13441-13445] [13441] The predicate which affirms the impossibility of sinning can be applied to God alone; of Him it is true in the absolute necessity of His nature—a necessity which is identical with the highest liberty. The idea of a God who could sin, or who could be really tempted to sin, were an absurdity: God and sin are two conceptions which absolutely exclude each other. The possibility of not sinning we must ascribe to man in the abstract-to man, viewed as the creature fresh from the hand of the Creator. This possibility is implied in his liberty, by which he is as yet fully free to abstain from sin. Sinlessness, in the practical sense, can be predicated only of a certain individual. That individual must be one in whose case the impossibility of sinning does not follow at once from a necessity of his nature; who, in other words, is susceptible of being tempted. On the other hand, he must be one whom we may believe endowed with an integrity of moral nature, by means of which the possibility of not sinning is his. In a case where both these conditions are fulfilled, the development of a life altogether pure and holy is conceivable : a life it would be which we should have to regard as at once typically perfect-raised far above everything which history tells us of, and, at the same time, as truly human; and this is what we hold the moral character and life of Jesus to have been.-Human Sinlessness of Jesus. II. HIS SUPREME MORAL DIGNITY. I Its varied manifestations. [13442] His moral character, as it addresses us in the Gospels, bears not the impress of any particular time or nationality, but reveals the eternal beauty of general morality, of the generally human in the deepest sense, refreshing, humbling, and yet elevating the inmost heart of every age and race and century to which His image is unveiled. His portrait, as the evangelists sketch it for us, with the emphasis of artless simplicity, the strength of which lies in its truth, places before every susceptible mind a historical phenomenon, in the splendour of a moral idea and moral truth, in the loveliness and power of reality. In the contemplation of Him, the seeker after a living knowledge of human good stops to breathe again; here he rests, for every one's conscience shouts, as it were, exulting to Him, as to the ultimate appearance of the man, or as to the conscience of mankind now become an objective and living reality. Moreover, what He carried on as His calling did not lie, as with us, on a single region of human existence, but it is directed to what is central, to the setting of mankind right in their relation to God, and to the truly human in man generally, whence the renewing life-blood flows into all the regions of human existence. In this, too, lies the marvel of His character, that His acting and discourse do not run into the vague and the abstract; His character does not leave the impression of the flat, the feeble, the tame, the monotonous. [CHRIST'S SINLESS LIFE AND PERFECT MERITS. Rather, we must say, so far as one understands by individuality the opposite to the undefined and undeveloped, that He exhibits the most definite and clearly marked character. His peculiar distinguishing individuality just lies in this, that He exhibits in His own person the essentially and the truly human, and that, too, in a manner fraught with saving power. The delusion is common that the good in itself would be monotonous and tame, and that it is indebted for its loveliness and colour, not to its creative power and originality, but to the evil, its opposite. The picture of this life-full finished character is the triumph over the dead opinion, which makes good the eternal debtor of evil, and evil and death the dispenser of life.Dorner. [13443] What so great as that the Son of God came down into our world; did put on man; lived a lifetime among us mortals; breathed everywhere heavenly love, and grace, and sweetness; and with these grateful odours perfumed this noisome, impure, forlorn region of darkness and death; died a sacrifice for sinners, and overcame death; ascended in triumph to the throne of God; sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ?-J. Howe, 1681. [13444] Now learn what this meaneth. Whatsoever a man steals and takes contrary to his right, he dares not lay aside, from fear lest it perish and fall from his possession, but he keeps hold of it continually. He who possesses a dignity which is natural to him, fears not to descend from that dignity. As, for example, when a man rebels against his sovereign and usurps the kingdom, he dares not lay aside or conceal the matter, for if he once put it away, straightway it is gone. They who have obtained aught by rapine are afraid to lay it by, or put it away, or not to keep constantly in that state which they have assumed. Not so they who have possessions not procured by rapine. What do we say, then? That the Son of God feared not to descend from His right, for Deity was not to Him a matter of robbery; He was not afraid that any would strip Him of that nature or that right, wherefore He laid it aside, being confident that He should take it up again. He hid it, knowing that He was not made inferior by so doing. He possessed not that estate by robbery; it was natural, not conferred, it was enduring and safe. Wherefore He refused not to take the form of an inferior. The usurping tyrant fears to lay aside the purple robe in war, while the king does it in safety. Why so? Because he holds his power not as a matter of robbery. Christ did not refuse to lay it aside as one who had usurped it, but since He had it as His own by nature, since it could never be parted from Him, He concealed it.-St. Chry sostom. [13445] Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent 13445-13453] and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is a peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity, and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness, and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers, and angels; and the next instant He meekly endures the dulness of His disciples, and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude. He now calls Himself greatcr than Solomon; one who can command legions of angels, and giver of life to whomsoever He pleases; the Son of God, and who shall sit on His glorious throne to judge the world; at other times we find Him embracing young children, .. calling His disciples not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things, heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice, and removed every mistake of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed an union with the Father, and yet was mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, and affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast, and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God "who inhabiteth light inaccessible." Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly unlearned and obscure.-Abp. Newcome. [13446] It is the grandeur of Christ's character which constitutes the chief power of His ministry, not His miracles or teachings apart from His character. The greatest truth of the gospel is Christ Himself-a human body become the organ of the Divine nature, and revealing, under the conditions of an earthly life, the glory of God.-Horace Bushnell, D.D. [13447] If the life and death of Socrates be those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of a God.-Rousseau. [13448] His life was like an open stream that keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea.-P. Brooks. [13449] We see power, but it is power which is rather our security than our dread; a power softened with tenderness and soothing while it awes. With all the gentleness of a meek and lowly mind, we behold an heroic firmness which no terrors could restrain. In the private scenes of life, and in the public occupations of His ministry, whether the object of admiration or ridicule, of love or of persecution, whether [CHRIST'S SINLESS life and pERFECT MERITS. welcomed with hosannas, or insulted with anathemas, we still see Him pursuing, with unwearied constancy, the same end, and preserving the same integrity of life and manners.-White's Sermons. [13450] It would be an omission here not to take notice of the benevolent use to which Jesus ever applied His knowledge of mankind. While the brilliant poet, the ambitious writer, the artful statesman, and the unscrupulous money-maker are so often guilty of employing their acquaintance with the human heart, to further their own sensual or selfish purposes, our holy Master touched the secret springs of our nature only to bless and heal. He lighted the pure flame of love and truth on the altar of the soul, not the smouldering fires of lust and passion. He dealt as a brother with erring brethren, and never took advantage of their weakness or ignorance. God give us grace to imitate the magnanimous trait of our high exemplar.—Livermore. [1345] All the virtues which appeared in Christ shone brightest in the close of His life, under the trials He then met. Eminent virtue always shows brightest in the fire. Pure gold shows its purity chiefly in the furnace. It was chiefly under those trials which Christ endured in the close of His life that His love to God, His honour of God's majesty, His regard to the honour of His law, His spirit of obedience, His humility, contempt of the world, His patience, meekness, and spirit of forgiveness towards men, appeared. Indeed, everything that Christ did to work out redemption for us appears mainly in the close of His life. Here mainly is His satisfaction for sin, and here chiefly is His merit of eternal life for sinners, and here chiefly appears the brightness of His example which He has set us for imitation.—Jonathan Edwards. [13452] Before a human character better than our own we are often assailed with malicious jealousy, envy, and the hate of criticism. It is a fellow-man! How comes He with a purity above us? But before Christ the soul loses all malevolence, and is lost in worship. He is out of the sphere of possible rivalry. He is too grand for aught but adoration.-Haynes. 2 Its necessity to the Atonement. [13453] In the single consideration that not one but innumerable multitudes are to be saved by the expiatory process, there is sufficient evidence that the victim employed in it must possess a height of personal dignity, and a vastness of moral influence, which far exceed our proper comprehension. The injury which the oblation of it is intended to repair includes the daring defiance given to the law by the highhanded revolt of numberless millions, the demoralization which they have perpetrated upon the pristine excellence of their moral constitution, and a long accumulation by them of the most offensive and putrid masses of moral abomination. An amount of mischief so incalculably extensive, amassed by the deliberate 13453-13459] wickedness of ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and hurled at the throne of the holy and wise and gracious God, could never, by any possibility, be counterbalanced by the combined performances of the noblest and most gifted of created intelligences. Such a supposition is utterly romantic-it is preposterous-it is wild. Yet all this world of evil must be deluged, a compensation to the law must be rendered for it, by the shed blood of a sacrifice which is sufficient for its removal. The mere effort fully to estimate or understand an evil of such prodigious dimensions would manifestly far outstrain the strongest powers of the most gigantic intellect of creatures. Where, then, amidst the bewilderment of an overpowered endeavour to comprehend it, could the ability be found to accomplish its destruction? Where? Not assuredly in the great but little mind which has cast and sunk and lowered its longest plummet of thought in the mighty moral ocean, has a thousand times been baffled in its efforts to sound it, draws up in utter hopelessness its line of amazing length, and, in the weariedness and abandonment of its vain attempts, exclaims, "O the depth !" To imagine that a mind can roll away an ocean which it cannot fathom, overturn a mountain which it cannot measure, annihilate a globe which it cannot bestride, expiate sins which it can neither calculate in their number, estimate in their enormity, nor comprehend in their deserts-to imagine this would be wildness and folly in perfection. None but God can perceive the awful extent and the stupendous mass of violence which was rolled against His law by the rebellion of intelligent myriads; and none but He, connecting Himself in some mysterious manner with the requisite passable humanity, can possess an adequacy of moral worth and grandeur for rendering an atonement for it efficient.Rev. John Wilson. III. HIS MARKED SYMPATHY WITH MAN. [13454] Our Lord sympathized with bodily anguish. He was walking almost all His life through the wards of a vast hospital. The hospital was the world; the sick, the dying, and the mad were lying on their beds, on both sides of Him. At evening "they brought unto Him many that were sick;" and, it is written again and again, "He was moved with compassion." -Rev. F. W. Robertson, M.A. [13455] An enthusiastic antiquarian, standing amidst the fragments of an ancient temple, surrounded by dust and moss, broken pillar, and defaced architrave, with magnificent projects in his mind of restoring all this to former majesty, to draw out to light from mere rubbish the ruined glories, and therefore stooping down amongst the dank ivy and the rank nettles; such was Christ amidst the wreck of human nature. He was striving to lift it out of its degradation. He was searching out in revolting places that which had fallen down, that He [CHRIST'S SINLESS life and perfect merits. might build it up again in fair proportions, a holy temple to the Lord. Therefore He laboured among the guilty; therefore He was the companion of outcasts; therefore He spoke tenderly and lovingly to those whom society counted undone; therefore He loved to bind up the bruised and the broken-hearted; therefore His breath fanned the spark which seemed dying out in the wick of the expiring taper when men thought it was too late, and that the hour of hopeless profligacy was come. It was that feature in His character, that tender, hoping, encouraging spirit of His, which the prophet Isaiah fixed upon as characteristic, "A bruised reed will He not break." It was an illustration of this spirit that He gave in the parable of the Prodigal Son.-Ibid. [13456] "If misfortunes could be remedied by tears," says Muretus, "tears would be purchased with gold. Misfortune does not call for tears, but counsel." This advice, however, which is adapted at the same time to soothe and guide effectually, can originate only in a tenderly experienced soul. "Few are the hearts whence one same touch bids the sweet fountain flow;" but Christ was the chief of such, and was always ready to relieve the distressed, because from His tenderest years He had experienced their direst pangs. In every respect He was a model of moral excellence, possessing superlative worth; and this superiority consisted not a little in the fact that, considered in His human qualities, His was one of those "Souls that carry on a blest exchange Of joys they meet with in their heavenly range, And, with a fearless confidence, make known 13459-13463] His character, the depth and variety of His human experience enabled Him to get close to them-closely in contact with their inmost selves. He did not spin about Him an impervious web of conventional prejudices and feelings, which protected His tender soul from the touch of ordinary bystanders. The beings and vicissitudes with which He came in contact day by day and hour by hour touched the innermost and tenderest fibres of His being. He thus learned to sway the masses because He could draw them with the cords of a man. The winding passages to the human heart He had critically scanned, and all its trembling sensibilities He had felt; hence, through the outer sanctuary, into the very presence of the most hidden spirit, He could advance at once, holding the object of His mercy spellbound by His tones and the first glance of His eye, because that eye moistened with sympathy for the suffering, and there were tears in His voice which no degree of obduracy could resist.-E. L. Magoon. [13460] One of the most attractive features in the character and life of Christ is this early and unbounded development of His social nature under circumstances which were apparently so adverse. He may have been neglected by others, but He neglected none. His birth was so low, and His preparatory career so obscure, that the great and influential of earth found themselves incapable of stooping to foster His worth; but He who was greater and mightier than all voluntarily assumed that position, not for the purpose of dragging any down, but for raising all up. Kings, princes, and priests; Sadducee, Pharisee, and Essene; all sects, orthodox and heterodox, may have striven equally to make their respective adherents bow and mould themselves to their own creed; but He, the lowly and loving man of the people, the Son of God, the Son of man, everywhere and in every condition, would let His mighty heart swell under a prostrate and abused race, that He might raise them above oppression, by imparting to the soul a power and a deliverance which sectarianism and tyranny can never wrest from its grasp. As Christ moved about from scene to scene where the great masses antagonized with penury and wrong, drudging through long periods of unproductive toil, that a few might riot in luxurious ease, and gathering at remote intervals a few gleams of home joy, while their oppressors wasted their whole lives in riotous delights, it is easy to see how He constantly yearned to be their Redeemer, and to make other redeemers; to spread far and wide ideas and emotions fitted to make men Divine; to undergo all privation, peril, and pain; to love where He was hated, and to die that humanity might live, in loyalty to the widest affection and the highest truth. Hence has generation after generation been disinthralled and beautified, blessed with patriots, sages, martyrs, prophets, and apostles, men facing the dungeon, the sword, and the flame, rather than desert their allegi [CHRIST'S SINLESS life and perfECT MERITS. ance to the best interests of the greatest number. This this indeed God manifest in the flesh-a Deity full of justice, wisdom, and benevolence; who passed from heaven to earth, that He might raise earth to heaven; who adopted our shape and carried our sorrows, that He might comprehend us better, compassionate more benignly our infirmities, and vindicate us without defeat when tortured by the evils which in this bad world we cannot escape. It is this intense humanness of the Saviour, as well as His divinity, which gives to His religion its ineffable gentleness and irresistible power.-Ibid. [13461] To the Sun of Righteousness, then, how revolting, how overwhelmingly distressing, must be the sight of an ignorant, bigoted, depraved being! But such objects never repelled the active beneficence of His hands, nor chilled the ardour of His heart. However grim and incongruous might be such a spectacle of death in life, of life in death, Christ saw in it a human reality fitted to unseal all the fountains of His most weeping Godhead. He regards the victim of lust, and fully comprehends how depraved he is. The serene light of heaven has never visited his soul; but a lurid glare, engendered of the most loathsome corruptions, has flashed on his senses, and when he takes one step more desperate than the rest, it is only when that glare adds terror to his dismal path. Nature is fierce within him, and yet he is not natural; for though the companionship to which he seems doomed has gifted him with nothing else, it has taught him ingenuity in vices. But does Christ despise this brand almost consumed? No; to His eye the most deplorable aspect of the victim is, that the very faculties which prove and constitute his identity with the Omnipotent should be employed only as the instruments of sin, and that he should be able to sink so low in the abyss of iniquity, only by the aid of those energies which were generated in the bosom of God Himself.-Ibid. [13462] Jesus chose voluntarily "the low estate of the poor"-that commonest lot of honest poverty which, though it necessitates self-denial, can provide for all the necessaries of a simple life. He chose the condition in which the vast majority of mankind must ever live.-Canon Farrar. [13463] When did He ever go about but to do good? When did He ever open His hand but to bless? or weep, but in sympathy with human woe? What object did He ever pursue but that of benevolence? imparting life to the dying, health to the sick, pardon to the guilty, purity to the depraved, blessings to all around Him?-Harris, 1836. [Perhaps we fail sufficiently to perceive the glory of the Saviour's intense sympathy because this grace has now become embodied in the life of Christianity. Indeed in pre-Christian times practical benevolence was not duly recognized as an essential element of moral excellence.] 13464-134671 IV. THE PERFECTION OF HIS CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. I As displayed in the incidents of His visit to Jerusalem, and the humble life at Nazareth. [13464] The history of rising worth has nothing to compare with that temple scene. A youth appears "sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." He comes into the assembly of venerable sages with a mild and pensive countenance, that seems haunted with earnest thought. He is no favourite of earthly fortune, no scion of aristocratic pride, no pet of exclusive schools, but the simple child of the unsophisticated people, steeped to the lips in suffering; and yet, mightier than the domes that bend above Him, He is for the intellect and heart of man a glorious living temple, built with the choicest riches of unnumbered worlds. The first question He propounds startles the attention of all who hear Him, and creates the greatest astonishment in the most profound; for His words bear that charm of immaculate wisdom which can neither be defaced nor excelled. Question succeeds to question, and learning, in despair, grows more and more confused, in this, the grandest gladiatorship of mind yet witnessed on earth. Sage after sage, swelling with wounded pride, is silenced before that youth apparelled in the plain attire of peasant life, radiant with the celestial light that emanates from an aspiring heart, and bent on throwing wide open the gates of instruction to all.E. L. Magoon. [13465] He stands among the rabbis, not affrighted certainly by their dignity, with no sign of bashfulness, but also with none of forwardness. He is not eager to speak. He wishes to listen. The doctors are conversing about matters which they presume are far above the comprehension of a boy. And there is in the face of this Boy nothing which tells of assumption or precocity, rather of quietness and docility. Such an one may be allowed to hear their discourse; it may impress Him hereafter, if not at once, with reverence for their persons and their office. And what was that listening of His? In the highest sense, as in every lower one, the maxim holds good, "Everything is received according to the measure of the receiver." We can imagine how glibly the familiar texts would be repeated by one and another -how often "sins" and "repentance" would be in their mouths, how they would debate about the hope of Israel and the promise of dominion over the Gentiles-how they would speak of all God's doings with them, if they did not actually pronounce the name which signified His hidden essence. What awful, unutterable meanings lay beneath these sounds! And the meaning, not the sound, was that to which this Boy was listening. That of which the learned men had [CHRIST'S SINLESS LIFE AND PERFECT MÈRITS. only the faintest consciousness entered into His inmost being. It was in the fullest sense listening, reverent and awful listening-the listening of a child, not the judgment of a man. It is hard for us to make that distinction, but if we believe the Incarnation we shall try to make it. We shall believe that the Child was a child, the Boy a boy; that the Child was perfect as such, and therefore did not anticipate its after-growth, which would imply imperfection; that the Boy was a perfect boy, and therefore had none of that forestalling of manhood which our consciences and reason tell us is irregular and untrue. And this is not, as some would state it, merely in order to do justice to the humanity of Christ. We cannot in any other way see how the Divinity manifested itself through the humanity, how it addressed itself to all the conditions and needs of humanity. ... Do you suppose that those rabbis, after forty, say, or fifty years of reading and copying out the law, of comparing and registering the different commentaries upon it, had ever felt such a presence of Divinity with them as when they looked into the face of that listening Boy? They could copy the letters, they could overlook the commentaries. If there was something very deep and mysterious beneath them, they could reduce it into Cabbala; they could talk of it as their possession, their distinction from the multitude. But which of them could penetrate the awe and mystery of that countenance, clear and bright as it was? What spoke to them through that could be reduced into no Cabbala. . . . Surely those listening eyes were reading their very hearts. Surely they knew better than they ever did before that God was reading them.-Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice. ... [13466] "He was sitting among them," it is said, "both hearing them and asking them questions." Still all is suitable to the Boy. He pronounces on nothing. He does not lay down the law on this matter or that. The time may come when He shall go up into a mountain, and open His lips, and speak as One having authority. But that time is not yet. He is not above the Scribes, but is sitting at their feet. He desires to know what they think about this commandment in the Law, about this sentence of David or Isaiah. At first, no doubt, the answers are all ready. They can tell that which one elder or another had written down, or expressed orally to His disciples. They begin to give out the oracles, perhaps with an air of patronage or condescension, to the earnest youth. Why do the patronage and the condescension disappear? Why is the well-trained memory at fault? Why is there that look of puzzle and perplexity, almost of terror, on the countenances of those who are used to resolve all riddles, to silence all disputes? The question has gone beneath commentary and text both. The second-hand answer does not avail.-Ibid. [13467] We are told that "all who heard this |