The representative men of the New Testament

Front matter

Class "Qotft^O

Book U

GopightN .

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Introduction, ....

II. John the Expanded, ......

Preface

I have lately published two volumes dealing with the representative men of the Old Testament — the men who therein represent sections of universal humanity. They embraced a series of studies neither historical nor critical, but mental. I imagined myself standing in a gallery looking at a collection of portraits, and setting myself to analyse these as they are delineated. The aim was to take them just as they are presented to us, and, without inquiring whence or how they come, to find the special thought which each reveals. The kindly reception of the effort has emboldened me to issue a similar volume of New Testament representatives. Strictly speaking, the new gallery is not a continuation of the old. The old exhibits phases of character; the new, revolutions of character. Nevertheless, in the latter as much as in the former, we expect to find that vi PREFACE

each portrait embodies a distinct thought; and it is this thought which we seek for. The studies are again mental — not critical nor historical. We take the figures as they stand before us. We simply put one question: Assuming the authenticity of the narratives and letters, what is the message which each life brings? About the historical character of the portraits, I have myself no doubt ; but it will be admitted by all schools that, if revelation there be, it must ultimately lie in the thought. I have only to add that, as in the previous volumes, I have given the book a semi-devotional aspect by closing each chapter with a short invocation or prayer.

G. M.

Edinburgh, 1905.

Introduction

There are moments in the history of this world which may be called moments of ingathering. Their mission is to collect the experiences of the past and bind them into unity. The most striking of all such moments is the advent of Christ. To the men who witnessed that advent it presented an appearance which they have described by one word, 'fulness. ' In the heart of the Roman Empire there stood forth a man who resembled in His nature nothing so much as that empire itself. Rome was not a country of the earth ; she was a country that had become the earth. She had gathered into her bosom the once separate lands and bound them by a silver chain; she represented to the view of the spectator not a nation, but the human

race. So was it with the man Christ Jesus. I

He was a mirror of that empire into which He was born. If Rome united in her constitution all dominions and powers, Jesus united in His person all types of character. The rivers of every land had run into this human sea. The earnestness of Judah was there; the buoyancy of Greece was there; the mysticism of India was there ; the practicalness of China was there ; the legal acumen of Rome herself was there. There dwelt the self-restraint of the Stoic, the easy mind of the Epicurean, the winged imagination of the Platonist. There repose side by side things which naturally fly apart — the simplicity of Galilee and the subtlety of Jerusalem, the gravity of the East and the sparkle of the West, the devotion of the Brahman to the soul, and that care for the wants of the body which constitutes the essence of the European life.

If you wish to see the fulness of the life of Christ just put to yourself one question. Retracing the steps through that Gallery of the Old Testament which we have traversed, and taking at random any great quality expressed by any figure, simply ask yourself, Is not this equally represented in the life of Jesus ? Has Enoch a vision of immortality ; Christ professes to reveal life eternal. Is Noah a preacher of righteousness ; Christ calls sinners to repentance. Has Abraham a dream of universal empire; Christ claims to found a kingdom of God. Does Isaac represent home-life; so does Christ at Bethany. Does Jacob aspire to a priesthood ; Christ offers Himself for a world's sin. Is Moses the lawgiver on Sinai; Christ is the law-giver on Hermon. Is David chivalrous to his foes; Christ forgives His enemies. I do not know a phase of Old Testament heroism which has not been reproduced in the Picture of Jesus. The calm wisdom of Solomon is here, side by side with the flashing of Elijah's fire. The fine courtesy of Boaz is here, hand in hand with Elisha's denunciation of wrong. The daring fearlessness of Daniel is here, blended in equal measure with Job's patient endurance. The humanitarian sweep of Isaiah is here, but along with it there is something which such universal sympathy is apt to exclude — the capacity for individual friendship which marks the soul of Jonathan.

It seems to me that such a mode of experimenting on the Sacred Gallery would be a real test of 'the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.' One who was almost a contemporary of the Galilean ministry speaks of Christ as destined in the future to gather all things to Himself. But, from an artistic point of view, this gathering was already completed. The Portrait of Jesus is not the representative of a phase of humanity; it is humanity itself. He unites in one face and form the faces and forms of the whole past Gallery. He represents no special quality; He expresses all qualities and He expresses all specially — in a pronounced degree. It is written, 'When the fulness of the time was come God sent His Son.' The fulness of the time was the time for fulness. It was the age when the rivers were to be ripe for being gathered into the sea, when the planets were to be ready for incorporation in the solar beam. The human side of Christianity was to be not the revelation of a man, but the revelation of Man. I read in the Book of Genesis that ' in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ' — that the first thing on which He gazed was not a part but the whole. So has it been with the genesis of Christianity. The first thing which appeared to the eye of the spectator was its entire heaven and its entire earth. Future years would exhibit the separate items — sun, moon, and star — herb, plant, and tree. But the morning of Christianity was the union of all things. All gifts and graces were embraced in a single life — the man Christ Jesus. The colours of that life, which one day were to be distributed among different flowers, were beheld at first concentrated in a rainbow. The garment which to-morrow was to be parted among many bore to-day the aspect of a single robe whose richness enwrapped one human spirit, and whose folds were covering one individual form.

In the primitive stage of village life we commonly find all commodities embraced in a single store. People go there for the most unlike things — daily food, medicine, millinery, house - letting, carriage - driving, registration, banking, the offices of the smith and the carpenter — perhaps even of the lawyer and the preacher. The time will come when each of these will form its separate craft. But in the primitive village they are apt to be vested in a single life — a life of which we might say, in adaptation of the words of Scripture, 'of its fulness have we all received.' Now, this is precisely the case of primitive Christianity. All its varied glories which one day are to be disseminated are heaped up in a single soul. Like the nebular fire-cloud, it holds the fulness of all things. There sleeps the summary of the past; there lies the germ of the future. Experiences the most diverse are there. The uncanonical Melchisedek and the priestly Aaron, the strong Ishmael and the tender Abel, the optimistic Joseph and the sad Jeremiah, the child Samuel and the manly Joshua, the expectant Caleb and the retrospective Hezekiah, the dependent Mephibosheth and the all-conquering Gideon — they each rest there. It would seem as if the river of Paradise had for a moment gathered back into her bosom those streams from which she had parted, and revealed within the compass of one garden the manifold grace of God. Christianity began where all life begins — in a single cell — enfolding within the walls of a seemingly insignificant dwelling the nucleus of a new heaven and a new earth.

And now I come to a crucial question. I hear the reader say : ' If this Portrait of Jesus has gathered up the past, and if the future is to be simply a repetition of its glories, why do you speak of new representative men ! Nay, on such a principle, why should you even speak of a New Testament! What is new about it! You have shown in the Old Gallery every conceivable quality depicted that can belong to a human soul. You show at the opening of the Christian dispensation these qualities united in a single life. You tell us that in the coming section of the Gallery the qualities thus united are again to be distributed in separate individual portraits. In such a process where is there any room for novelty ! Is it not simply a repetition of old qualities ! Do we not get out of the box exactly what we put in! Has the Old Testament Gallery left any phase of mind without a record ! How shall we distinguish between the fire of an Elijah and the fire of a Peter! How shall we discriminate between the unselfishness of an Abraham and the unselfishness of a Paul ! How shall we draw the line between the friendship of a Jonathan and the friendship of a John ! ' These are crucial questions, and they are pertinent questions. They await every man who attempts to deal with the representative men of the Bible. If Christ is at once the flower of the past and the bud of the future, then the qualities of the future must be simply the qualities of the past. And if it be so, is not our progress merely a circle, our development only a dream! It seems a misnomer to speak of 'the new man ' — to say that if a man is in Christ he is ' a new creature. ' Where is the novelty if I have simply climbed the wall to see the fields of childhood! Would it not be more correct to reverse the words of Paul and say, 'To be in Christ is to retrace our yesterday; new things have passed away and all things have become old' !

But let us look deeper and this impression itself will pass away. What is the account which the New Testament Gallery gives of its own de*- velopment? — by that it ought to be judged, by that it should stand or fall. Now, it so happens that a spectator of this gallery has given us a very clear view of what in his opinion its figures were meant to represent. He says, ' It was worthy of Him of whom are all things and to whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.' Here, by the glance of one piercing eye, is the nature of the New Gallery revealed! It is not a new assemblage of qualities ; it is a new mode of acquiring them. In the old dispensation these qualities were the gifts of Nature. Men were born with them; they were the native soil of the heart. They came to each soul as naturally as air comes, as food comes, as pastime comes. But in the new dispensation — in the section of the Gallery which was about to open, there was to be a change of ground. The qualities which had been native to the soul were to become the fruit of struggle. Men were no longer to be born with them; they were to win them — to attain them through conflict, to reach them by suffering. The difference between the Old Gallery and the New is the difference between temperament and grace; temperament is a planting, grace is a supplanting. Joseph is an optimist and Peter is an optimist; but the optimism of Joseph is very different from the optimism of Peter. Joseph was hopeful from disposition — he found the flowers in his cradle and he treasured them in his heart; Peter was hopeful as the result of experience — he began life amid the briars and he transformed them into flowers. This is a typical instance. It expresses in a single sentence my whole view of the difference between the New Gallery and the Old. In coming to Christ we are coming to the winepress. We are approaching a transforming process. We are entering upon a stage in which character is to be built, not born. We are coming to a period in which the wild flower is to give place to the flower of cultivation, and where a kingdom which belonged to hereditary transmission is to be won by the power of the sword.

INTRODUCTION n

Here, then, is the nature of the New Evangel — perfection through suffering — the attainment of a quality as the result of struggle. It would not in the least minimise the difference between the two Galleries if you could prove that the gentleness of Ruth was as perfect as the gentleness of John. The gentleness of Ruth originates in a different source from the gentleness of John. The former was a birthright; the latter was a conquest. The former was a gift of nature; the latter was a trophy of grace. The former was a spontaneous breath of the morning; the latter was a delicious fragrance which had been gathered in the afternoon. Christianity is perfection through suffering, excellence through suffering. Even where its fruits are less beautiful than the fruits of Judaism, they are more precious; they can stand the storm. Judaism shrank from the storm; its virtues tended to wither before the blast. But the virtues of Christianity were to be brought upon the blast. They were to come to the soul on the wings of the wind. They were to be the product not of spring but of autumn, not of hereditary bias but of stern experience. Christian faith demanded a cloud. Christian courage demanded a fear. Christian love demanded an impediment. Christian peace demanded a struggle. Christian purity demanded a meeting with the tempter in the wilderness.

Now, in the light of this contrast, I shall look at the New Testament Gallery from a different standpoint to that from which I surveyed the Old. In the previous volumes each portrait was accompanied by an adjective expressing its quality. I shall now assign to each portrait, not a descriptive adjective, but a descriptive verb — a verb indicating the particular influence which has been exerted over the man and which has transformed the man. I should say that in this world there are always the two classes — the men represented by the adjective, and the men represented by the verb; the one are the sons of nature, the other the sons of grace. The Old Gallery represents the first; upon the face of its portraits is stamped the impress of a quality. But the New Gallery opens another sphere. Here the faces of the men reveal, not the quality,

INTRODUCTION ij

but the action. The stamp which distinguishes these is not so much a possession as a struggle. We behold some of them advancing to the battle, some in the heat of the fight, some returning from victory; but all equally give the impression of a life being moulded by conflict. The watchword of this gallery is, ' Ye must become as little children. ' The stress lies not on the word ' children ' but on the word ' become. ' Childhood is a natural possession of all men, and its flowers may grow in every field. But if childhood be lost and won again, it is no longer a mere gift of nature; it is a triumph of grace. It is a pearl of great price from the simple fact that a price is paid for it, a sacrifice made for it. To be a guileless man under the fig-tree may be beautiful, but it is the beauty of a star; to be guileless amid the haunts of Nazareth, is the indication of a higher force of character — it is the beauty of a soul.

It may seem a strange thing that the struggle should have come in an age of peace. The dawn of Christianity was on a summer morning. It came when the political sky was clear. The songs of Bethlehem that proclaimed goodwill among men had already in a measure been realised. The earlier ages had been times of turbulence; the immediately succeeding ages were to be times of turbulence again. But this was a calm between two whirlwinds — short-lived, but very real. Men for an hour had beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks, and it seemed to many as if they would learn the art of war no more. Such was the age into which Christ was born. Is it not a singular thing that this, of all times, should have been the day of moral struggle — the day when the flowers of the heart did not spring spontaneously! We should have expected that the years of war would have been the years of moral crisis — that the hours of danger and terror and sword would have been the hours in which the inward lives of men would have undergone their vital change.

Yet, in this expectation, I think we are guided by an erroneous idea. Is it the case that the times of outward war are the times of inward conflict? I do not think so. To my mind, the struggles of the soul have always been deepest in the ages of peace. The times of war leave no leisure for looking within. They bring forth brilliant qualities, but they bring them forth without tillage, and they maintain them without the consciousness of their possessor. The times of physical danger are like the mists in the Book of Genesis which were sent up to water the ground. They indeed water the ground, but they are apt to hide the process of their own working. Before a man can look into himself, you must clear away the outward mist. Danger is unfavourable to introspection ; even a boy at school will forget his answer if you hold the rod over him. The truth must be spoken: Peace, and not war, is the vivifier of this world. I used to think it an anticlimax when I read the prophet's longing for the day when the soldier should become a ploughman; but that was because I thought the age of the soldier was the age of deeper evolution. I know better now. The real struggle of life begins when the mind is at leisure from its surroundings. It is when a man rests from his outward troubles that he begins to strive with himself. Christ said that He came not to send peace, but a sword. Yes ; and He sent the inward sword just because it was a time of outward peace. Had Caesar been at war with the world Christ could never have waged war in the soul. The war in the soul demands a summer day — a day in which we are not molested from without. Christ tells His followers to pray that their flight be not in the winter, and He says well. Winter drives back into the old path and arrests the upward tendency. The misfortunes of life require all our energies for themselves; to turn these energies inward we need a voice upon the outward sea, * Peace, be still ! *

But there is a second characteristic of this coming Christian age which is well worthy of attention. Not only is it to be a period of inward transformation but of rapid transformation. This quality of the Messianic age had been anticipated by far-seeing minds. I do not think we attach the real meaning to the prophetic words of the later Isaiah, 'I the Lord will hasten it in its time. ' We commonly understand the saying to mean that the time intervening till the Messiah comes will be short. To my mind, that is not what the Prophet desires to say. I understand him to proclaim his conviction that after the Messiah has come things will move at a double-quick march. The idea is, not that the coming of the kingdom will be accelerated, but that, when the kingdom has actually arisen, there will be times of acceleration. It is equivalent to saying, ' In the days of the Messiah God will cause all things to travel at a rapid pace.' Now, we all know that there are times of acceleration in the history of this world — times in which, to use a Bible phrase, a nation is born in a day. Events to which we looked forward as involving the march of centuries are seen to spring up in a night. Developments of character whose completion we predicted for the end of years are effected by the heat of a single summer. Lives which we thought would require a series of incarnations to perfect them are made to flower out by one drastic experience, and the work which naturally would have belonged to days is finished and culminated by the pressure of an hour.

Now, the advent of Christ is one of these times. It is a season of accelerated movements. The men of the Old Testament grow; the men of the New flash. For, what is the spectacle which the Christian Gallery reveals? It is a series of figures rapidly discarding their original costume and appearing in a garb of contrary mould. We catch the momentary glimpse of a fiery persecutor — it is Saul of Tarsus; we turn aside for an instant, and, when next we look, we are in the presence of a son of charity. We see a man flying from the post of duty because it is the post of danger — it is Simon Peter; we avert our eyes in disgust. The next moment the man stands before us in an opposite vesture: instead of shunning duty through fear of danger, he is almost making danger itself a duty. We behold a rather narrow Churchman, devoted to externals and eager for ecclesiastical power — it is John, son of Zebedee. We divert our gaze for a moment toward other things. By and by we look again, and lo, the man has lost his formalism, lost his ecclesiasticism, lost his pride, and is found reclining on the bosom of love !

How shall we account for this ? Shall we saythat it is magical ? No ; there has not been one step omitted from the process of normal development. What has happened is that the development has been quickened. The stages of the process have not been abridged, but they have been hurried on. The kindling of the flower has been accelerated by the influence of a special atmosphere. What is that atmosphere? What should we expect it to be? Do we know of any influence which has a special power of accelerating? Yes — the contact with a great personality. I do not know of anything in the world which has such power to hasten the steps of the mind. A man may live for a whole lifetime amid the loveliest and grandest scenery the eye can dwell on, and he may remain at the end as stolid, as dull, as lethargic as when first he saw the light. But let that man meet with another man — a higher man, a man of piercing brain and potent heart and mesmeric attraction — you will see in a week an absolutely radical change. The eye will glisten, the step will lighten, the face will brighten ; it will be like the dawning of an inward day. Nature has lofty thoughts for those who are already lofty, but she cannot speak down — cannot address her message to a dormant mind. This is precisely what a high soul can do. The higher it is, the easier for that soul to speak down. The deepest student of a subject will best educate the novice, and will most quickly educate the novice. There is no influence so accelerating as a human influence; one day in its courts is better than a thousand days in the courts of visible nature.

And the men of Galilee had come under a human influence. They had long been under the influence of inspiring scenery, that is to say, of scenery which would have inspired cultivated minds; yet it had failed to move them from their rustic apathy. But suddenly a man appeared! In the midst of the field there stood forth an extraordinary presence! We may call him by what name we will — teacher, preacher, reformer, philanthropist; his immediate influence was something distinct from any of these.

It was not what he taught, not what he preached, not what he amended ; it was his creation of the sense of wonder. Human intelligence begins not with an act of understanding, but with the feeling that there is something which is not understood. The first step in every upward development is the sense of wonder; until that has come, we are dormant. The earliest power of Jesus was His waking the men of Galilee to wonder. He did for these men what the hills could not do, what the woods could not do, what the stars could not do; He made them ask questions. It is the question, not the answer, that is the note of dawn. My milestones lie in my mysteries — not in my acquirements. Galilee struck a new hour when it cried, 'What manner of man is this ! ' It knocked at its first gate of wonder. It learned for the first time that there was something it could see and not perceive, something it could hear and not understand. That sense of ignorance was worth all the knowledge in the world. It was the first leap out of the darkness, the earliest emergence into light. The dove had begun to move on the face of the waters, and its very unrest suggested the promise of a new land.

SON of Man, Thou hast the key to the Second Gallery — nay, Thou art the key! In Thee alone I learn the secret of the world's unrest. Thou Thyself art the secret. We speak of the waters being stilled by Thy coming; nay, it was Thy coming that stirred the waters. The faces of the New Gallery through which I am to pass are all the faces of struggling men ; but their struggle comes from light, not darkness; they have seen Thee! They have lost their primitive satisfaction. There is a far look-out # in the eyes, as if they sought something not here, as if they heard the murmuring of a distant sea. It is because they have seen Thee! Thy glory has left a cloud upon the common day. The lily of the field is less fair. The song of the bird is less buoyant. The scent of the hay is less sweet. The blue of the sky is less pure. The bosom of the sea is less calm. It is all from sight of Thee! Thy sheen has thrown all things into shade. Thy radiance has broken their rest. Thy beauty has tarnished their beam. Thy sweetness has blunted their savour. They have faded in front of Thy flower; they have vanished in touch of Thy voice; they have paled in the power of Thy presence; they have melted in the blaze of Thy music. The men of this New Gallery are less content with wood and field ; but it is because their eyes have gazed on a higher loveliness — the brightness of Thy face !

Chapter II

On the threshold of the New Gallery we are met by a portentous figure popularly known as John the Baptist. He was the earliest product of the influence of that Great Light which was about to transform the world. In order of time he is the first Christian. He discerned the greatness of Jesus when, outwardly, Jesus was not great. He was the earliest who fixed his eyes upon the miracle of Christ's character. Nay, I am disposed to go further; with the exception, I think, of Thomas, he is probably the only man of the primitive band who was originally attracted to Jesus by the beauty of His moral nature alone. Neither Peter nor James nor the other John nor Andrew nor Philip nor Nathanael seems to have been at first so attracted ;

they embraced the hope of a physical Messiah. 24

But this man cried, * Behold the Lamb of God!' It was indeed a voice crying in the wilderness. There were very few in the age of Jesus who could appreciate the miracle of a sinless life. Show them a wonderful boy in the home of Nazareth — a boy who can tell thoughts before they are spoken, calculate figures as soon as they are stated, get answers to prayers the instant they are offered — the home of Nazareth will be thronged to suffocation. But tell them that within that house there lives a thoroughly good child, a child of unique goodness — tell them that through all the years of his consciousness he has never been known to depart from a lamblike gentleness, never been seen to deviate from a pure affection, never been observed to waver in an unselfish spirit — you will attract no crowd around the cottage door. The traveller will pause not to wonder, the spectator will wait not to verify ; it will seem to the world an ordinary, a commonplace thing.