15. Chapter Twelve - The Psychology of Jesus in His Preaching
Chapter Twelve The Psychology of Jesus in His Preaching The Gospels furnish meager but suggestive data for an outline study of the psychology of Jesus as exhibited in his preaching. Preaching is self-interpretative as well as declarative of a standard of truth. Back of the message is the man. One could desire a larger amount of material for the sources for such a study, but a proper handling of the present information will afford useful results. The incarnation brought Jesus within the laws of humanity. Though he may transcend these laws and direct them with a divine prerogative, he can not entirely escape from them. This fact permits a study of his inner life through his words and deeds. A complete justification of the attempt to reach behind the external to the inner life of Jesus might easily be found in the honored biographies of the worlds heroes, whose real and dominant value lay rather in the life within than in their great words and deeds. Jesus himself is infinitely more than his preaching. A reverent study of his soul’s activities should not be debarred.
I.His Consciousness
1. Of union of human and divine.–Theology has waged a long and bitter warfare over the statement of the doctrine of the person of Christ. Anathemas, revilings, and persecutions have been exchanged between the several sides. According to the Fourth Gospel “the Word was God” and “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus of Nazareth was the union of God and man, the forces of both natures localizing in him and forming essential modes of his earthly activity. (Editor’s note: even as we take our place in the Millennial age with our resurrected bodies capable of much more than this present fashion, we at our best shall still be inferior in intellect and influence than the Son of man Jesus Christ was in the earthly ministry.) Our limping speech fails to bring a satisfactory statement of the mystery. We say that he combined two persons in the one, and feel that we have but confused the fact by the declaration.
Whatever Christology one may find personally acceptable, one must accept as incontestable the fact that the Gospels present Jesus’ consciousness as a unity. Attempts to divide his consciousness, the primary fact of existence, and to refer certain experiences to the human or to the divine elements, do not find support in the sources of his life. The propriety of such efforts might well be challenged upon biblical and philosophical grounds.
Jesus did not live a double life. Full humanity and full divinity entered into each fact of his life, even though our frail understanding may not be able to discover the method. He is not represented in the Gospels as having two wills, two intellects, two centers of emotion. His incarnation would have been but a figment, if he had come with the double personality as God and man; he was the God-man, whose uniqueness lay in the fact of the unity of both characters. He was all that man could be in earthly conditions and all that God could be in human limitations.
There may be certain features of his life that seem to indicate the predominance of either element, but all the being of Jesus entered into the experience. The psychology of Jesus must be true to other results of study insofar as he enters the common category of human life. The fundamental assumption must grant the undivided inner life.
2. Of Messianic vocation.–Jesus was aware of his vocation as the Messiah. Scholars seem to be hopelessly apart in their opinions as to the time when Jesus realized his Messianic mission. Already at his first visit to Jerusalem in youth he had come into the conviction of a special relation of his life to the house or business of his Father. His baptism and temptations, whatever they may have added by way of confirmation of his experience and conviction of his Messianic calling, could have been so gloriously victorious only upon the prior Messianic consciousness. His public ministry was entered with the full belief that he was the anointed of the Lord, God’s Son to whom the message of redemption had been committed both to deliver and to make effective through his work and death. My own conviction is that Jesus came gradually into the full recognition of his Messianic vocation; his inner life, indicated in the sources, kept in tune with his holy mission, the record applying to both series of facts: “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” His Messianic consciousness was distinct, complete, and ethical. He declared to Satan, immediately after his baptism, that his kingdom was not to be worldly in power and possessions. And yet there was to be a kingdom. Early in his ministry he gave the Sermon on the Mount, the Manifesto of the Kingdom, outlining a partial program of principles. He preferred to keep his Messianic mission in the background of his preaching at first, for public and repeated announcements would have precipitated a popular uprising in his favor and a bitter attack from his foes. But this fact does not mean that Jesus, himself, did not know his mission; he knew and chose wisely to plan for the far-away end.
It is true that after he had drawn from Simon Peter the confession at Cæsarea Philippi his own references to his Messiahship were more open and frequent, but this is not to suggest that in his own mind this consciousness was new or even more distinct. The declaration of his Saviorhood was inseparable from his Messianic consciousness. He knew himself to be the Savior–Messiah.
II.General Characteristics
1. Observant.–The psychology of Jesus may first be studied through a few general characteristics, of which we mention that of observation. It is not with unholy desire that we enter this study, nor is it an attempt to analyze divinity; it seeks to learn the inner processes of incarnated divinity.
Jesus was observant–he was a keen watcher of the stirring life around him. The merry dancing, the laughter of the playing children, the monotonous task of the grinding women, the generous gift of the poor widow, and the office of the tax- gatherer all entered his range of sight and served his homiletical purposes.
Customs, habits, laws, current events, and accidents (Editor’s note: tower of Siloam, ox in a ditch, house built upon sand, house divided against itself, etc.) came under his notice and were made to contribute to his message. He remembered that his people had a wonderful history and a sacred literature, so that he familiarly mentioned David, Zachariah, Moses, and the laws of Israel. His mind was alert, his supreme interest in human affairs compelling his constant attention to the details of life governed by sordid aims, base ambitions, hopeless drudgery, and holy aspirations. All phases of conditions passed in review before him.
2. Well balanced.–Jesus perfected the relations of the forces and expressions of the intellect, the emotions, and the will. His was an unusual equipoise (balance of forces or interest), accenting the common predominance of one element in persons of ordinary and extraordinary ability. His intellect did not so master his attitude toward the problems of life that he could not respond to other emotional and volitional stimuli, nor did these other two factors of experience usurp places belonging to another factor. He was intensely emotional. He was “moved with compassion,” “Jesus wept,” he looked upon his audience “with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts,” but he did not allow his emotions to disturb that serenity of purpose and thought that confirmed his claim to be the way of truth.
Imaginative and idealistic in his outlook upon the world, he did not permit his idealism to neglect or misinterpret the fact that men lived under the stern necessities and burdens of sense and sin. His mind dealt with the unseen, eternal verities, but he mingled freely and sympathetically with men who were moved by considerations, sordid greed and consuming selfishness; to these he brought a message of holy aims and altruistic service. (Editor’s note: contrast this to Judas Iscariot who stole not just from Jesus, but all the disciples who held their purse in common.) His idealism was corrected by his practical good judgment. He fulminated his cutting rebukes and woes against the spirit of Pharisaism, and yet his perfect poise of disposition enabled him to be tender and gracious toward those troubled and penitent. His character functioned harmoniously. Conditions of success or opposition did not warp his intentions.
3. Reverent.–The mental attitude of Jesus was reverent toward sacred themes.
He never treated lightly the truths that he came to reveal or attest as the supreme need for men. He was ever conscious of his authority to speak the final word upon social life, the mutual relations of men in civic communities, and the fellowship of men with God. His own personal embodiment of truth would naturally have prevented any slur of natural or revealed truths. In his prayer life he manifested only a worthy example of respect, never bordering upon superlative intimacy. The profoundest themes of human thought were his daily companions, but he did not lower their dignity and worth through light treatment. His reverence was that of a completed view of truth.
4. Sinless.–The mental attitude of Jesus was further designated by the negative trait of sinlessness. This fact must enter a study of the mental as well as the spiritual forces of his life. Sin will vitiate (soil or impair the quality or efficiency of) the thought-processes. The history of thought has not produced another person who has been free from this sinful impediment. Intellect has its judgments misplaced, emotions fail in purity, and the will directs actions of harm and baseness, because the power of sin is felt in the life. Jesus escaped these faults. (Editor’s note: Jesus did not “flirt” with temptation.)
5. Unconditional.–The mind of Jesus was unconditional in its processes. With him there were no “if”s. He gave his expectant disciples certain conditions to be fulfilled for discipleship, but in his own thought-processes there were no contingencies or conditions. He was absolute in his method. His preaching was not dependent upon events for his own basal attitude nor for his own perception of his message, although he accepted events as the occasions for delivery of his truths. Pilgrims toward perfected mentality must often stand at the crossroads to study the signboards, and too often they discover that they have journeyed the wrong road. With Jesus there was no doubtful course; he saw to the end of the way; his inner life was not subject to the fear of the accidental. (Editor’s note: contrast Mark 6:31 with Luke 9:52-53 and John 12:20-23; this was not inconsistency, but appear as meaningful “seasons” in the timing of his life events.)
6. Noncritical.–The mind of Jesus was non-critical. He was not primarily a critic. His ministry naturally aroused the enmity of the religious leaders, and he severely criticized their errors and hypocrisy. His philippics (a bitter verbal attack or denunciation) were incidental to the needs of his audiences rather than descriptive of his mental habits. He was constructive, fulfilment being preferable to destruction of truth. This trait of mind has frequently been cited as bearing upon the questions of literary criticism of the Bible. It is claimed by certain scholars that Jesus was not competent to know the authorship of the Old Testament beyond the current opinions of his day, and that he did not deal in critical questions.
Space limits will allow here only the expression of a personal conviction of Jesus’ ability to speak with authority upon any subject mentioned in his preaching.
III.His Intellectual Life
1. Imagination.–Imagination is the soul’s prophet, and the creator of new conditions. Referable to this power are the daydreams that find reality in inventions, renascence in literature, and reformations in religion; for, genius, poet and seer have the common vision from imagination while the objects differ respectively. The religious function of the imagination is more widely recognized today than ever before. Through the imagination one may forecast conditions and plan for their attainment; through it the pioneer work of blazing the trail of thought is to be done.
Jesus had this power highly sensitized and developed. His imagination was dramatic in its concepts and manifestations. The dramatic moment, when the interest of the occasion culminated, never failed to appear to him, the fitting word and deed being supplied. He saw the multitude as sheep without a shepherd. When the Seventy brought to him the glad report of their successful mission sickness and demons being subject to their commands, Jesus “said unto them, I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven.” This was the gift of his grand imagination, in vividness and dramatic force far excelling the vision of the blind bard of Paradise Lost (Milton). His imagination was also pictorial. This is a common and essential quality of imagination, but with Jesus it was more than ordinarily pronounced and cultivated. His words were rich in artistic tone and color. New purposes were given to old rhetorical forms as parable, aphorism (a concise witty remark which contains a general truth), proverb, and illustration felt the grace of his imagination. But Jesus was not an idle dreamer without definite and substantial force in the world of facts. His imagination was eminently practical. He could gather up the images of the everyday commonplaces, because he saw how to transfuse (permeate, infuse) and transform them. He externalized his imagination in deeds of service. After the vision comes the duty.
2. Concreteness.–The intellectual life of Jesus dealt in concrete objects. It lay within his power to think abstruse (difficult to understand, obscure) truths, but he preferred to cite examples, actual or created. The students of his day might have listened with some interest to difficult and abstruse dissertations, but Jesus chose to win the ear and the heart of the common people by his objectified truths. He himself was the concretion of God, and so delivered his message as to put God into concrete touch with men.
3. Intuition.–The intellect of Jesus was largely intuitive in its reception of truth. The astonished leaders could not fathom the mystery of his thought processes. “The Jews therefore marveled, saying, ‘How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?’ Jesus therefore answered them, and said, ‘My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me.’” The implication of his reply is that Jesus came to his understanding of truth of a superhuman origin through a special manner beyond the ordinary. He could read the thoughts of his companions and even his foes. When the tide of favor was toward him, he did not feel over-exalted. “But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.” In his own mental acquisition the time element and the sequence of events were not factors. He knew things directly and immediately. He might use arguments to convince his audiences that his message was divinely appreciated, but he did not need to argue himself into beliefs and their convictions. The Gospels do not furnish evidence to show that Jesus grew in knowledge after the beginning of his public life. His ministry was full of wisdom at its beginning. He knew how and what, because he was what he was. Christology explains his epistemology (methods, validity and scope of knowledge; philosophy). The two are mutually dependent. A suggestion of his method of knowledge may be found in the general human endowment of intuitive, or pure, truths of time and space, cause and effect, which require no effort to acquire.
4. Positiveness.–A further mental characteristic of Jesus was positiveness.
Absolute certainty attached to his words and opinions. He himself believed in their trustworthiness and value. Waverings of uncertainty, shadows of doubt, and anxiety regarding the contingent did not enter his mind. His preaching was positive and constructive. He did not wander into the byways of knowledge; his was the plain path of certainty.
5. Limitation.–Incarnation had its companion mystery of earthly humiliation. The kenosis of the Son of god was a part of his task of Saviorhood. Theology and philosophy have tried to fix the method and limits of this subordination, but still the scholars seem dissatisfied with theories. The problem may be beyond our ken (range of knowledge or sight). However, Jesus suggested one topic upon which he declared his own limitation. The end of the world was predicted and the endurance of his own words assured to his disciples: “But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” With a desire to detract from his honor and to reduce him toward the common human standard, certain critics have sought to use this acknowledgment of ignorance as confirmatory of their contention that his wisdom was indeed great but not supreme and superhuman. The records of his ministry do not suggest that Jesus was at all conscious of limitations in his knowledge, nor do they show mistakes of judgment and teaching.
It has become fashionable in certain scholarly circles to cast reflections upon the preaching of Jesus as erroneous, but no certain error has yet been established. His vision of truth was clear. Later scientific and historical studies have confirmed his incidental mention of facts of nature and history. Many subjects were not discussed by Jesus, for his purpose did not include these and his age (distinct period of history) would not have understood him if he had spoken in the language of historical discoveries. But even this is not to admit that Jesus did not know the world and its laws. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel assigns him the place of creator; if creator, then surely he was conversant with the present order. One must here bare the head in the company of this great mystery (Editor’s note: Yes!), and be content to know that human thought itself has its limits. Reverence and humility become (are appropriate to) the student.
IV.His Emotional Life
1. Basal specimens.–According to the modern terminology we study the inner life of Jesus under the three-fold analysis of intellect, emotion, and will. These are not distinct compartments of the person, but rather features of the soul’s functioning along these traits. A few basal emotions of Jesus may here enter our review, for a full survey would require much space and discussion. The Lover of Men.–Jesus was an ideal lover of men. At the tomb of Lazarus the tears of Jesus called forth the testimony of the crowd: “The Jews therefore said ‘Behold how he loved him!’” The promise came to the faithful disciple of trust and companionship thus: “I will love him and will manifest myself unto him.” The fulness of love could be measured only by the divine capacity, and yet Jesus could say to his followers, “Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you!” The Father had demonstrated his love in the act of the incarnation, for he “gave his only-begotten Son,” and Jesus came to complete the divine approval of the self- giving of love, declaring thus the summary of greatness: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” His own self-sacrifice included in its benefits his enemies. His love was benevolent, not requiring a lovable object to arouse it, for he loved a world of unlovable sinners. His love was also beneficent, expressing itself in practical service of sin’s expiation for its objects. It did not degenerate into sentimentalism. His love was judicial and mandatory. It did not abrogate (repeal or do away with) the need that men should love God; it rather gave accent and direction to this purpose, while supplying through himself the agent of communication between God and the lover. In return for his own initial affection Jesus demanded the love of all who would have fellowship with himself and the Father. The divine standard was not lowered to a shallow sentimentality that would secure the divine love as the preventive and guarantee against individual punishment for sins. The love of Jesus and God, according to Jesus’ preaching, would not prevent the wrath of God upon the impenitent and the disobedient. The young man of moral integrity and legal holiness sought to know from the Preacher the way to secure eternal life. “And Jesus looking upon him loved him.” But it is significant of Jesus’ high regard for the ethical returns of love that he did not hesitate to declare to the inquirer that he yet failed in the remaining, single essential. It would have been easy to slur over this one fault, negative and unnoticed, but Jesus, the World’s Lover and Benefactor, could not do violence thus to God’s method of redemption. The Man of Sorrows.–The Gospels exhibit the Man of Sorrows in the lowly Nazarene. The prophetic outline was realized in him. “He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He put his own heart of compassion beside the world’s heart of sorrow and sadness; the fellowship was complete and it directed the Preacher’s ministry. He entered the homes of poverty, distress, and suffering, physical infirmities appealing to him for relief and spiritual frailties calling for his forgiveness and hope. He illustrated the truth: That the mark of rank in nature Is capacity for pain, That the anguish of the singer Makes the sweetness of the strain.”
–James Russell Lowell But Jesus came closer to sorrow than mere fellowship. He felt it in his own inner life. Omitting the physical sufferings of his death, the Gospels use nine distinct words, in as many historical situations, to describe his emotion of sorrow in its various shades. These references may be grouped. In healing the man with dull ears and an impediment of speech, ”and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said unto him ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.’” He signed or groaned audibly as an expression of sympathetic grief at the man’s misfortune or in intercessory prayer in his behalf. The same word with a prefix is used to describe a deeper and intenser emotion when the demand for a sign was made: “And he signed deeply in his spirit, and said, ‘Why does this generation seek a sign?’” Unbelief, unwilling to accept the testimony of a noble life and an unselfish ministry of miracles, and demanding visible and suggested externals as credentials, brought to Jesus this emotion. Jesus was troubled at the sight of the weeping and distressed family at the tomb of the brother Lazarus. The deepening earth-shadows of the Gethsemane Garden were but the adumbration (faint, general idea or foreshadow) of his soul’s experience. He had not long entered the Garden before “he began to be greatly amazed and sore troubled.” Saviorhood brought not only its dignity of message but the dignity of suffering, physical but especially ethical and spiritual, in behalf of the sinner. Sorrowful and exceeding sorrowful also help to suggest this participation in the burden-bearing of sin, while in the Prayer Jesus reached that summit of the soul fitly described as “in agony.” The intensity of this emotional experience could hardly have found more truthful record, though one may not perceive the full extent of the experience.
Twice his tears flowed in public; he wept at the tomb of Lazarus; his Triumphal Entry into the city of the prophets was preceded by an outburst of grief: “And when he drew nigh he saw the city and wept over it.” The Joyful Preacher.–Jesus was not a misanthrope (a person who dislikes and avoids other people). He could share the joys of men. His deeds of mercy in healing the sick caused widespread rejoicing. He freely accepted invitations to social functions where mirth and gladness were intended. He did not carry a forbidding countenance. He must have been somewhat gracious and attractive, for all classes flocked to him, the children and the weak feeling that he was their friend. There was no fear in their hearts. Twice he declared that his joy was fulfilled in his disciples. Once it is distinctly stated that he rejoiced, the report of the Seventy being the occasion, for “in that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, and said, ‘I thank thee, O Father.’”
Thanksgiving is a part of joy. Jesus was quiet in his joy, for his was the rounded knowledge of completed plans. He was conscious that his course should definitely tend toward his own desired end. He comprehended the relation of truths and events, accidents being beyond his ken. Concerning his absence, when the hearts of the sisters yearned for his healing touch for Lazarus, he said, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.” The Angry Jesus.–Five times the sources represent Jesus in anger. The Pharisees refused to answer his question about healing on the Sabbath, when the man with the withered hand was in the synagogue; “and when he had looked around about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart, he said unto the man, ‘Stretch forth your hand.’”
“He was moved with indignation” toward the disciples because they hindered the children who came to him for a benediction and touch of the hand. In two other cases the word means strictly charged, or in sternness. He had healed a leper and two blind men, and gave his command for silence about the miracle so sharply as to border on anger, but this severity did not prevent their disobedience.” The other case presents a difficulty of interpretation. At the tomb of Lazarus he was “groaning in himself,” “he groaned in the spirit,” of which the marginal interpretation is “moved with indignation.”
Jesus was evidently moved by just (morally right and fair) anger to render three judgments–the two cleansings of the Temple, and the rebuke to Simon Peter. Jesus’ anger was free from spite and bitterness; it was judicial, just and timely. The wrath of God was thus exhibited in that of the Son. The Amazed Jesus.–Three times mention is made of the amazement of Jesus. The faith of the heathen centurion and the second rejection at Nazareth caused Jesus to marvel. The history of the events of Gethsemane may be written, but the human heart has not fully seen its mystery and glory. Our vision of the struggling Savior, who is at the same time the Master Preacher and the Son of God and the Son of man, is clouded with our earth-born clouds of sin and ignorance, so that we can only appreciate the fringes of the truth. “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be greatly amazed, and sore troubled.” A new and larger Christology is needed to explain this emotion; our duty to homiletics stops with the indication of the fact. With silent step let us retreat from this holy place while the Preacher stands in wonder at the deeper and more crushing acceptance of the burden of the world’s redemption through his own death, shadows of which had already fallen athwart (across) his path and heart.
2. Inductions.–From these typical and basal emotions of Jesus certain conclusions may be drawn. The emotional life of Jesus was humanistic and normal insofar as it was typical. He had come into the brotherhood of a common human life to share its joys and sorrows personally as well as to accomplish its redemption. He was not so far removed from the common human life as to forbid the tie of the same emotions that stir the heart of the man of the streets, though his own greatness was without fault or flaw. Jesus impressed his contemporaries with his normal emotional life, even though the purity of his life was such as to create constant wonder. His emotional life was free from baseness. Herein lay his uniqueness and separation from all other men. Sordidness of ambition, selfishness, the sin of pleasure, and disregard for others mar the emotional life of all other men; aspirations fall far short of their high privilege, because men are sinners and have their aims alloyed (spoiled by having added something inferior) with evil. Jesus did not suffer from such defects. His emotions were pure and simple, altruistic and beneficent. This was true even regarding those emotions that may cause men to sin, anger being thus prominent. He could be angry and sin not, for his was the anger of outraged holiness and divine Sonship. Gentle, self-forgetful, helpful and earnest, Jesus followed the way of goodness even in the control over his inner life. His emotions never reached a low level. The preaching of Jesus was with emotional optimism. His interest in his work never flagged. His look was ever to the future, in which he would be sure of success, though the measure of success might be in terms of sacrifice and the Cross. The defection of followers and the taunts and abuse of foes did not cast him into moods of discouragement and despondency. He knew that his course would lead through difficult tasks, but it would be crowned at last. His optimism conquered all barriers. He could not but believe that his mission, commissioned of the Father and empowered by the Spirit, would come to its proper end. He could not hesitate or falter. He set his face like a flint. All authority was his; heaven had lent her angelic servantry to his command. His step was forward. His heart was optimistic. His emotions were regal and victorious.
V.His Volitional Life
1. Motive.–The will of Jesus was obedient to the laws of mental activity obtaining (similarly manifesting) in other persons. The will is incited and directed to action through motives which vary greatly as to objects and worth. A reasonless deed is one without proper motive. The motives combine intellectual and emotional elements, and both express and illustrate character. Jesus had his motive or motives for any particular act of the will which found external form, though we may not always discover these motives. A study of his motives would be both inviting and instructive, for it would show his inner life and promptings to duty. His motives were harmonious with his profession. True to his life-plan, pure in his designs and ambitions, Jesus never entertained low motives. He was high and noble in his reasons for doing things. Suggestions from Satan, that he follow the lower road, were consistently rejected.
Purity of thought and emotion found a companion purity in his will and motives.
2. Self-control.–The royalty of his will was never dethroned in Jesus’ life. He maintained absolute self-control amid all his exciting and varied occasions. His will was always in command and its orders were never disregarded. Enmity and opposition of foes were as ineffective as the advice and anxiety of friends to turn him from his chosen path of duty. The Gospels do not furnish a single case of loss of self-mastery. He was his own king, and his kingship was supreme. To his friends he sometimes seemed unbalanced and demented, but he was clearly working his own plan, from which he would not swerve. His indomitable will kept mind and heart true to the task of Saviorhood. Impediments of sin did not enter this Holy Place of the soul.
3. Power of command.–The will of Jesus was commandatory but not coercive (persuasive by force or threat). He spoke to men and they accepted his advice as their duty, nor did they dare to disobey without feeling culpable. In this method of preaching the opportunities and the graces of the kingdom Jesus exercised a divine restraint, for it would have been easy for him to do violence to the individual will by force and compulsion. His overmastering personality could have persuaded men into service in the kingdom while their wills would be evil and uncurbed, but he would not follow such coercion. His words of grace might come freighted with his own gentleness, “Come unto me and I will give you rest,” but he would not compel discipleship. His imperative always admitted of choice, though that choice might result in disobedience. He respected the wills of others.
4. Submission.–Jesus did not forget his earthly humiliation and submission to the Father. It was his delight to declare that he had come to do the will of the Father. When his lifework was nearly ended and his crown seemed to be that of failure, when the shadows of the olive trees were not so dark as those upon his heart and career, he reached the summit of earthly dignity of character and grandeur, when he could say, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Saviorhood here found its best attestation. The will of the Son was in harmony with the will of the Father.
“Four things a man must learn to do If he would make his record true:– To think without confusion clearly, To love his fellow-men sincerely, To act from honest motives purely, To trust in God and heaven securely.” – Henry Van Dyke The psychology of Jesus was the world’s best illustration of the success of this effort toward perfection, an effort that never failed.
( End of Chapter Twelve – The Psychology of Jesus in His Preaching )