to tell his friends what God has done for him. 32 Christ nowhere claims the power as His own. It rests in God's hands; but it is granted to His prayer, because His will and God's are one. Moreover the Signs set
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(6) Miracles as a practical lesson to the disciples.
(6) Miracles as a practical lesson to the disciples.
So far, we have spoken of miracles as performed for the sake of the multitude; in order to draw them to listen and to sift from among them those fit to become disciples: I have remarked too how the “Signs” incidentally conveyed instruction, how they exhibited to the crowd the goodness and the power of God. But there were some miracles, as I have said in the first chapter, which were especially miracles of instruction, and I would say a word or two about those, before I pass on to miracles as mea
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(7) Miracles as a means of proof.
(7) Miracles as a means of proof.
The signs, worked by our Lord, whatever other functions they fulfilled, had one office which in the eyes of some apologists is so important as to drive all other functions into the back-ground. They are regarded as the main ground of conviction. The Apostles, it is true, make little appeal to the Signs worked by Christ: this may have been because they worked similar Signs themselves, and knew that their enemies ascribed them to magic. Their favourite arguments were the fulfilment of prophecy and
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Temptation to turn stones into loaves.
Temptation to turn stones into loaves.
I now come to the Temptations themselves. As these trials were mental, we can only realise them by imagining what, consistently with our history, may have passed in our Lord's mind. What actually did so pass is of course beyond our knowledge altogether. We are however justified in supposing that, as our Lord was “tempted as man,” the thoughts and feelings which actuated Him would be such as men might follow and more or less understand. It would appear that when God lays a work on a man He gives
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The Temptation on the Mount.
The Temptation on the Mount.
Next comes a scene in which the Spirit of the World is represented as pointing out all the glories of the empire of the inhabited earth, and offering it to our Lord on the strange condition that He should fall down and worship him. This represents, in plain and very forcible imagery, a spiritual temptation to which those who have laboured to regenerate mankind have fallen victims over and over again. Those who have most nearly attained universal conquest, Mahomet, Zengis, Timour, and many great
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The Temptation on the Pinnacle of the Temple.
The Temptation on the Pinnacle of the Temple.
When the temptation to employ open force was repelled, a more insidious one came in its stead. It was to use moral compulsion, and, by the public display of a resistless manifestation, to make doubt and opposition disappear. Our Lord, as I believe, clothes this suggestion in imagery suited to His hearers: He represents Himself as borne to the pinnacle of the Temple and bidden to cast Himself down. Of this pinnacle an account is given by Dr Edersheim: he considers it to have overlooked the Court
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Outset of the Work.
Outset of the Work.
A man who sets about regenerating society commonly begins by remodelling institutions; he trusts to good institutions to make men good: our Lord, as a Teacher, begins at the other end; He goes straight to the men themselves and tries to make them better; better men would bring about better ways of ordering their outward lives; but each generation must do this for itself. The success of His enterprise did not rest on its immediate acceptance; and so, He did not aim at drawing numbers round Him or
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Chapter VII. The Preaching To The Multitudes.
Chapter VII. The Preaching To The Multitudes.
The antagonism at Jerusalem might have stopped short of violence and yet the wrangling spirit of the place might have had a very evil effect on the disciples. It was above all essential that they should have a single hearted love of truth; and this can hardly grow up when party is ranged against party and each tries to set the views and statements of the other in the most damaging light, and to dispose his own propositions in polemical order with a strategic view. As soon therefore as the hostil
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Chapter VIII. The Choosing Of The Apostles.
Chapter VIII. The Choosing Of The Apostles.
If we should find that the Apostles were, as a body, specially qualified to fulfil particular functions, and that these very functions it fell afterwards to them to discharge; then, surely, it is not unreasonable to suppose that our Lord, in choosing the Twelve, was guided by His foreknowledge of the situation in which they would be placed, and of the particular kind of work which they would be wanted to perform. It will be shewn that the Apostles were qualified to be trustworthy witnesses of fa
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Chapter IX. The Schooling Of The Apostles. The Mission To The Cities.
Chapter IX. The Schooling Of The Apostles. The Mission To The Cities.
One special function was assigned to the Apostles which sets them apart from all other men. In them was engendered a new quality belonging to spiritual life; they were the trustees of mankind for a new capacity; they were the depositaries of the faculty for realising “the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen.” 187 In them Faith, which elsewhere existed only in the germ, was brought to perfection and bore fruit, and scattered seed. Their progress in this quality proceeds
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The Teaching by Parables.
The Teaching by Parables.
The aphorism “that to him who had, more was given” was, as applied to material wealth, in some form or other probably familiar to the shrewd men of the time, just as the saying, that “nothing succeeds like success” is among ourselves now. But what was startling was, that this principle should be adopted by Christ and laid down as one of those upon which God's government is carried on. For this inequality in human conditions, and the tendency to rise faster the higher one gets and to sink faster
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Resumption of the Narrative.
Resumption of the Narrative.
I left the narrative at the point where the vessel with the Apostles, whom our Lord had joined upon the sea, had just reached the shores of the country of Gennesaret. The multitude sought Him on His arrival bringing their sick to be healed. Our Lord's words addressed to them suit the occasion so exactly, that we may be sure they belong to this place. The discourse 235 is preserved only by St John. It was probably begun upon the shore and was afterwards continued by our Lord in the synagogue. Thi
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Chapter XI. From The Mount To Jerusalem.
Chapter XI. From The Mount To Jerusalem.
Our Lord's question to the father is just what a physician would ask, “How long is it since this hath come to him?” 257 It may have been that the longer the standing of the complaint the greater would be the effort required for the cure; for that in working these cures some physical strain on the nervous energy was incurred may be inferred from our Lord's feeling that “virtue was gone out of Him,” when the woman touched the hem of His garment in the press round the house of Jairus. 258 This forc
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Different cases receive different treatment. St Luke ix. 57-62.
Different cases receive different treatment. St Luke ix. 57-62.
This individualising in our Lord's treatment of men struck the disciples as something new; they do not indeed point it out as a novel feature, for they never remark upon our Lord's ways, but the care of the Evangelists in preserving the most striking instances of this diversity of treatment shews that it caught their notice. To our Lord's eye every human being had a moral and spiritual physiognomy of his own. He saw at once, what it was in each man which went to make him emphatically and distinc
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Parable of the unjust Steward. St Luke xv., xvi.
Parable of the unjust Steward. St Luke xv., xvi.
More and more, as our Lord's work draws near the close, do we notice that His eye, somewhat diverted from what is passing about Him, is directed to a condition of things foreseen “being yet far off.” It is to provide for this that He is ever taking thought and imparting lessons; and if no state of things had come about in which these lessons might find a field of exercise, we should be at a loss to understand what they meant or why they were there. The explanation is found in the early history o
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Our Lord refusing to judge.
Our Lord refusing to judge.
If we regard the Gospels in the light of memoirs of our Lord's actual life upon earth, it may seem strange that so few occasions are noticed in which we are shewn our Lord dealing with the business of ordinary life. Whenever we do find Him forced to take part in any secular proceeding, He is uniformly careful to avoid such decisive action as would establish an authoritative precedent in regard to things which might be left to men to manage. Some people are now disappointed at His not having furn
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Our Lord's action prospective.
Our Lord's action prospective.
That our Lord's action was suited to what did actually happen, and not to what was likely to happen after the judgment of men, appears also in another way. The Apostles, both in themselves and in virtue of their training, were exactly adapted to the part which came into their hands, but they were by no means of the sort which the leader either of a political or a religious movement would have picked out to carry it forward when He should die. They were not men to fascinate crowds and lead them w
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Christ washing the Apostles' feet. St John xiii. 1-14.
Christ washing the Apostles' feet. St John xiii. 1-14.
More than once I have characterised certain of “the things which Jesus did” 317 as “acted parables.” The cursing of the fig-tree, which is the type of the class, shews what is meant by the term. The washing of the Apostles' feet is another of these parables of action. These acted parables are usually furnished by incidents lying a little out of the main drift of the action; as though Christ, struck by some plant or berry in which virtue lay, should have stepped to the way-side to gather it and p
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Use of Signs in the later Ministry.
Use of Signs in the later Ministry.
Ever since the time when after the feeding of the five thousand, the people wanted to take Him and make Him a King, our Lord has been chary of working Signs and Wonders; and such as are wrought are no longer used for demonstration; Signs are now hardly if at all employed to attract attention and waken interest. They had already done in this way all the good they were likely to effect, and if they had been employed longer, some of those bye-effects, which potent agencies are almost sure to produc
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The Ascension.
The Ascension.
What was said of the Resurrection we may say of the Ascension too. The changes it brought about in the position and characters of those few “men of Galilee” who stood “gazing up into heaven,” seem small matters compared with the immensity of its import for the Human Race. But, that our Lord did not leave out of sight the effect on the Apostles of the change in their condition which His departure would cause, is clear from words spoken to the Twelve, which are preserved to us by St John, and on w
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Chronological Appendix.
Chronological Appendix.
I propose to exhibit the order of events, taken month by month, as I suppose them to have occurred. In the greater number of cases I am supported by the authority of Dr Edersheim in his work on the “Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” and also frequently by Bishop Ellicott, from the Notes to whose Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord, delivered 1860, I have obtained much help in forming this Appendix. a.d. 28. January. a.u.c. 781. I place the Baptism of our Lord near the close of the mo
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