CHAPTER I: ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE ACTUAL SINLESSNESS OF JESUS.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE ACTUAL SINLESSNESS OF JESUS.

IF we pass by altogether, in the first instance, the question as to whether or not sinlessness be possible in humanity, and, assuming for the time its possibility, ask only, Was Jesus actually sinless? then our business is with facts; and these, if they are questionable, would be in the first instance most efficiently contested, if other indubitable and contrary facts could be opposed to them. It has been supposed that such facts are to be found in certain parts of the Gospel narratives. And in this respect attention has first of all been called to the development which took place in the life of Jesus, and therefore to a progress from a state of imperfection to one of perfection, by which, it is urged, the idea of absolute perfection is excluded. This has been made use of in two ways,--in relation, first, to the Person of Jesus, and secondly, to the Messianic plan. We must examine both aspects of this argument more closely. __________________________________________________________________

Sec. 1.--The Development of the Person of Jesus.

The Scriptures speak undeniably of a growth in wisdom in Jesus, consequently of an increase, a progress in His intellectual life; and not less distinctly do they intimate that His moral nature became gradually perfect. And were this not clearly taught in single passages,
[133] it would naturally follow, from the view everywhere taken in the New Testament, that the entire life of Jesus was an actual human life, shorn of no quality or power proper to man. But if Jesus did advance intellectually and grow in moral perfection, this, it is said, involves a defective beginning, and thus excludes original and symmetrical perfection.

To this we reply: Certainly the gradualness, the successive character, of the development of Jesus, must be maintained. But growth and increase do not necessarily assume transition from a state of deficiency to one of sufficiency,--do not presuppose an inner antagonism of sin, or an overcoming of the religious and moral error connected therewith. All that they really imply is, development taking place in time. There is nothing to hinder this development itself from being a perfectly pure one. The notion of growth does but furnish another proof that Jesus shared in everything that really belongs to finite, human nature. This is, however, as little denied by any, as it can, on the other side, be proved that mere human development, as such, necessarily involves some amount of sin. In itself it may be conceived of as a perfectly normal development, in which indeed different degrees succeed each other, each free from actual disturbance, each exhibiting in greater maturity some quality which was but prepared for in former stages, but which yet existed potentially from the very beginning.
[134]

That this was so in the case of the Lord Jesus, cannot indeed be positively demonstrated, throughout the whole course of His life; but still less can the contrary be proved. Nay more, not only are we justified in inferring from the subsequent perfection of Jesus, that the manner in which it was attained was in general normal, but we have also a particular fact corroborating this conclusion, and making it evident to the mind. The fact referred to is, of course, that most significant resting-place afforded us by the narrative of His visit to Jerusalem during His twelfth year. [135] We find, even at this early age, that which ever formed the centre of His being, even the consciousness of an entirely unique relation to God; and yet this is at the same time expressed in a manner perfectly appropriate to His youthful years. This narrative is a type of His whole development; it represents His ideality in a childlike form, and therefore the ideality of childhood in genera1. [136]

This thought of a perfectly normal development does not by any means bring us within the regions of the magical and docetical, but rather expresses the restoration of human nature to its integrity,--nature in its primal purity and holiness; for an orderly, faultless development is proper to nature when interfered with by no inward or outward restraint. Nature, in its Divine origin, is purity itself. We should be on our guard, therefore, against introducing anything unnatural into the intellectual condition of Jesus, by representing Him as a precocious child, and ascribing to Him as a boy the knowledge of truth, the moral earnestness and the depth of a man. Such a condition would not be a miracle worthy of God, but an unnatural monstrosity. [137] At every period of His existence He realized just that measure of intellectual culture and moral life of which human nature is at that point capable, without ceasing to be human nature. In a word, He was exactly and fully what a man can be at each successive step of his life. As He was a perfect man, so was He also a perfect boy and youth, and of a certainty no stranger to the modes of thought and observation which are peculiar to childhood and youth; yet all was characterized by a holy simplicity and beauty. His progress was like that of a beautiful flower, to whose free growth there is no hindrance, and of which we should never require that whilst in the germ it should bud, and whilst budding, possess the glory of perfect bloom; but only that at each step in its development it should be in every respect what it then ought to be. [138]

As little ought we absolutely to deny the existence of what was individual and national in the education of Jesus, and the influence thereon of external circumstances. Everything human is subject to influences of this nature. And as those whom we rightly call men of genius are not essentially moulded and determined by that which comes to them from without, but possess the power to employ it for the most part as a means to their own development, and to the manifestation of that which is in them by nature, we may surely conceive of a mind of which this holds true in so eminent and unqualified a manner, that everything tendered by outward conditions is simply and only the means and material of self-development,--a mind which, in the perfectly independent course of its development, appropriates nothing narrow and unworthy, but only the good and the salutary of all that its external circumstances present. [139] We do not deny that there was in the religious faith of the nation to which He belonged, and in the character of the family and surroundings amidst which He grew up, much which might naturally exercise either a salutary or restraining influence upon Him. The sacred types and teachings of the Old Testament were certainly as little lost upon Him, as the impression made by all that met His eyes, whether in nature, or among His fellow-men. But who would attempt to bring these forward as offering a sufficient explanation of the peculiarity of His whole mental life? In the case of other distinguished personages, the elements from which their characters were developed may be, as a rule, to a great degree at least, pointed out. But who is there who still conceives the notion of deriving Christianity from Essenism, or from Egyptian priest-lore, or of making Jesus Christ the happy medium between Pharisaism and Saduceeism? Or who could imagine that He had made an Abraham, a Moses, an Elijah, or any other Old Testament character His model? No; if ever there was, in the intellectual and moral realm, an original, a creative, a primitive phenomenon, it was the character of Jesus Christ.
[140] His development did indeed take place in a course of most lively reciprocity of action with the world, [141] but not in any dependence upon it; while aught of imitation cannot even be thought of. Together, however, with this extreme originality, is found that universal character which makes Him a model for the whole human race; and these united characteristics offer, at the same time, most valid security that His development was of a healthy and normal nature, because, while, apart from all disturbing influences, it resulted, in all that was essential, wholly from within, it was yet such as to place Him on a height on which He appears as the unsurpassed model of all future ages.

What has hitherto been advanced, tends of course merely to make plain the possibility of conceiving in Jesus a perfectly pure development. But at present this is all we need, inasmuch as our only aim at this point is to show that development does not of itself involve sin. The positive certainty that the development of Jesus was sinless, must be sought in another direction,--namely, by proving that it is an indispensable presupposition, if the actual condition and character of Jesus at a subsequent period is to be satisfactorily explained, and not to seem utterly out of connection with His earlier life. __________________________________________________________________

[133] For the intellectual growth of Jesus we have the classic words, proekopte sophia, Luke ii. 52: for His growth in moral perfection there are several passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews, especially chap. ii. 10-18, v. 7-9. Compare Scholten, Oratio de vitando in Jesu Christi historia Docetismo, pp. 15-19; De Wette, Das Wesen des christlichen Glaubens, § 53, p. 269; and Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebräerbriefs, i. pp. 327, etc. Keim especially has endeavoured to bring forward the several stages of the human development of Jesus' in his lecture under this title. His remarks are frequently striking, but there are also many points with which we are unable to agree. Also Gess, in another, and decidedly positive sense, in his Lehre von der Person Christi: see many passages, but especially p. 210, and pp. 304 seq.

[134] The idea of development does not of itself involve the passing through antagonisms and conflicts, or, that at every step in advance the hindrances universally presented by evil have to be surmounted, and some one of its disturbing elements to be reduced to inactivity.' This is only true of the development of individuals, and of mankind, when evil has already gained power over them, i.e. when they are, morally considered, in an unnatural condition. But only a slavish dependence on a narrow empiricism, whose inductions will not even bear application to the sphere of nature, can. lead us to represent the present form of human development as its natural and necessary one. That would be a true development in which nothing should ever be lost at a higher which had been once really possessed at a lower stage; and simply on the ground that there was nothing which it were needful and good to lose, simply because at no point was there anything which tended to interfere with or thwart the vocation of the being whose development was going forward.' See Jul. Müller's Christian Doctrine of Sin, vol. i. pp. 80-86 of third ed. Besides, that which specially characterizes the notion of moral development is not its negative side, viz. the conquest of evil, but positive growth in good; and it is just in this latter sense that it is applied to Jesus.

[135] Luke ii. 41-51.
[136] Lange, Leben Jesu, vol. ii. p. 127.

[137] There is not a trace of such monstrosities as these in the sober narrative of the canonical Gospels, while, as is well known, they are to be found in the apocryphal histories of Jesus. See my work, Historisch oder Mythisch? § 4.

[138] The fundamental thought of all this was expressed even by remelts in the well-known passage, adv. hæres. ii. 22, where, among other things, it is said: ldeo (Christus) per omnem venit ætatem et infantibus infans factus, sanctificans infantes; in parvulis parvulus, sanctificans hanc ipsam habentes ætatem; in juvenibus juvenis, etc. Among modern writers it will be found in Schleiermacher, Glaubenslehre, ii. 178, and Olahausen, Bibl. Comment. i. 134.

[139] See Martensen's Dogmatik, § 141, p. 315.

[140] Compare Schaff, p. 12, and Young's Christ of History, p. 197.

[141] For detailed proof, see Keim's already quoted works, pp. 12 seq. __________________________________________________________________

Sec. 2.--The Development of the Messianic Plan.

With still more positiveness, and with greater force, has the objection which is based on progress from a state of imperfection to one of perfection, been urged in relation to the Messianic plan of Jesus.
[142] Jesus, it has been represented, did not, at His first appearance, recognise clearly the aim of His life; His first true recognition of it was the result of a catastrophe affecting both. His inner and outer life. It is allowed that, from the very beginning, the fundamental feature of His plan was the formation of mankind into a community by means of religious love; but it is contended that at first this was mingled with political views and tendencies, since He hoped, by the exaltation of Israel, to found a theocracy into which all nations should gradually be drawn. It was not till afterwards, when this notion came into conflict with the sense of the nation and its rulers, and was thereby frustrated, and its impracticability exposed, that there arose in the mind of Jesus, and that not without a struggle, the idea of a spiritual kingdom of God; and thus, we are told, it was that Jesus was transformed from a Jewish Messiah into the Redeemer of the world.

This view, which even at a former period was broached by certain of the learned, has been fully and acutely carried out in more recent times.
[143] It has been, indeed, substantially retracted by its most distinguished advocate; and yet it was again brought forward, though in a modified form, a short time since. [144] It is a view which, if established, would evidently be followed by important results; it would essentially affect that image of Jesus which Christendom has hitherto found in its Gospels and preserved in its faith; it would banish the idea of a perfectly wise and holy Redeemer, who by His spiritual greatness is able to free men from error and sin. Looked at in this light, we should not be able to feel that Jesus possessed even a high degree of insight, much less that He was perfect in intellectual strength. According to this hypothesis, He must not only in general have struggled through error to more correct knowledge, but even through such error as He might have avoided, had He carefully studied the condition of His people before commencing His work. Evidently, too, He had not well considered the whole compass of His plan; for what He would have done in opposition to the existing Roman authority and rule, when once possessed of the highest theocratic power, remains an unsolved, and by no means unimportant difficulty. He had not, in fine, that high, independent power of spirit which the moral Deliverer of humanity should and must have; for instead of fighting His way with a sure step through difficulties and hindrances, as one truly self-reliant would have done, it was the unfavourable turn which His affairs took that first brought Him to a right mind; and then, in place of joyfully and enthusiastically grasping the higher thought that dawned upon Him, He fell into sadness and dismay, as He looked back on His shattered hopes, and forward to a future in which there awaited Him a cross instead of a crown. [145] Such a Christ does not control, but is Himself controlled by circumstances; He does not distinctly and consciously propose to Himself His own aim, but has it gradually formed for, and forced upon Him, by events and accidents; He is not the Lord, but the creature of the times. If the veritable historical Christ were such a one as this, the Christian Church would scarcely be able to reverence in him the light and Saviour of the world; nor could He satisfy the requirements which we are compelled to make of the Redeemer of mankind. Such insight into the plan of Jesus as would be attained in this way, would be dearly bought: happily, however, the view presented above has no solid foundation in fact.

The main support of the opinion that Jesus had at first a theocratic plan of the nature just indicated, is His appropriation to Himself of the character of Messiah; and the Messiah, according to the prophets, and still more in the view of His contemporaries, was to be not only a religious and moral, but also a political deliverer. It is urged: If Jesus did not mean to awaken political hopes, He would not have given Himself out for the Messiah; but inasmuch as He did call Himself the Messiah, the political element must evidently have entered into His plan. This conclusion can, however, only be drawn when certain of His utterances are isolated, and viewed apart from their connection with the whole of His teaching and works. Jesus did appropriate to Himself the idea of the Messiah as a true and eternal one; but in the consciousness of being Himself the promised One, He also glorified the idea by manifesting its high religious realization. In doing this He would have acted very injudiciously, if He had begun by theoretical discussions. His true course was rather first to realize in His own life the idea of the Messiah, and then to bring Himself forward as the promised One, under that aspect which He had thus rendered actual and evident. At the same time, however, from the very beginning Jesus declared in divers ways, that what He sought to found was a Divine kingdom of piety and love,--a union of mankind on the basis of a moral deliverance.

When Jesus spoke of His kingdom, it was equivalent to speaking of His plan; and at no period of His life did He leave men in uncertainty as to the true nature of His kingdom. He ever proclaimed it to be heavenly and eternal,--to be one whose commencements are within, in the heart, and which is thence to be established visibly. This is clear even from the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount: and these were undeniably amongst His earliest public utterances. All His parables, too, in which He gave expression to His view of the nature of the kingdom of God, are of the same purport. In them He taught, with special emphasis, that in its development the kingdom of God would he like the mustard seed, in its mode of operation like leaven: In perfect consistency with this, is. the position He assigned to John. the Baptist as the greatest among the prophets, but as, notwithstanding, less than the least in the economy of the new kingdom of God. [146] Not less in harmony with this representation was the whole character and tenor of His life,--and it was sublimely consistent throughout,--especially as depicted by John the beloved disciple. One whose object was to found a new social order on the ruins of the old, must have gone to work in an entirely different manner. For such a scheme there were undoubtedly abundant materials at hand in His own commanding spirit, and in the condition of the nation. But then something more than merely passing disturbances--disturbances which He Himself disdained--would have arisen, [147] and far more decided events would certainly have occurred. But so far removed was He from anything of this kind, that His inactivity would be inexplicable, were the supposition in question correct: His conduct, then, would have been not only without a plan, but contradictory, for no single measure can be pointed out in His course which can be regarded as having been distinctly adopted to further political ends. The nature of His operations is only intelligible on the assumption that, from the very commencement, He had in view the inward renewal of humanity. The same observation may be made with respect to His discourses. Where can we find in them a single utterance which decidedly announces an external theocracy? The words
[148] in which He promised His. disciples a hundredfold recompense in the kingdom of the Son of Man, and which might possibly be made to bear such a meaning, lose even the appearance of a reference to an external theocracy, and receive their sole appropriate explanation as a symbolical representation of future glory, when compared with other passages in which Jesus sternly repels every ambitious view of His followers, teaches them rather to look forward to the most painful conflicts, and sets forth the love which is willing and content to serve, as the true sign and seal of dignity in the kingdom of God.

Some have laboured to show that there is a contrast between the earlier and later utterances of Jesus, indicative of a change of feelings and views. This supposition is based on the fact, that whilst at His first public appearances [149] blessings fell from His lips, at a later period He poured forth denunciations against the cities which had rejected Him. [150] They have likewise inferred, from the manner in which He threatened the downfall of Jerusalem, [151] that originally it was His purpose to effect its political emancipation, and that He only renounced this design at a subsequent period. But there is no solid ground for such opinions. Not one of the blessings first pronounced by Jesus has remained in its true sense unfulfilled: as for the curses denounced against particular cities, they were the natural fruit of their unbelief. Jesus did desire, indeed, to lead Jerusalem and the Jewish commonwealth to an increased degree of civil prosperity, but only by means of a moral renewal; and for this His yearning was no less intense at the close than at the commencement of His career. [152] The only perceivable difference is, that as He drew towards the termination of His mission, the ardent love He bore to His people expressed itself more frequently and more strongly in the form of grief at their perversity, until, last of all, there burst forth the prophetic warning, that their contempt of inward moral redemption must inevitably result in outward ruin. [153] Here was the chief ground of the sadness of Jesus, which, although more obvious and perceptible at the close of His career, had pervaded His whole life. [154] His was, then, no faint-hearted depression and bitterness because of crushed hopes, but a much deeper pain. He was sad, partly on account of the degradation of His own countrymen, and partly because of the power of evil over mankind generally,--the evil which rose to its most fearful height when it caused His own death. His sadness had undoubtedly special regard to Jerusalem, not, however, because of any discovery He had made that it was past help of a political nature, but because His fellow-countrymen had now finally rejected that which would have given them true peace and deliverance. But it is even more specially asserted, as forming a part of the human development' of Jesus, that the notion of a suffering Messiah found no place in His mind at the beginning of His career, and did not arise till a certain definite period, when, as an entirely new stage of consciousness, it abolished that stage which had preceded it.
[155] Let us see whether this was really the case.

We do not dispute that the notion of suffering and of death did but gradually attain increased power and prominence in the mind of Jesus. In conformity with this, we find that it was not till an expressly stated occasion that He solemnly disclosed it to His followers; [156] and this is but consistent with the successive development which we have already admitted. On the other hand, we decidedly contend that it was no new notion, opposed to former ideas, first making its appearance during His public ministry. For such a one could not, be the result of mere development, but must rather be designated as a mighty revolution,--a total change in the views of Christ, necessarily involving a corresponding change of external conduct. Of this, if it had really taken place, we must have found evident traces, partly in the utterances of Jesus Himself, and partly in intimations by the apostles, whose perception such a state of things could not possibly have escaped. On the contrary, the exact reverse to this is found; of which fact we have ample confirmation from other quarters, without appealing to that somewhat obscure expression of the earlier days of His ministry concerning the destruction of the temple. [157]

On the very threshold of Christ's public life, we meet with the history of the temptation; and it is impossible not to regard the rejection of an externally glorious Messiahship--a rejection antecedent to any act of His public ministry--as the very essence of this narrative. [158] And if this be so, what was left but to seek another kind of glory by the path of conflicts, suffering, and sacrifice? Jesus must indeed have had but little acquaintance either with His own nation and the Roman power,--with Pharisaism and the priesthood,--with Himself and the sinful world,--if He could not foresee, even by mere human prescience, an embittered contest, and at last a tragic issue. And how does He express Himself? The ideas of the self-denial, the sacrifice, the surrender of life, of losing it that it may be gained, of the dying of the corn of wheat that it may bring forth fruit, run like a red thread through all His discourses from first to last. He sends forth His apostles as sheep in the midst of wolves, announces to them calamities of every kind, and impresses upon their minds this one thing, that it is enough for the disciple to be as his Master. [159] Even in the Sermon on the Mount He predicts hatred and persecution for His name's sake, to all who should believe in Him; [160] He acknowledges as His true disciple only him who denies himself and takes up his cross; [161] and knows that His people will everywhere have, not power and authority, but service, subjection, patient endurance of wrong, to the very uttermost. Have we, indeed, in all this the image of an outwardly triumphant Messiah? Certainly not; but rather of one who would Himself take up the cross before all others, and precede them on the path of suffering, even to the very extremity of self-sacrifice. And that the Lord recognised Himself as the Messiah in this sense, is already shown by His own words, even at a very early period of His ministry, without appealing to the above-mentioned more obscure passage. [162]

In this point, as well as with regard to the plan of Jesus, we cannot but hold fast the essential oneness of His views; and though we do admit a development, it is only such a one as by no means presupposes the existence of any internal discord in His mind. __________________________________________________________________

[142] The phrase, Plan of Jesus,' has in recent times been so much in vogue, that it may seem paradoxical to consider it inappropriate; and yet it is utterly so. The devising of a plan implies an activity of mind which is far too strongly individual and subjective to be ascribed to Jesus. So also the acting constantly according to a plan, springs from a one-sided predominance of reflection, such as He never manifested. That which He was commissioned to do and to establish was marked out for Him by God and history,--was recognised, not devised by Him. Hence, although we are not warranted in saying that there was no connection between His various acts, seeing that in all He did and said He was possessed and inspired by the loftiest idea still, to assume that all He did was deliberately planned and intended beforehand, in the common sense of the words, reduces Him to a lower position than that which He actually occupied, as One filled with the Spirit and with God. The older terms, office and work of Christ, have much greater congruity than the modern expression plan. If, however, this term plan, having usage on its side, is to be retained, let us understand by it only, as Hase very correctly defines it in his Leben Jesu, § 40, His subjective conception of the office to which God had appointed Him, without reference to the collateral use of the word in the sense of: what is arbitrary, the mere result of reflection.' Compare Neander's Life of Jesus, pp. 128, etc., fifth ed.

[143] Following in the steps of Von Ammon, De Wette, and some others, Hase, in the first ed. of his Leben Jesu, published at Leipsic in 1829, propounded at length the thought of a twofold plan of Jesus,--of a plan which was at first theocratical, and only became purely, religious subsequently. In opposition to his view and development of the subject, appeared Heubner, in an appendix to the fifth ed. of Reinhard's Plan Jesu, Wittenb. 1830, pp. 394-407; Lücke, in two programmes of the year 1831, under the title, Examinatur, quæ speciosius nuper commendata est, sententia de mutato per eventa, adeoque sensim emendato Christi consilio; and J. E. Osiander, in his article, Ueber die neueren Bearbeitungen des Lebens Jesu von Paulus und Hase, in the Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie, 1831, No. i. pp. 145-148. My controversy also, in the second ed. of this work, was with Hase. To this opposition, especially as conducted by Lücke, Hase, with a noble love of truth, did justice, partly in his Theologische Streitschriften, Leipsic 1834, pp. 61-102, and partly in the subsequent editions of his Leben Jesu. He adopted from his antagonists as much as his own convictions would allow him, and sought to unite the opposed views in the following general result, § 50:--Apart from single political institutions, which are by nature transitory, the plait of Jesus undoubtedly related to a moral reformation and a spiritual kingdom; but still the Divine law which He put in force was clearly meant in the course of time to subdue the world, or rather to pervade it as its highest general law; and He, the King of Truth, intended to become also a King of the world.' Jesus must, at one time or other, have examined and rejected those Messianic hopes which bore a theocratic character, for the Messianic faith could only reach Him in that form. But there is no proof whatever that He was led to this examination and rejection by hard experience in the midst of His career, and not by the clear judgment of His own mind ere He entered on His work.'

[144] Viz. by Keim in his work, Die menschliche Entwickelung Jesu, pp. 28, etc. He advocates the view that it was not till a certain definite period of His public ministry that the perception that the Messiah was to be a sufferer arose upon the mind of Jesus, and that it was at the same time that His idea of a Messianic kingdom, which was to be in the first place a Jewish one, expanded into that of a universal spiritual kingdom.

[145] Hase, in the first edition of the Leben Jesu, § 84. Differently in the second and later editions, § 49.

[146] Neander, Life of Jesus, fifth ed. p. 138.
[147] John vi. 15.

[148] Matt. xix. 27-30. These words belong in all probability to the latest period of the life of Jesus, when indeed the supposed theocratical plan is said to have been already renounced.

[149] Luke iv. 18-24.
[150] Matt. xi. 20-24.
[151] Luke xix. 41-44.

[152] Compare De Wette, Wesen des christlichen Glaubens, § 52, p. 268.

[153] Matt. xxiii. 37-39.

[154] Oslander, in the above quoted essay, p. 147, justly finds in the constant harmony of Christ's inner life a pledge for the unity of His plans, and designates the contrast between the joyousness of the earlier period of His public ministry and the gloomy seriousness of the later, a supposed one. This he then satisfactorily proves by bringing forward particular instances.

[155] Keim, in the above quoted work, pp. 28-32, and elsewhere.

[156] Matt. xvi. 21.
[157] John ii. 19.
[158] Compare especially Matt. iv. 8-11.
[159] Matt. x. 16-25.
[160] Matt. v. 10-12.
[161] Matt. viii. 34, 35; Matt. x. 38, 39.

[162] e.g. Matt. ix. 15. For more on this subject, see Dorner, Jes. sündl. Vollk. pp. 31, 32. __________________________________________________________________

Sec. 3.--The Temptation.

The very difficult problem now awaits our consideration, whether Jesus ever experienced any inclination to sin? Our business is specially with the application of the idea of temptation to Jesus, and the difficulty lies in the question as to whether He could be really tempted, and yet remain absolutely sinless. Temptation implies allurement to evil; allurement involves a minimum of evil itself, and that is inconsistent with perfect purity.

We may very easily get rid of this difficulty by refusing to recognise one or the other of the two sides which should here be held in conjunction with each other; i.e. by affirming either that Jesus was not really tempted, or that we must not be so precise in our view of sinlessness. And there are not a few who do either deny the reality of the temptation, or sacrifice the strict conception of sinlessness. But the problem is not solved in this way. On the contrary, since Scripture teaches both the temptation and sinlessness of Christ, it becomes the duty of theology to furnish an answer to the question whether both can be held without prejudice to either, or whether the one necessarily excludes the other. Our proper guide in answering this question is the well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews. [163] Jesus was tempted in all points, yet without sin; i.e. He was tempted so as it is possible to be without the entrance of sin. We must conceive of His endurance of temptation with the qualification that He continued free from sin; and of His sinlessness, as having stood the test of every species of temptation. According to this, there must be temptation without sin, and temptation with sin: there is a limit within which temptation is without sin, beyond which it involves sin. Our task is consequently to determine the point at which temptation does become sin; and in order to accomplish this, we shall need to examine more closely the relation between sin and temptation. If our investigation be conducted on right principles, it will tend greatly to diminish the difficulty presented by the narrative of the actual temptation of our Lord.

Our inquiry into the nature of sin has shown us that, although its focus is in the will, we are not to regard it as confined to that faculty. The life of the man in all its essential aspects must be taken into consideration. Reciprocity is the law of our constitution; and in virtue thereof, not only does the will, when affected by sin, act prejudicially on the other spheres of our life, but these latter also, when they are sinfully incited, exercise a corrupting influence upon the will. Sin does not take place simply by an abstract act of the will,--it is consummated only where there is a simultaneous darkening of the intelligence and imagination, by means of a stirring up of false and sensual emotions. The actual influence exerted by these different sides of our being varies according to the peculiarities of individual constitutions, and to the measure of our sinfulness. At the same time, however, with respect to the various spheres of our life, we must carefully distinguish between that which arises from their natural orderly action, and that which is already a beginning of sin.

We cannot consider it sinful that that which is evil should present itself to the understanding and imagination, partly as objectively existent, and partly as a possibility; for this is just one of the things which man, as a moral being, cannot avoid. Nor can it with any greater reason be looked upon as in itself sinful, that a sense of the opposition between pleasure and pain should be called forth within us by distinct thoughts or images, and that the one should exert an attractive, and the other a repulsive, influence. Such experiences owe their existence to the fact that man is endowed with sensibilities and a physical body, which being inalienable parts of his nature, must be recognised as of Divine ordination. [164] The presentation of evil through the understanding or imagination only implies sin, when the thought or image rises from within ourselves. Then we consider its presence sinful, because it presupposes the groundwork of our soul to be corrupt. But in case the thought or image is suggested by the surrounding world, we are only chargeable with actual sin if we dwell thereon with approval; for then our moral judgment begins to be darkened, and an inclination towards evil to be felt. In like manner, the sensations, whether mental or bodily, of pleasure and pain, of the desirable and repulsive, can only be called sinful when they owe their rise to an opposition between spirit and flesh, already active in our personal life; or, at all events, they first acquire a sinful character when they prepare the way for the action of this antagonism, and produce desires whose satisfaction would be a transgression of the Divine order of our life.

It cannot be denied that evil does enter man through the channels of thought and imagination, of feeling and sensibility. At the same time, however, it must not only be acknowledged that the real decision of the matter rests with the will,--because it is only by a determination of the will that man really appropriates evil, and makes it an internal or external act for which he is responsible,--but we must also keep in view the fact, that in the spheres of thought and imagination, of emotion and sensibility, there are boundary lines very clearly separating between that which is natural and that which is sinful.

Our inquiry concerns, then, the relation which temptation bears to evil. In order to answer this question, we must bring before our minds the idea and nature of temptation. [165] By temptation, we mean every influence by which a personality intended for moral action may receive an impulse from good towards evil, every enticement to sin produced by any kind of impression, and especially such a one as, proceeding from some other person, is purposely designed to lead to sin. That which tempts may lie either in the man himself, in the form of disorderly desire or inclination; [166] or be presented from without, in the shape of a motive to sinful action. Still, a temptation coming from without, must enter the mind through the medium of thought or fancy or sensuous impression, or else it is as good; as not present. It must also exhibit the appearance of good; for mere evil, as such, does not tempt any but natures already Satanic. If evil is to tempt at all, it must appear as good; it must take the illusory form of a desirable possession, enjoyment, or other coveted result.

Every being is liable to temptation whose nature is on the one hand susceptible of good, and does not on the other necessarily shut out the possibility of evil. God cannot be tempted, because the holiness of His nature exalts Him above all temptation. Irrational creatures cannot be tempted, because, being incapable of true good, they are also below temptation to evil. Man alone, free to choose, can be tempted, because he is a moral, though not yet in his inward nature a holy, personality. Temptation begins for him when evil is presented, at some point of his inner or outer life, in such a way that he can directly take it up into his own being. But man is exposed in two ways to the possibility, and seductive power, of evil. On the one hand, he may be drawn to actual sin by enticements; and, on the other hand, he may be turned aside from good by threatened, as well as by inflicted, suffering. The former may be termed positive, the latter negative, temptation. The one is notably illustrated in the story of Hercules at the two ways, the other in the sufferings of Job. [167] As evil, when it lays hold upon us, affects our life in its entirety, so does temptation assail us at different points, in order to gain possession of our will. Hence we may be tempted as truly through the thoughts and imaginations as through the emotions and senses; and in each case the temptation may be either a seduction to evil or a preventive from good, by means of either pleasure or pain.

Where, then, is the point in temptation at which sin begins, or at which it becomes itself sin? It is there where the evil which is presented to us begins to make a determining impression upon the heart. We do not say an impression in a general sense,--for without making this, it would be no temptation at all,--but a determining impression, that is one which, first creating commotion in the mind in general, then seizes upon the will in particular, and inclines it towards an opposition to the Divine order. [168] Then we find that a conflict is awakened in man which is inconceivable without the presence of sin, be it only in the least degree. Disorderly desire and inward bias towards evil are themselves the beginning of sin; and if such desire has its root and source in our own inner being, it not only leads to sin, but presupposes the ground of our life to be already corrupt. At this stage it is sin itself that entices to sin,--sin as a condition leading to sin in act. But temptation does not imply sin, when the evil, as a thing coming from the world without, merely offers its allurements, and is repelled by the indwelling energy of the spirit; or when we are shaken by sufferings, whether of body or soul, and instead of giving way to ungodly states of feeling and tendencies of the will (as in certain circumstances we might do), endure patiently, and are sustained by our inner moral power.

Contemplating the life of Jesus from this point of view, we can understand how He might be tempted, and yet remain free from sin. He was tempted in all points,--that is, He was tempted in the only two possible ways, specified above. On the one hand, allurements were presented which might have moved Him to actual sin; and, on the other hand, He was beset by sufferings which might have turned Him aside from the Divine path of duty. These temptations, moreover, occurred both on great occasions and in minute particulars, under the most varied circumstances, from the beginning to the end of His earthly course. But in the midst of them all, His spiritual energy and His love to God remained pure and unimpaired. Temptations of the first order culminated in the attack made on Jesus by Satan; temptations of the second order assailed Him most severely during the struggles of Gethsemane, and when He felt Himself forsaken by God on the cross. It will therefore be necessary to consider these two events more closely.

At present we shall consider the narrative of the temptation [169] only in one aspect, namely, in its relation to the sinlessness of Jesus, with respect to the difficulty it may present in the way of a full recognition of that sinlessness. [170] At the same time some reference to the different modes of understanding that narrative will be unavoidable. In some explanations the sinlessness of Jesus is regarded as beyond all question; in others, on the contrary, it is imperilled. On this ground it will be necessary to pass the different interpretations briefly in review, and to decide to which our adherence shall be given. [171]

Among such views of this narrative as are by no means at variance with the doctrine of Christ's sinlessness, may be regarded those which see in the accounts of the evangelists no actual occurrence, but simply a product of early Christian thought. The opinions of those who take this view are divided as to whether the account originated with Jesus Himself under the form of a parable, or with His immediate followers under the form of a myth. Whatever our judgment may be of explanations of this nature, it is quite clear that they do not endanger the sinlessness of Jesus. Neither as a parable, in which Jesus set forth the fundamental maxims according to which all efforts on behalf of His kingdom should be regulated, nor as a myth, in which His Church glorified Him as the conqueror of Satan, would it involve anything really at variance with His sinlessness. But though circumstances have helped to decide the preference of some recent theologians, amongst whom are Schleiermacher and Usteri, for the parabolical mode of interpretation, we cannot see our way clear to the adoption of such a method of escaping the difficulties; and simply for the reason, that we hold the view which underlies it to be an utterly inadmissible one: The entire character of the narrative, and especially the position it occupies between the baptism and public appearance of Jesus, argue too strongly that we have to, do with facts, and not with parable or myth. And even if it be true, which at present we do not stop to consider, that some portions of the account cannot be in every respect regarded as actual history, and must be looked upon as drapery, still we should have to hold fast a kernel of fact. When we reflect that it was involved in the human nature of Christ that He should be tempted; further, that the Gospels throughout know nothing at all of a Saviour who was not actually tempted; and finally, that it lay in the nature of the case, that that which could be a temptation to Him should present itself with special force at the commencement of His career,--we shall see the necessity of maintaining a substratum of fact in this history.

But even when maintaining that we have before us the report of actual temptations undergone by Jesus, there are still, as is well known, a variety of possible explanations from this point of view also. Before entering on an examination of these, it will be advisable to come to some decision as to the essential meaning of the history, and thus to ascertain clearly that which must hold true under all circumstances, whatever may be the mode in which single points are treated.

The narrative is undoubtedly set forth as an essential item of the gospel of Jesus as the Christ, as a constituent part of the life of Jesus as the Messiah. In this quality it is placed between that baptismal act which should, and did, inaugurate the Messiah, and the actual appearance of Jesus as the Messiah. By this we are indirectly, but notwithstanding plainly enough, taught that the temptation bore reference to Jesus in His Messianic character; that it was not merely a trial of the general human kind, but specially a trial of the Messiah. This is clear from the third temptation,--the offer of worldly dominion. But it is also distinctly hinted at in the two others, in the words, if Thou be the Son of God (Matt. iv. 3, 6); for these words do not relate to the human nature which Jesus had in common with us all, but to His higher dignity. Moreover, both these latter temptations manifestly presuppose a person, like the Messiah, endowed with extraordinary powers from God, and under special Divine protection. We may accordingly determine the essential feature of the temptation in one aspect to be, that Jesus, at a point of His career in which His whole future was involved, repelled, with all firmness and decision, the seductions of an external conception of Messianic glory, as ungodly and sinful, and decided, once for all, upon aims and modes of operation which were pure and well-pleasing to God.

Linked together in this way, the individual temptations may be conceived as follows. The first, which was the temptation to change stones into bread, contains a call to the Messiah to employ His miraculous endowments for the satisfaction of His own immediate and pressing wants. In the second temptation, which was to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple, He is urged to put that protection which is promised to God's chosen One to the test, by wilfully running into manifest danger. [172] The third temptation, in which the kingdoms of the world and their glory were exhibited before Him, appeals to Him to employ worldly, means for the realization of His idea of a world-wide theocracy. The rejoinders show that such is the significance of the temptations. To the first, Jesus answers that man does not live by bread alone, by that which only relieves his physical necessities,--but by every word that cometh from the mouth of God;
[173] to the second He replies that we may not tempt the Lord our God,--we may not tempt arbitrarily, and unnecessarily call for His protection; to the third He rejoins,--making reference to the fact tl?at an external empire like those which had been spread out before Him could only be established by the service of the Prince of this world,--Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. All three temptations converge in one central and fundamental thought--the thought of a kingdom which, although apparently Divine, is in reality only worldly, and opposed to the true kingdom of God, which is first founded in the hearts of men, and thence attains external visible realization. [174] The only way to the establishment of such a kingdom was through the prostitution of His higher Messianic endowments to the satisfaction of the desires of His physical nature and self-love; through a presumptuous confidence in Divine protection in paths of danger chosen by Himself; and finally, through a league with, and an entrance into, the service of the Prince of the world. On the contrary, it was only in a spirit of voluntary self-denial in the way prescribed by God, and by a distinct rupture with all the power and glory of this world, that the true kingdom of God could be founded. It was, consequently, the essential opposition between a kingdom which, corresponding to the views of the carnal mind, might be speedily and compulsorily set up, and one of self-sacrificing love, which could only be gradually established from within, and in the divinely ordered way, that now presented itself to the mind of Jesus. He who was sent to found a true theocracy was thus called upon, as He entered on His mission, for a distinct, full, and final decision on one side or the other.

This is unmistakeably one aspect of the temptation of Jesus; but we cannot confine ourselves to it. Were we to do so, our conception of the whole matter would be far too abstract. The Tempter does undoubtedly appeal to Jesus as the Son of God, and very obviously endeavours to influence Him as such; but there must be no separation made between. the Son of God and the Son of man. In fact, the temptations endured by Jesus were real and genuine, for the simple reason, that whilst they tried Him in His character of Messiah, they also assailed Him as a man. A merely theoretical choice between a false and a true conception of Messiah would have been no temptation at all. It was indispensable that the false conception should have in it something of a blinding and bribing nature, [175] something that might prove seductive to the self-love of His sensuous nature. That such an element was present, is as unquestionable as it is evident that Jesus could only be open thereto so far as He shared the general human sensibility to pleasure and pain, to joy and sorrow. Only on this supposition could it be said of Him that He was tempted in all points like as we are. [176] In this sense His temptations have a general human as well as a special Messianic character. They exhibit the spiritual Head of our race as tried like our natural, physical head, but with contrary results.

The seductive element in the several suggestions seems, so far as its human aspect is concerned, to have consisted partly in that which would prove tempting to human nature in general, and partly in that which would be specially alluring to men of a higher order, who are called to a higher vocation. There was, first of all, the inclination to use the gifts of God in the service of self; then there was the liability to entertain the fancy, that One entrusted with a Divine mission, and under the special guardianship of God, might unhesitatingly incur any danger, and even arbitrarily expose Himself thereto; and lastly, there was the desire for this world's power and glory. To temptation of the first kind men are exposed, as men; to seductions of the second kind, those are peculiarly liable who have the consciousness of a higher mission; by allurements of the third kind, those are mainly affected who feel themselves destined to rule. Jesus was exposed to all alike, for He was a man like ourselves; He had the certain consciousness of the highest mission, and He could say of Himself, I am a King. Here, however, again, the three temptations converged and united in one all-inclusive and fundamental temptation; and this lay in the choice between enjoyment and sacrifice, between self-will and the Divine order, between the service of the Prince of this world and the exclusive service of the holy God,--between the one as the essential principle of a kingdom of this world, and the other as the essential principle of the kingdom of God.

We may hold, however, that this is the true significance of the temptation, and at the same time that the history is substantially a record of facts, and yet form very different conceptions of the facts themselves. For instance, the matter has been represented as follows: that Jesus brought before His own mind the chief features of the Messianic notions of His contemporaries, and consequently that the choice between a false and true Messiahship was made as a purely mental transaction. Such a view is, however, evidently too spiritualistic, and out of harmony with the character of the Gospel narrative. The words of the evangelists undoubtedly demand that we should form a more realistic conception of the whole event. They point out that the seductive thoughts were brought to Jesus from without, by means of an objective and personal power exterior to Himself. Thus to have contended with him who is in the highest and most general sense the Tempter, gives, too, to the conflict and victory of the Lord Jesus an unmistakeably sublime and universal significance, with respect both to the person concerned and the principles involved. Nevertheless, whatever stress we may lay upon the objective feature of the transaction, we must always at the same time admit that if it was anything more than the mere semblance of temptation, and is to be regarded as real, the seductive thoughts must have entered into the mind of Jesus, in such a manner that He did not merely hear, but also thought and felt them,--that, in short, they made an impression upon Him. Then there arises the question, which for us is the most important of all: Could such seductive thoughts, in whatever way they came, enter the soul of Jesus without sullying His moral purity, without putting an end to His sinlessness?

We answer that this is quite conceivable. Two suppositions must, however, be most carefully avoided in connection with this matter. The one is, that the producing cause of these seductive thoughts was in any sense in the soul of Jesus Himself; and the other, that they gained any determining influence over the heart, the will, the life of Jesus. That neither was the case may be clearly shown.

Undoubtedly, if the thoughts in question were produced in the soul of Jesus, the conviction would be forced upon us, that its ground was morally impure, corrupt, and that sin was present in Him in the shape of evil desire. But there is nothing whatever to warrant such a supposition. And further, we strike at once at the root of a hypothesis of this nature, when we hold by the recognition of a tempter who appeared objectively to Jesus. If we were even to admit that it was by the agency of His own mind that the Lord Jesus brought forward the false idea of the Messiah as an object of contemplation, any misgiving which might thereby arise is immediately obviated by distinguishing between the presentation and the origination of a thought. The expectation of a worldly Messiah was not a notion which had yet to be conceived; on the contrary, it was one everywhere rife, and which Jesus must have inevitably encountered on all sides in the world around. Nay, He could not carry out the true idea of the Messiah in its full extent, without also taking up into His thoughts its spurious counterpart. The full and decided appropriation of the one necessarily involved the rejection of the other; consequently, also its presence before His soul. In any case, then, we have only to do with the thought of something already actually-existing; and such a thought, though its object might include every element of sin, could not, of itself, be by any possibility defiling.

There is of course another thing yet to be taken into consideration. If we are not to deem the moral purity of Jesus to have been stained by the presence of the seductive thoughts, we must not suppose them to have exerted any determining influence on His inner life: and this seems difficult to maintain, when we take the idea of temptation in right earnest. One concession must be made in this connection--viz. that the mere thinking of evil does not in itself constitute a temptation, and that, in order to its being a temptation, the evil must appear adapted to, and must be enticing to, the self-love of our sensuous nature. The false conception of Messiah, whether suggested by the devil or by the world, was of this nature. Moreover, there can be no doubt that Jesus, as being a real man, was susceptible of its influence. For to the nature of man enjoyment is always dearer than privation, honour than disgrace, and a throne than a cross. Not that we are to conceive the enjoyments of life, honour, and rule to be essentially sinful. They are that only under certain conditions. Nor do we necessarily contract defilement through our sense of the pleasantness of these things. Only when it has a corrupting effect on the moral feelings, disturbs the judgment, and gives an ungodly bias to the will and activity, can this be affirmed. But the narrative of the temptation exhibits the direct opposite of all this. Not like the first parents [177] of mankind, did Jesus dwell with pleasure on the temptation which was laid before Him. That was precisely the cause of their fall. Neither did He suffer a yea, hath God said,' to arise in His mind. With a quick resolution that is obvious from the whole narrative, without any lingering or longing hesitancy, He trampled the allurements under foot; and so directly did He in the thrice repeated It is written' oppose to each seductive suggestion the sword of the Spirit, that no ground whatever is left for the assumption that evil entered within so as to disturb and stain His feelings or imagination, His heart or will. [178] It is, however, the character of His whole subsequent life, and the moral consciousness expressed in every part of it, which is our strongest guarantee that His purity was maintained on this occasion also. So spotless was the purity that shone through all His acts and words, that it is inconceivable that the temptation, though real, should have involved for Him aught like the beginning of a fall, or aught of sin.

The positive temptations of Jesus were not, however, confined to that particular point of time when they assailed Him with concentrated force. [179] They returned as often as impressions were made on Him from without, whose tendency was to draw Him away from complete faithfulness to His love of God, and from pure and holy activity on behalf of the kingdom of God. But still more frequently in after times was He called to endure temptation of the other kind,--the temptation of suffering; and this culminated on two occasions--viz. in the conflict of Gethsemane, and in that moment of agony on the cross when He cried, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

The whole life of Jesus, as depicted by the evangelists, was pervaded by suffering. They were griefs of the intensest kind which pierced His soul during the contest of His loving will with the sin of the world; and to these were added bodily pains. Both conjoined reached their climax in the tortures of the cross,--than which no agonies can be conceived higher or more intense. Jesus never expressly sought, or capriciously exposed Himself to, suffering. Nor did He need to do so, for it came unsought. Still less did He purposely avoid it, seeing in it as He did an essential constituent of His Divine calling. He resigned Himself cheerfully to all that befell Him, and thus displayed a power of endurance, which, whilst never inconsistent with the human, always ensured victory to the Divine.

The two events in question might be alleged as revealing a state of mind at variance with our assumption,--namely, the conflict of Gethsemane, in which suffering of soul is peculiarly manifest, and the moment on the cross in which the physical pain, added to the agony of soul, reached its highest point. In both instances Jesus seemed not to maintain the strength of mind consistent with sinless perfection, but to succumb to the weakness of human nature.

There have not been wanting those who have found in the conflict of Gethsemane, [180] especially in the supposed struggle against death, something inconsistent with the greatness of Jesus in other respects; and in order to remove from the image of Jesus a feature which, in their view, disfigures it, they have resorted to the desperate means of declaring the whole incident unworthy of credit. [181] But the portion of the Gospel narrative in question is too well attested, both externally and internally, to justify any such violence. We must therefore endeavour to understand this paradox also of the life of Jesus. And in fact, when we look at it with an unprejudiced mind, it not only loses much of its strangeness, but gives besides a peculiar significance to the Person of Jesus, and to the relation in which He stands to ourselves. The incident exhibits Jesus to us in the full truth of His humanity, in His perfect nearness to men. Jesus, as a man, could not have had a heart filled with holy love, without feeling sorrowful, even unto death, at the hatred He encountered in return for His self-sacrifice,--a hatred manifesting, as it did, the dreadful degree to which the power of sin prevailed in the world. He could not have possessed that fulness of fresh and sensitive life which He everywhere revealed, without shuddering at the approach of a death of torture. But there is nothing sinful in the grief felt by love at unmerited hatred; nor in the wrestlings of a lofty soul with the sin of the world; nor in the natural recoil from death experienced by one whose life is healthy and energetic,--for this must not be confounded with a reflective shrinking from and resistance to death. [182] These are purely human conditions, and as such they were involved in the fact that the body and soul of Christ were of like nature with our own. They would have passed into sin, only if they had produced some alteration in feeling or will. And that such was not the case,--that, on the contrary, the spiritual nature of Jesus and His love to God rose victorious over the agitations of His feelings and the pains of His body,--is testified by the words, Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. These words cast a light and a glory on all that preceded them,--they tell of the complete inward victory gained by the Lord Jesus,--and prove that, even in the midst of such mental agony as this, He maintained a spotless purity.

But the sufferings of Gethsemane were only a foretaste of those which in full reality and force preceded and accompanied His death on the cross. And on the cross His agony rose to such a point that He had a sense of being deserted by God,--to which feeling He gave utterance in the well-known words of the 22d Psalm, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Desertion by God must not, in this case, be conceived of strictly, as objective, actual withdrawal of God from the Person of Jesus, but only as a subjective feeling of desertion. Efforts have, however, been made to do away even with this, on the supposition of its being unworthy of the Lord. Jesus, it is said, though He certainly cried out only in the first words of this Psalm, yet had in His mind its whole contents, and especially its close, which, far from being of a desponding nature, expresses the utmost confidence in the future victory of God's kingdom. To give matters this turn is, however, perfectly arbitrary, and, in opposition to the situation, transposes the whole from the sphere of direct spontaneous feeling to that of reflection. [183] We ought rather to take that which is historically recorded in all its significance and force, and at the same time to adhere to the rule of not treating a single saying as isolated and cut off from the connection in which it is found.

The frame of mind and exclamation in question are manifestly an intensified counterpart of the agony of Gethsemane. Jesus had in fact, for the moment, the feeling that He was deserted by God, when physical tortures burst in upon Him in all their fearfulness, in addition to the deepest sorrow of heart. But this feeling was only a momentary one with Him whose whole being was rooted in God, although, in the circumstances and at the time, it made its presence known with the involuntariness of a force of nature. In no sense did it continue, or exert any influence over His inner life. It immediately gave way before, and yielded its due place to, a sense of His true relation to God. As in the conflict of Gethsemane the full submission to the will of the Father soon triumphed over His natural reluctance to drink the cup, so here, that sense of Divine desertion which rose involuntarily in His mind was at once swallowed up in the higher feeling, expressed first of all in the words, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit, [184] and then in the crowning exclamation, It is finished. [185] Nay, it is manifest that the higher feeling had already begun to work, from the words in which Jesus expressed the sense of desertion; for He did not exclaim simply, O God ! O God!! but, My God! my God! He thus appropriated the God by whom He felt Himself forsaken as His God, and clung firmly to His fellowship with Him, notwithstanding the sense of desertion. Moreover, this feeling was something in itself so thoroughly strange to Him, that He expressed it, not in the form of a positive assertion, but of a question: thus hinting at its incomprehensibleness,--one might almost say, at its impossibility. [186]

The perfect purity of Jesus shone forth, therefore, even in such circumstances as these. At the same time, we see and feel throughout that He was a man, and, as such, mightily moved and keenly sensitive. Nor could it be otherwise. The whole delineation of the Gospels forbids our making of the character of Jesus an ideal of stoical apathy and imperturbability. [187] In respect of wants and woes, of the susceptibility of His mind to emotion, and the sensibility of His body to suffering, He was a perfect type of humanity. We cannot, however, for this reason consider Him as ranking below, but above, the wise man of the Stoics. It is precisely in this particular that the morality of the Stoics is untrue. Man's highest moral task is not to realize the anti-human, but the purely human,--it does not consist in repressing his natural capacities, which, because natural, are ordained of God, but in employing them in, and glorifying them by, the service of the Divine Spirit and holy love. This is what we find in Jesus; and the most rigid moral judgment, so far from seeing therein anything sinful, must rather confess that it is this that brings Him so near to us, that shows Him to us as our Brother, and makes Him capable of being a real example to man. Nay, only on this condition could He also be a truly human Redeemer,--a High Priest who was Himself tempted and tried, who Himself in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears, and is therefore touched with the feeling of our infirmities. [188] __________________________________________________________________

[163] Heb. iv. 15. See on this subject Riehm, Lehrbegr. des Hebr. Br. i. pp. 317, etc., and 321, etc.

[164] In the fact that Jesus had a body, and consequently sensibility, no ground or direct occasion of sin was involved. Sarx is ascribed to Him in a perfectly good sense, with reference, of course, to human limitations and lowliness, but with no reference at all to sin. In opposition to this, it is maintained by some, chiefly persons tinged with fanaticism,--as for example, formerly, by Dippel, Eschrich, Fend, and Poiret, and recently by the well-known Irving, through whom this point became the subject of a religious controversy in England,--that to Christ must be ascribed not simply flesh, but sinful flesh; and that, though in respect of His spirit and will He is to be held perfectly free from actual and habitual sin, it must yet be granted that in the matter of the senses and their sinful impulses, He was not different from other men. It is plain that these persons are somewhat lax in their views of sinlessness; for it is involved in the true idea of sinlessness that the sensuous impulses do not act independently of, and in opposition to, the spirit, but are altogether ruled by it. Moreover, the words of the apostle, to which they appeal, do not furnish a sufficient warrant for the doctrine. In the passage, Rom. viii. 3--ho Theos ton heautou huion pempsas en homoiomati sarkos hamartias--the word homoioma refers only to sarkos, and not at the same time to hamartias, and the meaning is, God sent His Son in such a form of flesh and corporeity, as was of like kind with ours, which have, through sin, departed from their original condition,--not like with respect to sinful inclination, which would make the apostle contradict himself (2 Cor. v. 21), but of like kind with respect to finiteness, limitation, the wants of physical life: Christ, though not sinful Himself, was yet a man just like us who are sinners, and subject to the same conditions of sensuous existence. Compare Flatt, Tholuck, and other commentators on this passage. For more extended discussions of this point, see Müller's Doctrine of Sin, i. 407 ff., and especially pp. 434-459, third ed.; and Nitzsch's System of Christian Doctrine, §
129. J. E. W. Gericke, in an article on the effects of the death of Christ with respect to His own Person (Stud. u. Krit. 1843, ii. pp. 261, etc.), has lately brought forward the view that, in virtue of His participation in the flesh of the human race, its hereditary corruption--though only in the smallest degree--was transmitted to the human nature of Jesus; yet that this sinful incentive in Him, ever conquered and kept far from His person by the Divine principle within Him, was fully abolished by His death and resurrection. This view also, apart from other objections, is without a firm scriptural foundation, and inconsistent with the fundamental views of the New Testament.

[165] For the usage of the expressions peirazesthai and peirasmos in the New Testament, see Tholuck's Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, pp. 432 ff., and Kern's Brief Jacobi, p. 125 ff. This subject is also further discussed in Köster's Bibl. Lehre von der Versuchung, Gotha 1859, and Palmer's article, Versuchung, in Herzog's Theol. Real-Encycl.

[166] This is the epithumia of which St. James speaks as the usual commencement of sin in man (Jas. i. 14). This kind of temptation presupposes a germ of evil already within the man himself, and is irreconcilable with moral perfection in the strict sense.

[167] Luther places temptations through suffering on the left hand, and those through pleasure on the right, and thus declares the latter to be the stronger and more dangerous (Works, B. vii. p. 1165).

[168] Luther well distinguishes between sentire tentationem and consentire tentationi. Unless the tempting impression be felt, there is no real temptation; but unless it be acquiesced in or yielded to, there is no sin.

[169] Matt. iv. 1-11; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1-13.

[170] The following essays, which advert to my own earlier view, may be compared in this connection: Usteri, Ueber die Versuchung Christi, Stud. u. Krit. 1829, 3, and 1832, 4; Hasert in the same, 1830, 1; Hocheisen, Bemerkungen über die Vers. Gesch., in the Tübingen Zeitschrift f. Theologie, 1883, 2; Kohlschütter zur Verständigung über die Vers. Gesch., in Käuffer's Bibl. Studien, Jahrg. 2. The most recent discussions of the subject are by E. Pfeiffer in the Deutsche Zeitschrift, May 1851; and by Rink in the same periodical, September 1851; also by Laufs in the Studien und Kritiken, 1853, 2.

[171] At present briefly; more fully in a special appendix.

[172] The supposition that the second temptation calls for a miracle of display, now seems to me to come far behind the explanation given above. Compare Kohlschütter in Käuffer's Bibl. Studien, Jahrg. 2, pp. 75, 76.

[173] According to another view, we must not anticipate the command of God, who has a thousand means of preserving life.

[174] Compare Neander's Life of Jesus, fifth ed. p. 118.

[175] Special emphasis is rightly laid on this point by Kohlschütter, pp. 68-71.

[176] Heb. iv. 15, where the words kath' homoioteta are not employed without purpose.

[177] Gen. iii. 6.

[178] Therefore, as Hocheisen justly observes in the Tübingen Theolog. Zeitschrift, 1833, 2, p. 115, no parallel can be drawn between the temptation of Christ and Prodikus's story of Hercules and the two ways; for a hesitation of choice between two ways cannot be spoken of in connection with Jesus. In order to anticipate and cut off possible difficulties, Menken, in his Betrachtungen über den Matthæus, i. 104, would have the whole transaction termed trial instead of temptation. But the Scriptures do not sufficiently justify this change. Inasmuch as Satan comes before us peirazon, we may fairly apply the distinction made even by Tertullian: Deus probat, Diabolus tentat.

[179] In Luke iv. 13 it is said Satan departed from Jesus achri kairou: and Jesus Himself speaks of His temptations in the plural number (Luke xxii. 28).

[180] Matt. xxvi. 36-47; Mark xiv. 32-43; Luke xxii. 39-47.

[181] See Usteri, Studien and Kritiken, 1829,3, p. 465. Usteri thinks that if the tradition were true, he must rank Jesus under Socrates. On the other side, compare the beautiful parallel between the death of Jesus and that of Socrates, in de Wette's Wesen des christlichen Glaubens, § 53, p. 270. Rousseau says, in his pithy manner, If Socrates suffered and died like a philosopher, Jesus suffered and died like a God.'

[182] Hasert justly remarks, Studien and Kritiken, 1830, 1, p. 72, that the impulse of our physical nature to secure itself against destruction is a natural expression of our life, belonging essentially to its character, and therefore not necessarily involving sin.

[183] Matt. xxvii. 46, and Meyer's Commentary on this passage.

[184] Luke xxiii. 16.
[185] John xix. 30.

[186] Both, in fact, were implied in the passage from the Psalms, of which Jesus availed Himself yet if it had not fully expressed His actual feelings, He would either not have used it, or have altered it to suit His need. But even the passage in the Psalms itself does not express the feeling of desertion alone, nor speak of this as a permanent state of mind, as the whole context plainly shows. Even in the Psalmist's mouth, the saying cannot be taken in an absolute sense, much less in that of the Lord Jesus.

[187] As among the Fathers, Clement of Alexandria was inclined to do, and therefore applied to Christ the expression, anepithumetos. For examples, see Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, §§ 66 and 67.

[188] Heb. iv. 15, v. 7. __________________________________________________________________

Sec. 4.--Other Acts and Expressions of Jesus, as Arguments against His Sinlessness.

If, then, there is nothing in the facts that Jesus underwent a temporal development, and that He was tempted, which compromises His sinlessness, another question arises, namely, as to whether we do not find in His works and discourses themselves, much that is inconsistent with moral perfection. An affirmative answer to this question would constitute the most striking and satisfactory refutation of what has been hitherto advanced. Several things of this nature were urged even by the contemporaries of Jesus. Others have been brought forward more recently. Some of these seem almost frivolous, and scarcely worthy of notice. Yet the removal of even subordinate misunderstandings may be useful, when they threaten to deface so elevated a form as that of Jesus.

Amongst the .scanty traditions of the earlier period of the life of Jesus, has been preserved that account of His peculiar ripeness at twelve years of age (Luke ii. 41-52), which we have already several times brought forward as very significant in relation to His mental development. But there is the appearance of a blemish even in connection with that remarkable circumstance. The boy might be reproached with disobedience, with wilfulness, for remaining behind in the temple. In examining the matter, however, more closely, this apparent blemish vanishes. Not a word hints that His parents looked upon Him as in fault for remaining behind. The exclamation of His mother was simply the spontaneous expression of tender concern. Further, we can easily conceive of many circumstances arising, where the family relationships were less constrained, which might give occasion to the separation, without neglect on the part of the parents, or self-will on the part of the Son. On the other hand, we may discern even in the boy the same Jesus, who, as a man, rising above the narrow limits of family connections, and subordinating everything that was private and peculiar to His vocation, could say, Who is my mother? who are my brethren? and on another occasion could address His mother, Woman, what have I to do with thee? His energies were to be devoted to the whole of mankind, and the spirit requisite thereto must needs have been manifested at an early period.

In the properly Messianic period of the life of Jesus there were many things at which even His own contemporaries cavilled. Scrutinized, however, more closely, they only furnish one proof more of the elevated nature of His moral life. Of this kind are the reproaches, that He did not live ascetically like the Pharisees, nor even like John the Baptist, but ate and drank like ordinary men; that He associated with publicans and sinners; that He broke the Sabbath by healing the sick; and the like. But it was precisely in opposition to such narrow-heartedness that Jesus manifested by word and deed the grand principles of a freer morality,--of that morality which flows from the fountain of Divine love, and which raises the gospel so far above the level of all legal service: precisely then did He take occasion to defend the simple and genuinely human cheerfulness of a truly pious life, which is marred by no spurious asceticism, but receives and uses all God's gifts thankfully and temperately: precisely then, too, did He propound those simple doctrines, that the disposition is the test of genuine morality; that love is more than sacrifice; that ordinances are for man, and not man for ordinances, and lay them down as eternal truths in forms appropriate to the time.

The evangelists have artlessly recorded many doings of Jesus with that unreflective objectivity which is peculiar to them, without ever thinking that they might give moral offence. It is only the sensitiveness of the modern world that has found them strange. and offensive. Some things of this kind scarcely deserve examination; as, for example, the cursing of the fig-tree. [189] The reproach, that He was interfering with the property of others, is in no sense well founded, and is almost too frivolous to be mentioned. And even the notion, that Jesus here manifested personal irritation against a lifeless object, disappears as soon as we remark that He was performing--and that too, undoubtedly, with perfect self-possession--a work of prophetically instructive import, designed symbolically to announce the destruction of the spiritually unfruitful Jewish people. There are other things which do in part present real difficulty, and therefore demand a more careful consideration. With greater apparent justice might Jesus be accused of interference with the rights of property in that noteworthy act in the country of the Gadarenes, [190] where it cannot be denied that the cure performed by Him was directly coupled with damage to the inhabitants of the district. Almost all commentators on this passage. have believed it necessary to offer an apology for Jesus and naturally this has been done in various ways, according to the different points of view of the writers. We should hesitate to excuse Jesus, as many recent commentators have attempted to do, on the ground of His not foreseeing the result; [191] for this is at variance with the idea which the evangelists give of Him. And, on the other hand, we might justly urge that Jesus acted here, as He did generally in His miracles, as the Plenipotentiary of God. When God, in the pursuance of higher aims, destroys single things, when He permits the destruction of human possessions by natural forces, who dare charge Him with injustice? The complicated system of the universe requires it, and particular occurrences are ordered on the plan of a wisdom which is beyond our comprehension. Jesus also stood .on this position of higher wisdom and authority and whoever objects to His acting out of the fulness of Divine right, can hardly justify. Him in a manner that will harmonize with the general representation of the Gospels. But it has been urged, and not altogether without reason, against this mode of treating the question, that it lies out of the proper sphere of an apology, whose business it is to justify Jesus according to the general laws of human action. We take our stand, therefore, entirely on the ground, that Jesus, on this as on every occasion, was fulfilling His mission; not indeed without foresight of the consequence of His acts, but without suffering Himself to be influenced thereby. The aim of that mission was to save the lives and souls of men; and the possible destruction of irrational creatures, or the contingency of a loss which might be replaced, could not possibly restrain Him therefrom. Nay, His conduct on this occasion rather serves to place in a clearer light the high value which Jesus attached to man as the image of God.

But if we are not justified in regarding Jesus as under the influence of passion when He cursed the fig-tree, there is another occurrence recorded by the evangelists, in connection with which we can scarcely avoid such a supposition,--namely, the driving out those who were buying and selling in the temple. [192] It is even possible to describe it in such a way as to give it the appearance of a low and violent action. [193] There is, however, nothing to authorize such a delineation; for it was certainly not the employment of external chastisement or threats, but His holy earnestness and personal dignity, which gave to the action of the Lord Jesus its impressiveness and efficacy. Their feeling that He was in the right, and they in the wrong, drove the traffickers out of the temple. Notwithstanding, there do remain traces of angry ebullition in the act, which contrast with the usual mildness of Jesus. The disciples themselves were sensible of the presence of a devouring zeal in His conduct on this occasion. [194] But here the distinction must be observed between personal passion and the noble anger felt by one entrusted with a high calling. It is not as a Jewish Rabbi that Jesus stands opposed to these Jewish traffickers, but it is as the divinely appointed Purifier of the theocracy that He stands opposed to the desecration of the sanctuary of God; and this position gave Him the right to act in a way which need not be justified according to traditional rules. Even if the doubtful jus zelotarum were recognised, it would not be necessary to appeal to it in order to clear the conduct of Jesus from blame. He was wielding that power of chastisement which is truly connected with the office of Prophet,--that power which has been and should be exercised in all . ages and among all peoples by higher natures called with such a vocation, whenever earthly relations and the course of justice, according to existing laws, are unable to stem the growing corruption.' [195] Such an action, however, could never have been performed but under the influence of an overpowering earnestness and an intensely indignant zeal. Such zeal for the Divine honour is, however, not unworthy of the purest; and in periods of corruption, nothing that is truly great can be accomplished without it.

The relation between Jesus and Judas also offers peculiar difficulty.
[196] If Jesus knew Judas, why. did He enroll His future betrayer among the apostles? And if He did not see through him, what have we to say on behalf of the moral penetration of Jesus? In either case, did not Jesus here make a mistake? In giving a satisfactory answer to this question, all depends on our conception of the moral condition of Judas when called to association with Jesus. Substantially, there are three different views of this matter possible, each of which leads to a different solution of the difficulty. According to the first, Judas, at the time of his acceptance by Jesus, had already within him the germs of his after sins--ambition and covetousness, but the good was still predominant in his soul; and further, Jesus hoped to accomplish his complete renovation, and then to avail Himself of the strong nature of Judas as an able instrument for the advancement of His cause, but was foiled in His gracious intentions. [197] According to the second view, Judas, when he came into contact with Jesus, had already fallen irrecoverably a prey to evil; [198] and Jesus chose him, not only with the distinct knowledge that he would be, but--since it was necessary that treachery should bring to pass the death of the Redeemer--also with the intention that he should be, His betrayer. He chose him, moreover, that in him a most striking example might be given how even one so utterly corrupt could but subserve the execution of the Divine purposes. According to the third view, when Judas was called to be an apostle, evil was, indeed, already predominant in him, but not absolutely supreme. His proximity to Jesus might influence him for good or for evil, and it was worth while to make the attempt to recover him. If Judas were gained to the side of the good, he would prove one of the most powerful of the apostles; if he were lost, he must still of necessity serve the plan of Jesus. Jesus was prepared for any issue He saw, even at an early period of their connection, [199] how Judas would decide; but He did not then cast him out, partly because He would act towards him with the utmost forbearance, partly because the proximity of Judas, even in the case of his yet deeper fall, would answer His further purposes.

The first of these views not only supposes that Jesus was deceived, which is irreconcilable with the depth and acuteness of His penetration, but rests also on a misconception of the true nature of moral development. In order to reach the degree of evil at which we find Judas, its influence over him must have been for a longer period growing stronger and stronger, and working its way into all the parts, into the very tissue of his being. Had he entered into the fellowship of Jesus with a predominant susceptibility to good impressions, the result would have been different. Moreover (and this is decisive), this view clearly contradicts the declaration of John, [200] that Jesus knew the traitorous designs of Judas even at the earliest stage of their intercourse. The second view rather cuts than unties the knot. It considers the matter only in its relation to the end aimed at, whilst primarily it ought to be examined from the point of view of the determining cause; it makes a leap from the region of the historical to that of the metaphysical, and explains the obscure by that which is still more obscure: it further supposes a degree of wickedness in Judas that strips him of everything human, and this notwithstanding that his repentance, although perverse in its operation and results, testified to some remains of goodness,--notwithstanding, too, that even his violent and desperate death exhibited traces of his former greatness. Finally, it assumes that it was necessary that a member of His most intimate circle should betray Jesus, which does not by any means seem to have been the case when we bear in mind the publicity of His life.

The first two views being untenable, only the third remains for our adoption. This has also its difficulties, but will be justified by the remarks which follow. It was the destiny of Jesus, in His entire manifestation, to divide the Divine from the ungodly, the good from the evil,--to awaken and quicken the one, and to punish and spiritually overcome the other. Even whilst on earth, He thus manifested and judged the hearts of men. In and through Him were the thoughts of the heart to be revealed: He was to be for the rising again and the fall of many. Either of the two results, considered in itself, might have followed in the case of Judas. He was still a man, and, as such, capable of salvation: he might fall, but he might too, like Peter, rise again--a ray of holy love might yet penetrate his soul. That this would not take place, was not clearly to be foreseen; for evil, being in its nature arbitrary, its development cannot be calculated with certainty. Looking to the possibility of a change for the better, Jesus chose him. But by an act of wickedness, which is at the bottom as incapable of rational explanation as evil generally is, Judas hardened himself, even whilst in communion with the purest goodness. Thus that Divine love which might have saved him, only worked his destruction. And just as all evil must finally serve the good, so Judas, when the process of hardening had once set in, was compelled to further the ends of Jesus. In contrast to the purity of Jesus, he exhibited sin in all its abominableness; and by bringing about the catastrophe of the death of Jesus, he helped on the accomplishment of the work of redemption. Through him it became possible for Jesus to enter into the suffering of death, without seeking it Himself. Finally, too, by his own desperate death, he testified to the purity of Him whom he had betrayed. In all this, however, we must not seek the end, the reason, but only the result of the choice of Judas by Jesus. The choice was dictated by the motives indicated above, and these cannot but be acknowledged to have been pure, since they were based on the hope of the salvation even of a Judas.

But it is finally and almost triumphantly asked, Did not Jesus Himself decline the predicate good,' and thereby deny His sinless perfection? Did He not answer the young man who saluted Him as Good Master,' with the plain words which it is impossible to misunderstand, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God?' [201] What more can be needed than the testimony of Jesus Himself against the notion of His sinless perfection? [202] To this we reply: It is indeed true that Jesus did decline the predicate good,' but not in such a sense as to exclude the idea of His perfection. His words have a totally different tendency; and here, as in other instances, everything will be found to depend upon the occasion which gave rise to them, and the connection in which they are found.

The young man who accosted Him, believed, as the sequel shows, that he had already fulfilled the whole law, and was under the delusion that in this respect he lacked nothing. He wanted to learn from Jesus, as from a master undoubtedly capable of instructing him, what exceptionally good thing' he must do to obtain, besides the blessings promised by the law, eternal life. Can it then be supposed that Jesus would have responded to a young man of this kind,--one who used a word so full of meaning as good' twice in one breath, in so light and thoughtless a manner,--by imparting to him information concerning the moral constitution, and indeed the moral imperfection, or even the sinfulness of his own person? It is evident that instruction very different from this was needed by the young man. With all his good intentions, his whole moral nature was infected with self-complacency and shallowness. What he lacked was self-knowledge, acquaintance with the Divine holiness and his own sinfulness. This Jesus perceived from his words, and it was towards this end that all which He said to him was directed. And first of all He takes up his just uttered salutation, Good Master,' and at one mighty stroke, as it were, shows him, in the most forcible manner even though for the moment He might not be fully understood by His hearer--the fathomless depth, the immeasurable fulness, contained in that little word good.' God alone, says the Lord, is good;' but what He more specially meant by this, must be determined by the meaning of the expression good' in this place; and when we reflect how it was used by way of contrast to its inconsiderate application by the young man, and take into account the entire character of this address, this meaning can be none other than the most pregnant of which the term is susceptible.

Undoubtedly there is a sense in which goodness can be attributed to God alone, and another in which it may also be applied to man. The first is its absolute sense; and that this is the sense which it bears in the passage in question, is obvious so soon as the whole purport of the saying is considered. In this sense God is good, as the eternally perfect and unimpeachably holy One who can be nothing else but good Himself, and is at the same time the original source of all good in others. But if Jesus, by this intimation, would exclude all that is not God from goodness, there are two things which He certainly would not do. He would neither, as older theologians suppose, indirectly allude to His own Divinity, [203] nor, as more recent ones assert, represent Himself in general terms as not good, and consequently sinful. The first notion would be an allusion of too vague and artificial a nature; the second a self-contradiction of so glaring a kind, as no one would venture to put into the mouth of Jesus. [204] On the other hand, He undoubtedly did intend to reject the attribution to Himself of goodness in that absolute, that purely Divine sense, of which we have spoken. And not without reason. For His moral perfection did not appertain, as that which was purely Divine, to the sphere of eternal being, [205] but to that of temporal existence; His goodness was not, like the Divine goodness, absolutely unexposed to temptation. and raised above all change, but a goodness capable of development, and to be perfected by temptations, conflicts, and sufferings. He was as yet in the very midst of His great mission, and the heaviest trials and sufferings still awaited Him. Thus viewed, the expression by no means excludes the perfection which is possible within the sphere of human existence. It only declines an attribute which is absolute and Divine; it does not deny that the moral nature of Jesus is sinless, but it does affirm that it is liable to temptation. We have here the testimony of Jesus Himself to His genuine and proper humanity in a moral point of view, and a noble expression of the humility which knows that the victory has not yet been won, as contrasted with the self-complacency which could inquire, What lack I yet?'--but by no means a confession of sinfulness.

We have thus, we trust, solved all the graver difficulties offered by particular occurrences. [206] Yet a few more general remarks seem desirable with reference to the French author, [207] who has of late most strongly insisted upon them. This author occupies a very peculiar standpoint. He desires to appear, not as decidedly opposing, but rather as seriously doubting, the sinlessness of Christ. Yet his questioning points far more to a negative than an affirmative reply. On one side, he not only willingly acknowledges, on the ground of the Gospel delineation, the peculiar moral greatness of Jesus, but often speaks of it even with enthusiasm, and adheres, after his own fashion, to the belief that He was a teacher of the very highest excellence. [208] On the other side, he sees between this relative greatness--even granting it to have attained the very highest degree--and absolute perfection, an abyss [209] which his faith cannot pass. He is hindered partly by the consideration that the moral nature of Jesus is not laid open to us as to the inmost motives of His heart, nor during every stage of life,--partly by a regard to certain actions and expressions which seem to place insuperable difficulties in the way of admitting His sinless perfection. [210] We cannot regard such a standpoint as tenable. If we once go so far as to admit that the moral greatness of Jesus is of so superlative a kind that nothing surpassing it is to be found within the sphere of human nature, and if we do this on the ground of the Gospel delineation, we shall be constrained to take the further step which leads to a belief in His sinless perfection. For the same Jesus whom, from the Gospel statements, we acknowledge to be so great, is He who, in the same documents, constantly attributes to Himself a moral and religious nature and position which we--in the sense which He Himself furnishes--designate no otherwise than as absolutely perfect. If, however, we either cannot, or will not, take this step, we have no choice but to retreat from our former position, and, by relinquishing the historical ground of the Gospels, to declare the general greatness of Christ to be altogether doubtful. In short, if Jesus, as we know Him from history, is as great as Pécaut admits, He is also perfect; but if, according to the given conditions, He is not perfect, then He is not truly great in any sense: the greatness ascribed to Him dwindles to such a degree, that it becomes altogether inappreciable.

With regard to the difficulties offered by certain particulars, we are certainly not of opinion that they are at once to be disposed of; on the contrary, we have done our best to solve them. But even granting that neither the explanations which we or others have offered should be found sufficient to obviate all objections, does it follow that the sinlessness of Christ must be given up, or even regarded as utterly problematic? By no means. For the sinless perfection of our Lord is no individual view or sectarian tenet, no hobby of this or that theologian, but the firm persuasion of all Christendom in every age,--a persuasion arising from the overpowering impression produced by His whole life and character. A persuasion of so universal a kind, and one confirmed by its effects, will not be given up, like some doubtful hypothesis, because difficulties are encountered in certain obscure passages, which it is not easy to solve, or whose solution by others is not deemed satisfactory. In a phenomenon of such unfathomable depth, of such immeasurable greatness, as the personality of Jesus Christ, there must necessarily be, from the very nature of the case, points which will ever be enigmatical. Divine truth could not be such if it were in all respects on a level with our understandings, and presented no paradoxes to our minds. In the case of such phenomena in general, we must, first of all, abide by the unquestionable impression produced by the whole, and thence endeavour to appreciate and understand particulars. In the case of Scripture especially, we must not make what is obscure the standard of what is more clear, but, on the contrary, must determine the meaning of the less comprehensible by that which is plainer. If these rules are granted, their result in the present case is obvious. The testimony of Scripture to the sinlessness of Christ is as clear as noon-day, while the purport and references of those passages which might excite a doubt of it, are by no means so transparent as to justify us in taking them as our criterion in deciding on the moral character of Jesus.

Our opponent repeatedly insists upon the axiom, [211] that the conduct of Jesus is to be estimated only according to ordinary moral standards, and not according to some superhuman. code. This he applies to certain expressions and requirements of Christ, especially to His address to His mother, on the occasion of His first miracle, His saying to the Canaanitish woman, and His command to the disciple, who desired first to bury his father, [212] --which he finds unnecessarily harsh and severe. Our reply is as follows:--If this axiom is to be so understood as to include those moral principles which were first introduced into the world by Christianity, it is not in itself incorrect. It becomes so, however, if these principles are excluded, and only an abstract general morality left. And this is the manner in which Pécaut holds it. He everywhere ignores that mission of Jesus which can never for a moment be separated from His Person. In all these cases, indeed, the Lord Jesus spoke and acted, not as some chance individual usurping undue authority, but as one undoubtedly certain of being the Founder and Head of the kingdom of God. What He said or did in this sense, always bore the distinct impress of a regard both to the stage of development which this kingdom had at the time reached, and to the special spiritual necessities of the individuals in question, whose faith might need to be encouraged, to be tested, or to be guarded against relapse, by means more or less vigorous, nay, even sharp;--not that such a regard could indeed alter the general principles of morality in His case, though it might give to their application that form which the nature of the kingdom of God demanded. Now the fundamental law of this kingdom is self-denial and self-renunciation,--its chief requirement, that it should be regarded as the supreme good, with which none other can stand in competition. To such a standard, and to such a standard only, did the Lord Jesus conform His demands, and by it was a sharper line of action prescribed to Him, with all His gentleness, in certain cases, than would have been becoming to an individual in a more ordinary position. __________________________________________________________________

[189] Matt. xxi. 17-22; Mark xi. 11-26.

[190] Matt. 28-34; Mark v. 1-20; Luke viii. 26-39.

[191] Hase, Leben Jesu, third ed. § 75, p. 184.

[192] Matt. xxi. 12-17; Mark xi. 15-19; Luke xix. 45, 48, compared with John 14-18.

[193] As Pécaut does in very strong terms, p. 252.

[194] John ii. 17.

[195] See Lücke's Commentary on this passage, Pt. i. pp. 536, 537; and Dorner's Jes. sündl. Vollk. p. 17, note 1.

[196] Compare on this relation, and the different modes of conceiving it, Dr. Gust. Schollmeyer's Jesus and Judas, Lüneberg 1836. See also Neander's Life of Jesus, fifth ed. pp. 192, 679-689; and Hase, Leben Jesu, § 110, p. 182 ff. third ed.

[197] This hypothesis is carried out in a manner correspondent to the state of theological science at the time of its publication, in the Essay entitled Wie könnte der grosse Menschenkenner Jesus einen Judas zum Lehrer der Menschheit wählen? See Augusti's Theologische Blätter,
B. i. pp. 497-515.

[198] This is Daub's conception of Judas in his Judas Ischarioth, oder, über das Böse im Verhältniss zum Guten, Heidelberg 1816: See especially No: I. pp. 16-20. Judas is there described as the evil which has utterly cast off all humanity, as a devil in the flesh, who becomes the betrayer of the incarnate God, and in whose (predestined) despair there was no stirring of good. Not quite the same, yet similar is the view of Olshausen. See his Biblical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 438 ff. (German ed.).

[199] The expression ex arches, John vi. 64, need not necessarily be referred to the period before, or to the exact time of, the call of Judas. It means, as in John xvi. 4, in the first period, soon after he was chosen, and long before he manifested his real disposition in the act of betrayal.

[200] John vi. 64, 70.
[201] Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19.

[202] See Strauss, Glaubensl. ii. 192; Fritzsche, Comment. de anamart. Jesu, ii. 1, p. 7; and Pécaut in his above-named work, p. 268. Among modern expositors the contrary view will be found advocated by J. Müller, Lehre von der Sündl. i. 143, and Dorner, Sündl. Vollk. p. 12; also Wimmer in the Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1845, pp. 115-153.

[203] As also Stier, among recent theologians, though he rather hints at than expressly advances such a view, Reden Jesu, Pt. ii. p. 282.

[204] It is opposed not only to John viii. 46, but even to John x. 14, and other passages.

[205] Such a teleiosis as is spoken of in Heb. ii. 10-18, v. 7-9, and elsewhere, with reference to Christ, cannot be attributed to God, who is in and by Himself absolutely teleios.

[206] The instances derived from John vii. 8, 10, and from Luke xxiv. 28, are too trifling for detailed discussion. In the first passage the difficulty disappears if ouk is taken, as in John vi. 17, in the sense of oupo in the second, if prosepoieito is referred not to the intention of Christ, but to the impression which the disciples, who were His fellow-travellers, received from His conduct.

[207] Pécaut, in his already frequently quoted work. For a review of the whole treatise, see Waizsäcker in the Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. vi. 1, pp. 178, etc.

[208] Pécaut's above-named work, Letter xvii. pp. 244, 247, etc.

[209] The same, pp. 241, 242.
[210] The same, Letter xvii. p. 237.

[211] E.g. p. 255, and often, besides, in individual instances.

[212] John ii. 4; Matt. xv. 22-28; Luke ix. 59, 60. See in Pécaut, pp. 257, 259, and elsewhere. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________