The Galilean, or Jesus, the world's Savior

II Minister at the Temple

“ This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee ”

Matthew

“The world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s son ”

Shakespeare r

SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY

New York BOSTON Chicago

Copyright, 1892,

By silver, BURDETT & CO.

Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston.

Aih/y

^ ILobmg S^ribute

HUMBLY LAID AT THE FEET OF

HIM

WHOSE NAME IS ABOVE EVERY NAME

NOT ONLY IN THIS WORLD BUT IN THAT WHICH IS TO COME TO WHOM

BE BLESSING AND HONOR, AND GLORY AND POWER FOREVER AND EVER

“ To Thee this strain I bring, —

Be propitious, O my King!

Take the music which is mine Anthemed from the songs Divine.”

Synesius

I

\ s t

INTEODUOTION.

Tins volume was originally published several years ago. Of late it has been out of print, and as demands for it have increased, it is once more given to the public. In repreparing and rearranging the work for the press, the author by ^revisions and additions has aimed to enlarge its scope, and to render it a more complete exposition of the great Galilean’s life. The sermon-chapters on the “ Heligion of Jesus,” on His “Philanthropy,” on His “ Truth- Spirit,” and on His “Anguish” and “Ascension,” are entirely new, and the one on the “Future of Jesus,” has been re-written. By these changes, the book has been brought into touch with the spirit of the times, and with some of the larger questions now agitating them ; and they have likewise gone far toward making it a sufficient gnide to the broader and more generous orthodoxy of our evangelical churches — an orthodoxy that seeks to avoid the narrow literalism of the old theology and the diffusive idealism of the new. The writer has not attempted to discuss the views of Strauss and Renan on the great theme he has here treated, neither has he essayed a formal biography of our Savior after the manner of Neander, Geike, or Farrar. His humbler aim has been, while seeking to preserve the unity of history, to present a series of pictures of the Galilean, and to unfold such distinct aspects of His earthly ministry as best may meet the religious needs of this generation.

It has appeared to him that our Lord’s life has usually been drawn without much regard to its real bearing on the life of the world ; that it has rarely, if ever, been studied with a view to the lessons it conveys for the guidance of the perplexed, and the example it sets for the imitation of all classes and conditions of mankind. To confute the infidel, to silence the skeptic, or to satisfy the curious, has, with hardly an exception, been the object proposed by those who have undertaken

Introduction

to declare “all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” Such being the case, “ it seemed good ” to the author of this volume, “having had some understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus” — or, what in this instance is the same, most excellent reader — that tbe moral and spiritual lessons of Christ’s life might be more clearly discerned, and be more highly appreciated.

The importance of this endeavor will be recognized by all who perceive the personal grandeur of Jesus, and the relation He sustains to the highest interests of the race. He is the source, the supreme and ultimate source, of its most sacred hopes, and the only perfect model of everything that beautifies it in character and dignifies it m conduct. In the sphere wherein He moves He is absolute, the sole and exclusive teacher, and the unparalleled and unmatched exemplar. In comparison with Him and with His influence, all other careers, even the most saintly, are as trivial and as unavailing as the shadow of a cloud falling on sea or mountain. From the window of the room where these words are penned the Lake of Lucerne, in all of its tramsparent and placid loveliness, is visible, and recalls the part it plays, in common with other inland waters, in the physical economy of Europe. Michelet states that the glacier floods flow into the lakes of Switzerland, where they are sunned and purified, that they may thus be rendered wholesome before they stream forth as rivers on their fertilizing mission. And thus the blessed Christ receives humanity, sinsoiled and surcharged with the elements of moral death, and does what no other being, even the best, can do, transforms it by contact with Himself into His own image, and sends it forth in sacred ministries of grace and healing. Anything, therefore, that can be done, though it may be crude in conception and rude in execution, to bring society into close personal relations with the Savior, and to enable it to realize more deeply its dependence on Him, not only for redemption and sanctification, but for wisdom as well, must prove advantageous, and may fairly claim the kindest and most lenient judgment of the critic.

In giving this modest volume to the press, the writer desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the various authorities he has quoted, and likewise to pray that his readers may be led, by its perusal, to take for their motto what he himself has adopted for many years, Aut Christus, aut nullus, “either Christ or nobody.”

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE

1. The Portraits of Jesus 9

II. The Mother of Jesus 25

III. The Preparation Of Jesus

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man . — Diike ii, 52.

APOCHRYPHAL gospels, inspired by fanatical zeal and fanciful ignorance, ascribe to Jesus during his earlier years such marvels as they in their shallowness deem appropriate to his super-earthly origin. According to their report the boy was a prodigy — a youthful magician or thaumaturgist — who delighted in mystifying and startling His associates by the display of His wondrous powers. He is represented as carrying water in His robe, as molding birds of clay, and as clapping His hands to make them fly; as acting superciliously and impertinently toward Joseph, His reputed father, and His teachers; as turning some of His playmates into kids, and as striking others of them dead with a curse — stories which, if they could be credited, would only prove that their precocious hero was a very superficial, ill-behaved, and contemptible character. It is a satisfaction to know that there is no foundation in fact for these preposterous and silly legends, and that He whom they seek to honor, but in truth degrade, was not conspicuous in His childhood for anything beyond the quiet and natural development of mind and body recorded in the text.

In ignoring these idle traditions, and writing as they do of physical and mental growth, the evangelists place beyond question the reality and completeness of Christ’s humanity. .It is said by Paul that Jesus “took on Him

FROM INFANCY TO MANHOOD.

the seed of Abraham,” and was “in all things” made “like unto His brethren;” also, that He “learned obedience,” and was made “ perfect through sufferings'” — statements in exact accord with the simple but significant narration of Luke. Whatever may be true of His Divinity — and the Apostle evidently has it in full view when he represents Him as choosing the nature in which He will appear among men, for a creature cannot predetermine the form of his creaturehood — He was in all essential respects a being like ourselves. He grew weary. He was strengthened by an angel. He suffered. He hungered. He thirsted, He had positive desires which He expressed, a^d He experienced a sorrow of soul which he acknowledged was even unto death. (/See Ileb. ^, 10^ 16, 17; v. 8, 9; Luke xxii, Ji2, JfS; JMark xiv, SIf.7) Jesus then, whatever else He was, assuredly was man; not merely man in physical structure, but in soul as well. That is, we are not to think, as some have argued, that His personality was purely divine, the divine being the sole animating principle of His body; but rather, that, like others of the race. He possessed a proper human spirit, which, though mysteriously allied with a higher nature, was capable of being trained, enlightened, expanded — educated. This conclusion, although manifestly warranted by the explicit teaching of Scripture, some timid people hesitate to accept and try to evade. They imagine it to be derogatory to His more exalted rank, and freighted with mischief to the entire Christian scheme. And yet what can we do? We must either disregard the express utterances of the Gospel, and incur the suspicion of being more anxious to subserve a theory than to ascertain the truth; or we must assume that the flesh of Jesus was all that advanced in wisdom, which is an evident solecism; or, what is even a graver absurdity and greater contradiction, that the changeless and infinitely wise Deity is mutable and improvable; or, we

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

must receive what is written, and believe that Jesus had a soul conditioned like our own, and, like our own, susceptible to cultivation. It will not do to admit the reality of His human soul and then deny the reality of its progressiveness; for such denial destroys its kinship with the spiritual in other men, and forces us to advocate the untenable hypothesis that the infant Jesus was at His birth mentally and morally of full stature; that the body of the babe was from the beginning linked with the mind of the sage; and that He was never a child except in a physical sense. Such conceptions are incongruous and irrational, and, for one, I repudiate them. Taking the Gospels for our guide, and common-sense for our rule of interpretation, we cannot fail to believe that the intellect of Jesus ripened as His body matured; that His knowledge increased. His powers expanded, and His varied spiritual graces gradually unfolded. It need not be objected that this implies increase of moral worthiness, for it involves no such difficulty. From innocence He grew into righteousness, from holiness of being into holiness of doing; but, as the diamond is intrinsically as priceless before it is faceted as after, and as the golden ingot is essentially the same as the golden coin, so the native purity of our Lord was just as perfect at the first as it was at the last, when its radiance shone forth in conduct, and when it was minted into the currency of blameless action.

During some thirty years this educational process was going on; and if, during that period, the outward life of Jesus seems barren of results, inwardly it was certainly fruitful. Externally it may have been as the winter’s snow, but, beneath the snow, blossoms and flowers were making ready for the spring. In fixing this boundary line, we do not commit ourselves to the denial of subsequent development, but merely desire to designate the time spent in preparation for His ministry. That ministry brought its

THE father’s business.

own schooling and its own lessons, and these are worthy of consideration in their place; but, as we usually regard the necessary training for a vocation specifically as education, we may be allowed here to employ the term in this conventional way, restricting its application to what took place in fitting our Savior for His work. Two things were necessary: That He attain to the consciousness of Himself, of His calling, and of the character of His mission; and, secondly, that His mind be enlightened and all His spiritual powers be unfolded and strengthened, so that He Himself might be honored and His mission be fulfilled. On these aspects of His preparation it cannot but be profitable to meditate, as they will familiarize us more fully with Jesus as He was, and may suggest some practical thoughts applicable to our own life as it is.

Neander, in his historical account of Christ, says: “We cannot believe that the full consciousness of a Divine call, which he displayed in His later years, was of sudden growth.” He traces its dawning to His youth, and follows it to the time when it seems to have been complete.d at His baptism, or just before. Ebrard, referring to that ceremony, says: “In the development of His consciousness He had just reached that point in which He clearly apprehended the vocation given Him by His Father.” Krummacher, Lange, Robertson, Horace Bushnell, and other eminent theologists substantially adopt this view; and I cannot see, if what has been stated regarding His humanity be admitted, how it can be questioned. It is inconceivable that as a babe He should have had the consciousness of a man, or that He should have realized His mysterious relation to a higher Being. Much more rational the theory that, from His childhood, self-knowledge advanced, at first slowly, then more rapidly, until a climax was reached just before He stepped out of His obscurity and made the public avowal of His Messiahship. As the mariner, who

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

for weeks has traversed the indefiniteness and monotonousness of ocean, discerns at last what seems to his eyes banks of fog on the horizon’s verge, but which slowly change into the faint outlines of hills and cities, and then, on some clear morning, suddenly emerge from the mist in shapes distinct and sharp; so Jesus, from the blank and vague domain of infancy, gradually enters the more transparent world of boyhood, in which He gets a glimpse of personal relations, dignities, and missions, and then continues His voyage toward manhood mid ever-increasing light, and in the fullness of that light obtains at last a perfect view of all that He is in Himself, all that He is to God, and all that He is to man. The episode in His early life which occurred at Jerusalem, confirms the propriety of this illustration. At that time He appears to have had a confused and partial idea of His supernatural origin and wonderful destiny, and replies to His mother’s inquiry: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” — that is, “engaged in the things of my Father” — language which implies that He perceived, in part, at least. His true position in the world’s history, and felt within His soul strange intimations of approaching greatness. But that this apprehension of Himself, and this insight into the future were not final, and were not unobscured, may be inferred from the fact that He resumes His modest station in the family, returns to the commonplace pursuits of Nazareth, and gives no sign for eighteen years. He had seen in a glass darkly, and then the image seems to have been blurred; but finally He comes to see face to face, or face answering to face. From feeling and thinking as a child, at last He feels and thinks as a man, and, when He does so. He puts away childish things, and speaks, yea, and acts, as a man.

The development of his consciousness we cannot follow through its various stages, but we can form, from His subsequent claims and conduct, an idea of its character.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

He must have recognized in Himself what we ourselves feel as human souls, the reality of personal existence, the I being and authority of God, and the certainty of immortality. Most likely the sense of these sublimities was j more vivid in Him than in us, as it was undoubtedly asso-

1 ciated with an interior revelation of a greatness with

which there is nothing to compare in mortals. Gradually it dawned upon His mind that He was the child of promise, the Being toward whom the eyes of preceding generations had been turned, the Messiah of prophecy, the Jesus of Jehovah. As such. He must have felt strange powers stirring in Him, and must have realized the possession of practically limitless resources. The outward marvels of His life, from the miracle of the marriage to 1 that of the resurrection, must have been before His con- I sciousness as possibilities ere they were before the world I as actualities. His intimate and wonderful relations with the Infinite must likewise have been known to Him, He refers to them in His ministry. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;” “Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,” was the burden of His most impressive discourse. Frequently in His teaching the same thought occurs, though in other forms ; and throughout we may discern His recognition of a nature abiding in Him that is not of earth. He moves, He I speaks. He works, as one whose humanity is strangely blended with Divinity, and as one with whom is a Presence which the Heaven of heavens cannot contain. But there is another side to this consciousness. Realizing His Messianic office. He must also have realized the awful condition of things that made it necessary, and the terrible ordeal through which He must pass to effect deliverance. That is. He must have felt the world’s lost and wretched state, must have borne on His heart not only its sorrows but its sins, and sympathetically must have tasted the bitterness

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

of its shame. As a parent cannot but take to himself the dishonor of his offspring, and cannot but share the anguish of his child, so Jesus, being what He was, could not but have a suffering sense of the loathsomeness of every iniquity that has outraged the race, and of the painfulness of every affliction that has desolated its affections. Picture to yourselves this Being, burdened with every woe, every calamity, and every evil that has befallen humanity, and so identifying Himself with the race that its sinfulness and sorrowfulness are to Him as though they were His own ; and then picture Him as sensible of His mission, consecrated by God to the holy but awful work of finding a way of escape for the guilty, and of providing consolation and succor for the distressed, and as seeing the weary, thorny, bloody road He must travel, even the way of the cross, to win redemption for mankind, and you will have a fair, if not an exhaustive, conception of the state of mind in which our Lord confronted the approach of the hour when His vocation must begin. Like the eye, which at a glance takes in the magnificence of the stellar heavens and the horrors of the battlefield, the soul of Jesus at the same moment was filled with the splendors of Infinitude and the indescribable sufferings of the finite, and with His own approaching agony as associated with the latter by ties of brotherhood.

Evidently while this preparation for His future ministry was going forward, the evolution of character was also taking place. The faculties and powers of His soul must have unfolded, as the bud opens into the flower, and as the promise of dawn grows into the radiance of noon. We find Him on the threshold of His public career what He is at the close — thoughtful, self-collected, serene, resolute in purpose, clear in judgment, prompt in action, eloquent in speech, affectionate in spirit, . and dignified in manner. He does not bring an undisciplined intellect to

SELF-EDUCATION-.

His mighty work, but one drilled and fitted to encounter the most skillful and determined of adversaries. He does not attempt to measure strength with the hosts of darkness until He has equipped Himself for the conflict. Nothing is undertaken prematurely or carelessly. Jesus tempers the steel before He draws the sword; He hardens His hand before He puts the share in the ground; He sharpens the ax before He raises it against the tree, and is sure of His powder before He attempts to blast the rock. From the moment that He steps into public view, the people realize that He is no novice. They call Him “Master,” “Rabbi,” and even His enemies admit his wonderful superiority, and question among themselves, “ How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” “And whence hath He this wisdom and these mighty works?”

The inquiries of His perplexed countrymen suggest a very important line of thought. That Jesus did not enter on His ministry without adequate preparation is apparent. The character of that preparation is equally clear. But it is not as evident how, by what means, through what agencies, it was accomplished. He certainly was not educated in the higher schools of the land, had never enjoyed the advantages of advanced instruction, had never been a pupil of any of the Rabbis, and had never attached Himself to any of the sects — either to Pharisees, Sadducees, or Essenes — and could not, therefore, have been indebted to them for His training. Probably He was taught, as other Hebrew children were, the moral and ceremonial laws of Judaism. This was customary, and there is no reason why an exception should have been made in His case. Doubtless He attended, with those of His own age, the synagogue of His town, where, according to Josephus, the scholars were “taught to read, and to walk in the ways of the Law, and to know the deeds of their fathers.” But this primary instruction, compara-

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

ble to that now received in the lower grade of common schools, was not sufficient to equip Him for His work. The explanation must be sought in other directions, and mainly in Himself ; that is, .Jesus was in the truest sense a self-made man. He disciplined His own powers, developed His own energies, and was the architect of His own character. Of course, there were influences that surrounded Him, and circumstances that affected Him, and opportunities that opened up before Him ; but the appropriation of the first, the improvement of the second, and the appreciation of the third were determined by Himself. The difference between a self-made man and one that is manufactured is not so much in the advantages they possess as in their ability to master them. The former is independent and self-reliant, and will force an education out of everything, and almost out of nothing, while the latter is only educated to the degree that others succeed in thrusting on him knowledge and culture. Jesus ranks with the self-made, because, with the exception of His mother and his early teachers — narrow-minded and prejudiced Jews — no one had anything to do with the forming of His mind, and, therefore, what He was must be attributed to His own vigor and wisdom in employing the materials that lay at His hand.

The beautiful and holy life of His mother must have profoundly impressed Him; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that He acquired from her some of the graces that distinguished Him. Probably from her lips in the days of His youth or early manhood He learned the marvelous story of His birth; and this, answering to something in Him, may have ministered to the development of His Messianic consciousness. He likewise must have been influenced in the same direction by the Word of God; for he evidently was a student of its sacred pages, and He could hardly have fed on its teachings without recognizing

EVERYWHERE A SCHOOL.

more clearly His own origin, calling and destiny. But thousands have had godly parents and have never grown purer, and thousands have had the Bible and never grown wiser. The difference between them and Jesus is, that while they attached no adequate value to their privileges, and sought no personal advantage from them. He prized what God had conferred, and enriched Himself with the treasure. To Him the Scriptures were precious; and the study of them served to discipline His intellect, kindle His imagination, and fire His soul, as it has in multitudes of other instances. Nor is it unlikely that Nature also contributed, in some degree, to call forth His greatness. The scenery of Galilee is famous for its beauty. From His childhood He must have been familiar with the magnificent panorama of lake and mountain, of wooded Naphtali and purple Carmel, of Gilboa’s heights and Endor’s plains, and of the spots made doubly interesting by historic associations. The armies of the Amalekites, of the Egyptians, of the Assyrians, of the Greeks, and of the Romans had encamped in the valleys near His home, and there momentous battles had been fought, and memorable events had occurred. In His wanderings and meditations these scenes, with actions and personages connected with them, must have passed before Him and have spoken to Him with those voices which sensitive souls yet recognize as sounding through the works of God and deeds of men. Contemplating specially these Divine works for many years. He may, in part, have become assimilated to them, the rocks imparting their strength to His will, the valleys their expansiveness to His charity, and the flowers their grace to His righteousness. Yea, they may even have gladdened the hidden Deity tabernacling in Him, as they did on Creation’s morning, and they may have drawn from Him a revelation of His indwelling presence, even

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

as they ever tend to discover whatever of God yet remains in the poor human heart.

To these influences, also, may be added those of His social surroundings. While the Jews of Nazareth were very decided Jews, the population of the town was mixed. From the time that Solomon gave the district to Hiram, King of Tyre, many strangers had resided there — chiefly, according to Strabo, Syrians, Phoenicians and Arabs — and on this account Isaiah had called it “ Galilee of the Gentiles.” The great road, spoken of anciently as ‘‘the way of the sea,” from Damascus to Ptolemas, ran just behind Nazareth; the Roman highway from Syria lay through the town itself, and another to Judea and Egypt skirted the hill on which it stood. Caravans constantly passed the little city, bringing the representatives of many nationalities in contact with its citizens. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Jesus held intercourse with these merchants and traders; that occasionally there may have been found among them philosophers traveling from one point to another, from whom He may have gathered information, and it is probable that the fraternity of commerce may have fostered His cosmopolitan views, and have suggested the higher brotherhood of humanity. That He should have been thus affected and aided by these means is not, however, explained by the means themselves, but by what He was in Himself. Others were related to them as He was, but only one Jesus appeared. He, and He alone made them tributary to his personal development, and that through the native grandeur of His soul, aided doubtless by the Holy Spirit who, we are told, “dwelt in Him without measure,” and who is comprehensively described as “ the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might,” and who not only must have stimulated His original endowments, but must have re-

ARMIifG FOR BATTLE.

vealed to His consciousness the essential wonders of His Being and Vocation.

Young friends, — for to you I speak particularly — accept this word of application: Life lies before you, and you are approaching the hour when you must enter on its duties and its varied experiences. Let the example of Jesus constrain you to prepare. Thousands on thousands idle their youth away, despise its opportunities for improvement, and pass into the conflict unarmed, undrilled, undisciplined and consequently are ready to fall an easy prey to the destroyer. The remedy is — self-education. If you would attain success in any calling or profession, equipment for it must precede its pursuit; and if life as a whole is to be grandly triumphant, the same course must be adopted. You must develop your mental resources, must inform your mind, must enlighten your judgment, must master your appetites, must sanctify your heart — in a word, must attain manhood, if you would fight a man’s battles and win a man’s victories. To make this preparation you must be conscious of your needs and your deficiencies. On the one side, you must realize the imperfection of your moral nature and your absolute dependence upon God, and on the other, you must seek to appreciate the soul’s greatness and aim to attain Divine approval. And this two-fold endeavor and the results which should follow lie within your own power. You must build your own character in time, and in so doing, will fashion your destiny for all eternity. Every man in reality is self-made, self-made whether for good or ill, and not even the Almighty can make him other than he wills. Contemplate, then, seriously your responsibility, and, like Jesus, use the means that are near you — for they are abundant — and you will be able to fit yourself for the position Providence assigns you in the world. Study the Scriptures, and they will reveal yourself to yourself, and 4

JESUS THE world’s SAVIOR.

will help to mold your character in righteousness; consider God’s works, and they will expand your soul and will minister to the elevation of your desires; confide in Christ, and He will make known to you your inherent dignity, and will transform you into His image; and scrutinize your fellow-mortals, and they will teach you, by their vicissitudes, what to avoid and what to follow. Employ these means wisely, vigorously, and look for the Holy Spirit to aid and direct you in their use, and, like Jesus, you will be prepared to take up the mission of life and to conduct it to a victorious close. But if they are neglected, if youth is wasted, and if precious opportunities are rejected, the spendthrift’s shame will assuredly crown the spendthrift’s folly. Remember: