The great ministry

Foreword

This book, like its companion volume, The Training of the Chosen People, is composed of chapters published on successive weeks during the year, in a number of weekly and daily papers. They were designed to interpret the Bible Study Union Course of Sunday School Lessons on the Gospel History of Christ.

These chapters were not composed by a painful reference to authorities or to the opinions of others. The main lines of investigation as to the gospel narratives were not unfamiliar, and with these in mind the author has sat down before the text, seeking its disclosure of the portraiture of Jesus. While the task of verification and revision has been done with care, the book, as a whole, has almost written itself. It has been a happy experience to record what one has seen of the divine Man in and through the pages of the gospels.

This study has freshly impressed upon the mind of the writer the fact that the person of Christ is the stronghold of evangelical Christianity. The great problem that confronts Naturalism and Agnosticism is the problem of the classification of Jesus. May we not be compelled to put Him back of the mundane order into the cosmic order? No line of investigation is more helpful in answering this vital question than a first-hand study of the New Testament portraiture of Jesus.

iv Foreword

Through the whole course of his joyful labor the author has been encouraged to believe that he was doing something worth while by appreciations as to the helpfulness of these expositions written by those into whose hands they fall. Personally unknown to one another, these lovers of the Master and the author of this book discovered that they shared kindred convictions and experiences. The author can desire no better fortune for this child of his spirit than that it may render a like service in a wider circle.

. GEORGE E. HORR.

Newton Centre, Mass., October 31, 1908.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Promised Saviour 1

II. The Advent 5

CHAPTER I. The Promised Saviour

Scattered References.

The principal argument upon which the Apostles relied to convince their Hebrew brethren that Jesus should be accepted as Lord and Saviour, was based on the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. If we accept the theory of many modern scholars that a somewhat later date than formerly was assumed must be assigned to certain parts of the Old Testament, the argument is hardly affected, for the Old Testament, as the Septuagint translation conclusively proves, was in existence in its present form centuries before the Christian era. Nor is the strength of the argument seriously affected by the theory of many of these scholars that certain Messianic references are less specific than the older authorities affirmed. Again, the force of the reasoning does not depend upon the minute interpretation of isolated passages. When we survey the course of prophetic teaching in a large way, its forward look becomes very impressive, and when we combine the specific anticipations of individual prophets in a single conception we can hardly fail to see that we have before us a picture of the Messiah which is almost startlingly actualized in the career of Jesus of Nazareth.

We are all familiar with the way one picture may be concealed in another, When we look intently at the representation from several angles of vision we come to see in it what was not perceptible at first. There emerges, it may be, from a landscape, the form of a human countenance, and, after we have once seen the hidden portraiture, we can hardly see anything else in the drawing. Or, to take another illustration, as you stand in the Franconia Notch of the White Mountains, between the Eagle Cliff of Mount Lafayette and Cannon Mountain, and look up at the jagged declivity of the latter, you see simply a mass of rocks ; but as you fasten your attention upon them you discern the perfect representation of a human face, across which the scud of the flying clouds breaks. It is the famous "Old Man of the Mountain."

Something like this takes place in our study of the Hebrew prophets. We can relate their utterances in a large degree to the circumstances of their own times; we can see in them ordinary history, and the report of orations, but all the time we are aware that we have not fathomed the depths of this wonderful literature. It points forward to a future. It contains clear but scattered hints and suggestions of the distinctive features of the new era. These anticipations center about a Person. And while, perhaps, not enough is told about Him to enable us to forecast with precision just what manner of man He will be, at the same time enough is told about Him to enable us to recognize Him with certainty when He appears.

The general correctness of this statement is confirmed by the impression that the Hebrew prophets made upon their own people. The Jews were thoroughly responsive to the Messianic hope that animates these writings. Indeed, there are many indications that this hope, throughout the centuries immediately before the birth of Jesus, became the dominant note of Judaism, coloring the political attitude of the Hebrews toward Greece and Rome, and furnishing the imaginative background of their ethics and religion. To be sure the popular interpretations of these prophecies failed, through want of insight, to reach the truth as to their spiritual significance, but

The Promised Saviour probably there were always some fine natures that were attuned to the historic fulfilment (Lu. 2:25, 37, 38; Jo. 1:41, 49). And we know that the favorite and effective argument of Paul to convince the Jews as to the claims of Jesus rested upon the right interpretation of the prophecies (Acts 17:2,3; 18:28).

But the detailed forecasts of the Messiah are not unsatisfactory. Students of the Scripture will find it exceedingly profitable to arrange the specific Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah and their New Testament fulfilments in parallel columns, and ponder them so that they make their natural and legitimate impression on their own minds.

He was to be born at Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Mt. 2:1; Lu. 2:11). His active mission was to be ushered in by a great preacher (Mai. 3:1; 4:5, 6; Is. 40:3; Jo. 1:15-28).

He was to teach righteousness, and to do marvelous works of mercy (Is. 61:1-3; Lu. 4:17-21; 8:1; Mt. 11:5). He was to be recognized bv some as the Messiah (Zech. 9:9; Mt. 21:5-9). He was to be rejected by the nation, but betrayed by an individual for thirty pieces of silver (Is. 53:3; Zech. 11:12, 13; Jo. 19:14, 15; Mt. 26:15). He was to be crucified (Ps. 22:16; Jo. 19:18), with malefactors (Is. 53:12; Mt. 27:38), given gall and vinegar for drink (Ps. 69: 21; Jo. 19:28-30), but His bones were not to be broken (Ps. 34:20; Ex. 12:46; Jo. 19:33), and His vesture was to be divided by lot (Ps. 22:18; Jo. 19: 23, 24). He was to die as an offering for the sins of others (Is. 53:10; Mt. 20:28). The grave was not

The Prophet Isaiah.

By Michael Angelo.

to hold Him (Ps. 16:9,10; Acts 2:31). He was to establish an enduring kingdom (Is. 53:10, 11; Mt. 28: 19, 20).

Such forecasts and fulfilments might be largely multiplied. They are too numerous and detailed to be accounted for on the ground of chance coincidence. But the argument does not turn wholly on these definite and almost startling correspondences. Beneath details there is revealed the form and countenance of the suffering servant of Jehovah, the Redeemer who is at the same time ''the man of sorrows." The drift, the general impression, the mood which these writers beget, however, are the great thing. Still, when we seek an adequate description of the character and mission and achievement of Jesus, how often we are constrained to turn to the account given of Him long centuries before His birth (Is. ch. S3) !

It is said that the term "indenture" arose from the custom of dividing the parchment which contained the contract by a notched line cut with a knife. When each indentation fitted into its counterpart the document was self -attested as genuine. Something like that is true of the prophetic representation of the Messiah and the historic life of Jesus of Nazareth. History and prophecy match each other, and this correspondence demonstrates that the history is simply the development of the plan of God, and that the history is to be interpreted in the light of the prophecy.

CHAPTER II. The Advent

11 There is nothing so easy," says Principal Fairbairn, "as to change conditions into causes, to mistake the enumeration of formal elements for the discovery of the plastic mind." The administrative system of the Graeco-Roman power, the developments of later Judaism, and the Messianic expectation do something to explain the readiness of the world for the advent

From a photograph.

The Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem.

of Jesus, but they do nothing to account for the vital spiritual energy that emanated from His personality, and transmuted the historic forces into historic Christianity. Within the grain of wheat there resides a marvelous vital force. When the seed is planted in the soil, that force, like a loom, weaves the chemical constituents of the earth, the moisture and the sunshine, into the growing plant. A spiritual force like that entered the realm of human life at the birth of Jesus, and ever since it has been weaving human thought, human aspirations, human institutions, into new patterns, more or less conformable to its own type. The civilized world has made no mistake in declaring by its calendar that the birth of Jesus marks the beginning of a new era. Whether or not we are personally followers of Jesus, we are confronted by the fact that His career marks the introduction of a novel and tremendous spiritual force into the life of humanity. And we are to appraise that force not merely by the record of it in the gospels, but by a sympathetic appreciation of the whole course of history as influenced by Jesus, just as we truly apprehend the Mississippi, not simply by exploring its sources, but by traversing the vast floods that it pours through the continent to the gulf.

It is from this point of view that w r e should study the narratives that make up the Christmas story. They are to be interpreted in the light of the subsequent history. If the life whose beginning on the earth they record can be fairly classified as simply human, they become improbable. If, on the other hand, Jesus cannot be fairly classified Avith men, and if His influence has interpenetrated human life with divine forces, and brought men everywhere, w T hen they have responded to it, into conscious vital fellowship with God, we come to these narratives with reverent confidence.

After all, what is the essential thing in all these records but this — that Jesus is not the product of the forces that are resident in human life and in the order of the world, but His personality is identical with the creative intelligence and will that is the ground and source of human life and the visible universe (Jo. 1:1-4)? And yet, at the same time, this personality enters into human life and the order of the world, becoming absolutely identified with the experiences and conditions of humanity (Jo. 1:14). In His nature Jesus is identical with God, in His life He is identified with man.

From this point of view we cannot miss seeing the beauty and satisfactoriness of the advent stories.

The Advent

We know little about Mary, the mother of Jesus. But if the narratives in the gospel of Luke were among the memories she cherished in her heart, they reflect the purity and delicacy of her sweet woman's soul. And she had such insight and spiritual elevation that she gave utterance to the supreme hymn in human literature (Lu. 1:46-55). Surely she was fitted above all women to be the medium of the divine life.

It is also in harmony with the marvelous event that some prophetic spirits should have been responsive to the coming fact (Lu. 1:42-45). Nor is it strange that, as the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies drew near, sympathetic hearts should have been moved to look for it, and should have come to the town that Micah had foretold would be the birthplace of the Messiah (Micah 5:2; Mt. 2:1-10). Nor do we wonder that a specific divine announcement accompanied the birth of Jesus. In realms of being beyond our own there must have been a profound interest in the great revelation, and it was congruous that those who felt this most should have broken through the frontiers of the realm of nature to interpret to men something of its significance (Lu. 2:8-20). Indeed, without the song of the angels we should have felt that the sympathy of all ranges of being in the astounding event was insufficiently manifested.

Certainly, when we take these narratives together they are marked by a deep interior agreement. If Jesus was the "Word" made flesh (Jo. 1:14), every

A Street in Bethlehem.

difficulty vanishes. The parts of the story hang together. The narrative is congruous with itself, on the plane on which it is projected, as a mathematician might say.

But the parts of the advent story are not only congruous with each other, they are in deep interior accord with the subsequent career of Jesus. As Dr. Newman Smyth has suggested, the story of the resurrection matches the story of the advent as a glorious sunset matches a beautiful sunrise on a perfect day in June, and the deeds of power and words of wisdom match the advent and the resurrection as the golden hours of such a day match its beginning and its close.

Upon this fact of the inner coherence and congruity of the gospel narrative we may build a noble argument for the historic truthfulness of the whole record. If the Evangelists imagined the narratives of the birth of Jesus they addressed themselves to a stupendous task, for they made it necessary that they should portray a life that would match their introduction. No temple constucted by human hands could match that porch. If, however, they did not imagine but described; if the record of the birth and the record of the life are records of fact, we can account for the poise with which they tread these perilous heights, and for the unrivaled success with which they have carried their story on. The reply that Rousseau gave in his Entile to those who asserted that the gospel story was a fiction is still of force: "Then the inventor would be more astounding than the hero."

CHAPTER III. The Silent Years

We have only a hint or two in the gospel narratives as to the life of Jesus until He had reached His thirtieth year; but, for all that, we may have a tolerably distinct picture of the conditions under which the boy grew into young manhood, and the habit of His life.

Judaism has developed and put in practice one of the noblest ideals of the home the world has ever seen. To this day the typical Jewish home leaves

Nazareth.

From a photograph.

little to be desired. In it there is a mingling of conjugal, parental and filial devotion that binds human hearts into the higher unity of the family. In the Jewish household, then as now, the wife and mother had a place of peculiar honor. The reluctance, even of the poor Russian Jews who have found refuge in our American cities, to permit their daughters to enter gainful occupations; their desire that girls shall be trained in the home so as to be efficient mistresses of the homes they are to have, is a survival to our own times of the ancient Hebrew ideal of the sanctity of the home and of woman's place in it, The most beautiful and moving love story in the world is the narrative in Genesis of the love of Jacob and Rachel. Making proper allowance for Oriental customs, no woman could desire a greater love than that of Jacob. After she had been dead forty years she still held her place in her husband's heart. Into such a home our Lord was born.

We cannot doubt that the best ideals of Hebrew womanhood were fully realized in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Protestant Christians, in their revolt from the Roman adoration of Mary, should not forget that she is forever, as the angel said, "blessed among women. " Does the Sistine Madonna idealize too much the glorious womanliness, the tender motherhood, the celestial consciousness of Mary? We can hardly think so. And this was the mother at whose breast the child Jesus nursed. Her lips taught His to lisp the sweet Aramaic ; her deft fingers made His baby clothes; her hand steadied His first steps; upon her bosom, into her ear, He confided His childish joys and sorrows; her voice taught Him the law and history of their ancient race, and framed His first prayers. No picture of His boyhood is complete that does not enshrine the face, the form, the voice, the manner of His mother.

Doubtless it was a home of slender means. But poverty is always relative, and there is no reason for thinking that the household was ever in want. With industry and good management there was enough.

We get just one glimpse of Jesus as He is approaching adolescence (Lu. 2:41-52). Artists have sought with varying success to portray the incident of the visit to the temple and Jesus' conversation with the doctors. Hofmann's picture is well known, but Tissot's representation of the boy leaving the temple, walking between Mary and Joseph, is singularly happy. As you look into the boy's eyes you see

The Silent Years that His soul belongs to a different realm from that in which Joseph, or even Mary, is living. He is the dutiful human child, but already He has heard in the depths of His own soul the call of His Father's work. Before machinery had taken the place of hand labor one of the most attractive occupations was that of a carpenter. It is clean, wholesome work, and any success in it demands the intelligence, precision and skill that only come from long training of the mind, the eye and the hand. The fashioning of an Oriental plough-yoke was not the work of a tyro, while a well made and fitted door or window was no easier a piece of work then than now. Our most advanced psychology is inculcating that a high place should be training m trie cie- Ag this i8 the only spring in the towni Jesus and Hi8

Velopment Of intel- mother must have gone to it daily.

ligence and character. Singularly enough, this is the precise discipline that Jesus appears to have had in His boyhood home.

All the outward conditions of the life of Jesus were favorable to the production of a strong, noble type of character. But outward conditions are not the final determining element in the issues of any human life. The first temptations of Jesus could not have been those which met Him in the desert after His baptism. In the happiest and most united households there are inevitable irritations and annoyances arising from the subtile conflict of temperaments. Even when young men do not yield to lower solidtations, the temptation to envy, pride, and selfishness may be almost overpowering. The purity of the home atmosphere may not be antiseptic against these subtile bacteria. To be sure, this home was Oriental, and we Occidentals find it difficult to reproduce imaginatively all of its intimate details, but this home was human, and that is something we can all interpret. Let any young man or woman, trained in a loving home, with brothers and sisters, recall the inevitable discipline, even under happiest conditions, of these human associations, and the reminiscence will suggest something of the self-discipline and selfcontrol of Jesus.

It has sometimes been said that you cannot be certain that Jesus was sinless until you have scrutinized every act He ever did. That assertion, however, overlooks the genetic relationship of all acts, and the genetic evolution of character. You see the ship swinging with the tide held by the steel cable to the anchor lodged in the rocks. You can only see a few links of the cable, but you know that the fathoms of it hidden beneath the water are equally strong, because these links you can see are doing their work of holding the ship. The prophet Jeremiah asked (12: 5) : " If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses ?" But if one can contend with horses, surely he has not been wearied by footmen. The fact that Jesus resisted temptations, concerning which we are well informed, that were, as we shall see, peculiarly insidious and strong, affords a trustworthy basis for a judgment as to His self-conquest in the silent years. The whole cable holds. The contention with horses demonstrates the mastery over the footmen.

CHAPTER IV. Preparing the Way of the Lord

Lu. 3:1-18, and Scattered References.

The greatness of John the Baptist has the supreme attestation of the witness of Jesus. He said, — and that at a moment when the faith of John in Himself seemed to waver, — " Among them that are born of women there is none greater than John" (Lu. 7:28). If John did not stand so near Jesus we could more easily recognize the justness of this opinion. And it is an incidental but significant testimony to the greatness of Jesus that a rich, large, heroic figure like that of John the Baptist is almost overlooked when brought near the personality of our Lord.

The proper background for the appreciation of the message and career of John the Baptist is afforded by recalling that, during the period of his activity, the Messianic expectation among the Hebrews was peculiarly vivid. The long delay in the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies had sharpened rather than dulled anticipation. The very conflict of opinions as to how the prophecies were to be fulfilled intensified interest in the great theme. Some held that Jehovah Himself would come to judgment; others that the political sovereignty of Israel would be established over the nations by a series of miraculous events, and others that a new order would be inaugurated under some God-sent representative, in which the interest of righteousness should at least be as prominent as those of political dominion. This general expectation that

John the Baptist.

By Titian.

Judaism was on the eve of a fulfilment of prophetic forecasts, no matter what the precise interpretation given to them by different parties, created a public temper singularly responsive to the call of a brave and noble personality like that of John the Baptist, whose message struck the chords of conscience, and whose personal life was in thorough agreement with his teaching. Josephus, who seems to go out of his way to avoid mentioning Jesus, records with some detail the deep and wide impression made upon the

Hebron.

The supposed home of John the Baptist.

nation by the preaching of John the Baptist, who announced that the kingdom of God was at hand.

Though John recognized Jesus as the Christ (Jo. 1:29, 36), he did not fully grasp the precise nature of the Messianic kingdom or the method of Jesus (Lu. 7:19). But, in spite of this, his message was as perfectly adjusted to the work of our Lord as though he had understood it more perfectly. Such unconscious co-operations on the part of the workers suggest an impressive inference as to the divine superintendence of human efforts. Men are all the time working like John the Baptist by the light of partial insights. But, as we look back upon their work and appreciate its delicate adjustments to a large purpose, we say:

Preparing the Way of the Lord 15

"Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew."

The specific point at which the preaching of John was adjusted to the message of Jesus, and so became preparative for our Lord's work, was his insistence that the kingdom of God was based upon the thoroughgoing righteousness of all its members. Whatever John's misconception as to the Messianic method (Lu. 3:15-17), he was absolutely clear that the kingdom of God did not embrace the whole nation as such. Abrahamic descent gave no title to membership (Lu. 3:8). The condition of membership was repentance, and the bringing forth of fruit worthy of repentance. We are so familiar with these ideas that it is easy for us to underestimate the profound originality and insight of John the Baptist in taking his stand upon them. They were faithful to the inner spirit and genus of the ancient prophecies, rather than to their letter. They did away at a stroke with all those superficial and conventional distinctions of birth and special privilege, of which men have always made so much, and they laid the foundations of the kingdom of God deep down on the bed rock of personal righteousness. The way by which Jesus secured that righteousness was not the way of John the Baptist, but it did not contradict John's way, or abrogate it. The way of Jesus simply added to repentance the mighty force of faith. But the end that Jesus contemplated — a kingdom of righteousness — is absolutely identical with the ideal of John.

Perhaps John did not fully recognize how his great central principle was to universalize the kingdom of God. Jesus saw it, and taught it (Mt. 25:32), but His disciples did not see it. It took a remarkable series of providences to open the eyes of Peter to the fact (Acts 10:34,35). As soon as the early church caught a glimpse of it their entire attitude toward the world was revolutionized. When Paul grasped the central thought of John the Baptist's message, he became the Apostle to the Gentiles. The idea rings through the epistles like a dominant chord in a musical movement, and, in the last chapter of the New Testament, it sounds forth full and clear : "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And ... he that will, let him take the water of life freely " (Rev. 22:17).

The spirituality, the universality and the democracy of the kingdom of God were in germ in that great doctrine of John the Baptist, and its application to human governments laid the firm foundation of free institutions. When we think of John the Baptist let us not picture him as a rude and shaggy fanatic, or as a vague preacher of righteousness; let us think of him as the man who first taught effectively the great doctrine that membership in the kingdom of God does not depend on birth or position, or upon any of the accidents of fortune, but upon the movement of the soul toward righteousness.

CHAPTER V. The Initiation of Jesus

The essential feature of the message of John the Baptist was that membership in the kingdom of God was not dependent upon birth or special privilege of any sort, but upon the attitude of the individual toward the claims of righteousness. The attainment of this right relationship on the part of sinful men involved repentance, which John did not conceive of simply as an emotional experience, but as a resolute turning away from wickedness to righteousness. In his thought of repentance, as throughout the New

The River Jordan. *" * photograph '

Testament, the main element is not sorrow, but action. Rightly conceived, sorrow for sin is simply the reverse side of love of righteousness, but both the sorrow and the love are worthless unless the living spirit actually espouses and works for righteousness. The rite of baptism, which John administered to his disciples, was a true and beautiful symbol of his germinal ideas. It admirably typified the death to sin and the life to righteousness which he was preaching (Rom. 6:2-4). When Jesus, therefore, came to John desiring to be baptized, it signified that Jesus recognized and fully accepted the ideas of John for which his baptism stood. In no more effective way could Jesus have declared to the world, that, however high the superstructure might rise which He was to build, He accepted the foundation that had been laid by John.

Jesus adds to the ideas of John most important new conceptions, but the conceptions of Jesus do not contradict those of John. On the contrary, they are in such thorough accord with them that Jesus at once accepted the distinctive teachings of the Baptist as the foundation principles of His own Messianic kingdom. It was given to this greatest of the prophets, the crown and flower of the prophetic impulse in Judaism, to be so true to the past and to the future that above his work there arose the majestic structure of the kingdom of God. From this point of view the tokens of the divine approval at the baptism of Jesus (Mt. 3:16, 17) are not only a witness to Jesus but indirectly they are the strongest testimony to the harmony of the teachings of John with the thought of the Most High.

In just what form the mission of Jesus lay in His own mind at this time we cannot say, but we may hold with confidence that the essential features of His teaching and career had risen above the horizon of consciousness, and He knew that He was the Messiah with the relationship to the Most High, the knowledge and the power involved in that office.

The ritual initiation of His mission was accomplished in His baptism. It now remained to vindicate the competency of Jesus for His work in His own consciousness and in the moral consciousness of mankind by the most searching tests of His moral and spiritual fibre. The initiation of baptism was slight and easy compared with the initiation of temptation. The trial to which Jesus was subjected involved the most subtile test of which we can conceive. If the Evangelists simply imagined this narrative, they had such an insight into the depths of personality and the