03.10. CHAPTER THE PERSON OF CHRIST
CHAPTER X. THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
"Truly, this was the SON OF GOD." Matthew 27:54.
"Go a little deeper," said the wounded soldier of Napoleon’s body-guard, as the surgeon was probing to find the ball lodged in his breast; "go a little deeper, and you’ll find the emperor." In the study of Christian evidences, having considered the witness of prophecy and of miracle, the harmony of the Word of God with science, and with our moral nature, we now go a little deeper and touch the heart of the whole body of Christianity the PERSON OF CHRIST. Here is the focal center of all Christian evidence; when we reach and touch that heart, feel its divine throb, and know its divine love, our intellectual doubts vanish, and we are constrained to confess: "Truly, this is the Son of God."
Nearly nineteen centuries ago, in an obscure town in Palestine, an event took place which has had more influence on the history of the world than any other since time began. A child was born - surely not so rare an occurrence as to awaken in itself any great interest: This was no son of distinguished parents, no heir to riches or royalty, no scion of a noble house, no prospective ruler of a world’s empire. He was born in a stable and cradled in a manger, because in the inn there was no room for the mother even in the crisis of the sorrow of her sex. Yet, about that natal hour, that lowly cradle and that humble child, the thought, love and life of millions have, from that day to this, been centered. The universal verdict concedes to Christ at least a grandly complete manhood. Pilate stands as the typical judge, saying, as he points to Jesus, "Behold the man!" Christ seems to represent humanity, in its broadest range and in a very special sense, as a man, and, in its ideal perfection, as the man.
We have space to touch this grand theme only at a few prominent points:
1. We notice about Jesus no narrow limits of individuality. James Watt suggests the inventor; Benjamin West, the painter; Napoleon, the warrior; Columbus, the discoverer; Pitt, the statesman. Men of mark stand out from the mass with sharp, individual traits, as, in the apostolic company, we think of Peter’s impetuosity, Paul’s energy, John’s love; and these traits both distinguish and separate certain men from others. But Christ’s peculiarities did not isolate him from other men. Nothing stands out so prominently as to draw some to him from a sense of sympathy and similarity, and drive others from him by a feeling of natural antagonism. He is not so allied to any peculiar temperament as to impress others with a lack of power to understand their individual cast of character. Yet there is no lack of positiveness in this perfect man, like a coat fitting everybody, yet fitting nobody; no such elasticity of character as stretches or contracts to suit every new demand; but such a common fitness as tells of something in common with every man; a beautiful fulfillment of the scriptural figure that "as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man." Any man, whatever his tastes or temperament, his type of mind or heart or disposition, finds in Jesus something answering to his need a sympathizing brother!
2. Nor was our Lord this perfect man limited to a narrow nationality. How marked is the profile of national character! Demosthenes is always the Greek, Cicero the Roman, Hannibal the Carthaginian; the Jew is always and everywhere the Jew; he scarcely associates, never assimilates or amalgamates, with any other people. Try to weave him into history; he is the iron forever unmixed with the clay; the scarlet thread is seen all through the fabric never lost sight of amid the other colors of the woof. And yet Jesus was a Jew, and yet less a Jew than a man. Paul could say, "I am a Jew;" but Jesus said with profoundest truth, "I am the Son of Man" not so much Hebrew as human, filling out the grand motto of Terence, "Homo sum et humani a me, nil alienum puto!"
3. Christ represents the generic man, and you will remember that the term "man" probably includes the woman as well as the man. "God made man in His own image. In the image of God created He him; male and female created He them." The ideal man combines and includes the womanly graces with the manly virtues; that which is gentle and tender with that which is strong and firm. The king of birds has not only the stern eye, the firm beak, the strong talons, but the soft, downy breast as well; and the king of men will be a woman also, in the qualities of heart which make her the radiant center of the home. Christ had the kingly majesty and the queenly grace; none could be manlier than He; yet, without being effeminate, He was feminine; without being womanish, He was womanly, also; and it is no marvel if woman showed toward Him all the reposeful trust she loves to exercise toward one on whose strength she may lean, and yet have all the intimate, sympathetic devotion which she exhibits toward her own sex; and no marvel that "She, when the apostles fled, could danger brave, Last at His cross, and earliest at His grave."
We are at a loss to say which predominated in Jesus, the manly or the womanly virtues. He who flamed with righteous indignation at the desecration of His "Father’s house," till every cord in His scourge burned like lightning and snapped like thunder, could graciously and gratefully accept the kisses and caresses of a sorrowing sinner, bestowed on His feet; and He whose grand words of warning and wisdom have for two thousand years moved the world as great winds heave ocean waves, could melt the heart of a woman by one word, "Mary," so that her tone of impatience gave place instantly to a rapturous, adoring exclamation, "Rabboni" "My dear Master!" Romanism makes a mistake in the Coronation of the Virgin, Queen of Heaven, as though the human heart needed another object of worship in whom the womanly graces should crystallize. Jesus has in Himself all that beautifies womanly character.
4. Jesus Christ was certainly most remarkable in the perfect balance of opposite, or, rather, apposite qualities. We observe that few human characters combine the sterner virtues with the softer graces. You find gentleness, generosity, mildness and meekness in one class of men, and firmness, frugality, positiveness and energy in another; but how seldom do they meet and mingle in one character. Disraeli speaks, and you marvel at the polish and politeness of his dissection of his adversary’s argument; but you detect, beneath all that suavity, the ferocity of a tiger; or you think of the anaconda, that licks his prey all over with his slimy tongue, preparatory to swallowing it! Can you, even in the most scorching rebukes and denunciations of hypocrisy, and of robbery of the poor, even find one trace of a savage, hateful, vindictive spirit in the perfect man? Have you never remarked that the highest human purity is generally like a soaring alpine peak, cold and chilling? It suggests whiteness as of virgin snows, and transparency as of ice-crystals, undefiled by earthly elements; but it suggests distance. Purity maybe attracted by purity, but impurity, even when coupled with penitence, is repelled; it cannot, dare not approach. There must have been something peculiar about the purity of the Christ. He moved among men freely; sat down to eat with publicans and sinners; yet His garments took as little stain as the light in passing through an impure atmosphere. And, though His very presence forbade the touch or whisper or breath of that which is defiled, the vilest outcasts of society were drawn to Him by resistless attraction, lavished tears of sorrow and kisses of love upon His feet, and broke flasks of precious ointment on His person! What a mystery! A purity beside which even the snow is no longer clean, mingled with a compassion and sympathy to which the vilest sinners run for refuge as to the downy breast of some majestic bird! There was a divine quality in that purity that reminds one of the light, so pure, so incorruptible, yet falling on the sterile sand and slimy pool to call forth fair and fragrant blooms; or of the dew falling from above to rest alike on the most wholesome and the most noxious growths, and leave everywhere its impartial benediction.
5. It is a grand fact that even the long test of nineteen centuries, and the close, severe, searching and microscopic criticism of these days, cannot find any flaw, not to say vice, in the Christ. How difficult it is for the generation in which a man lives to form a fair judgment of the man! Sometimes prejudice heaps faggots about him, and his true features are hidden by the smoke of martyr fires; or, again, popular admiration or adoration burns incense before him, and his real self is obscured by clouds of excessive praise; and so we have to wait until the martyr-fires or the altar-fires go out, to see the real man; and what is the result? We often see the hero fade into a Nero, or the wretch rise into the saint.
Wendell Phillips says, "If you penetrate the halo of military glory which surrounds the Duke of Marlborough, you will find the most purchasable and infamous scoundrel of the age." Nearly two millenniums have passed since Jesus was moving among men. Whatever praise or blame, friends or foes attached to Him in those days, we are able at this remote time to form a fair judgment of His character and career. And the question rings out, "What think ye of Christ?" Has any man ever dealt a successful blow at the blessed one, whom the reviling tongue calls the "Christian’s idol?" Point out one vice, one real blemish, in that character or life! Examine as with microscopic eye, but the more minute the examination the greater the disclosure of beauty.
6. What magnanimity there was in this perfect man! Even King James could send a petty gift of five shillings to rare Ben Johnson humiliating the foremost poet of the day because his poverty forced him to live in an alley, and provoking the retort, "Go tell the king his soul lives in an alley!" But in Jesus you see no trace of narrowness even of Jewish exclusiveness and prejudice; no small or mean sentiment; no selfish feeling; a broad catholicity without laxity; a generous impartiality without indifference to truth and right. A great, grand soul as ever tabernacled in a human body! And yet nothing in His surroundings to educate Him into magnanimity; for the whole tendency of His age was toward narrowness and bigotry! This greatness of Christ’s soul, this singular unselfishness and purity of His love, arrests the attention even of the most casual observer. The best and noblest men often betray, in the crises of life, a lingering self-love, and sometimes an idolatry of self-interest. Burke, a keen observer of human nature, has said that if you do a man a favor, and put him under lasting obligation to you, you sow in him the seeds of dislike. It humbles him to think that he owes promotion to anything but his own merits, and his pride is rebuked whenever he meets you; and so he becomes, unconsciously perhaps, alienated from you. Rochefoucauld has remarked that there is something in human nature which permits us to get a certain sort of satisfaction even from the misfortunes of our friends - a remark which is unhappily illustrated when those who have been eminently successful experience the disaster of failure.
Such frank confessions show the opinion which sagacious students of humanity form of the common selfishness of the heart, to all of which Christ presents an exception, so unique, so conspicuous, so original, that our philosophy is at a loss to explain it. Satan said of Job, "All that a man hath will he give for his life" boldly judging that to preserve his life, even a good man will make every other sacrifice; but how cheerfully did Jesus accept even a cruel and shameful death for the sake of His enemies! Well might the world stand amazed before His cross when the dying sufferer prays, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" and be dumb at sight of self-sacrifice, which was for the sake of service. And right here is, perhaps, the enigma of Christ’s character. Whence came the inspiration of such self-sacrifice? All miracles of power are eclipsed by the miracle of His passion. In the agony and bloody sweat at Gethsemane, and the anguish and awfulness of the shameful death at Golgotha, there is something more overwhelming than in any of His mightiest works; and it was when He was "lifted up" that He "drew all men unto Him." Not what He did, but what He was in Himself, presents the most astounding miracle! An oriental fable represents a crowd of idlers, thronging the market-place of a Syrian city, and looking contemptuously upon a dead dog, with a halter around his neck, by which he had been dragged through the dirt. A viler, more abject, more unclean, more repulsive thing does not meet the eye of man, and those who stood by looked on with abhorrence. "”Faugh," said one, holding his nose, "it pollutes the air!" "How long," said another, "shall this foul beast offend the sight?" "Look at his torn hide," said another; "one could not even cut sandal-straps out of it." And a fourth spoke of his ears, draggled and bloody: and a fifth declared "he had no doubt been hanged for thieving." But there stood, among the throng, one, a stranger, who had, as they flung their jeers at the dead dog, drawn near; there was a strange light about his face, and in his whole mien a strange dignity and grace. Looking down compassionately upon the dead animal, he said: "Pearls are not equal to the whiteness of his teeth." Then the people turned to him with amazement, and said among themselves: "Who is this? This must be Jesus of Nazareth; for only He could find something to pity and approve even in a dead dog!" And in shame they bowed their heads before him, and went each on his way.
How easy, how human, to say satirical things; to see only the repulsive side of character; to taunt the heedless and trample on the fallen! How strangely humane was He; how benign and merciful; how marvelously penetrating, seeking the beautiful amid the ugly, and finding what is attractive amid what is repulsive; detecting the germ of the saint in the chief of sinners, the outcast woman and the hated publican! Like the benignity of Nature, that uses her elemental forces to bring beauty out of deformity until the clay crystallizes into the blue sapphire, the barren sands into the burning opal, the defiling soot into the radiant diamond, the foul water into snow-flakes and ice-crystals that rival the most exquisite gems for beauty of form and richness of luster; so He, with a divine condescension that makes even the lowliest great, beams upon poor, defiled, corrupt human nature, until a beauty develops that furnishes gems for the very crown of heaven’s King - gems lustrous as stars!
7. The Christ of the Bible stands alone in His sublime law of self-renunciation. At the very gate of the new life we are met by this motto: "Deny Thyself! There is a beautiful fable of Poussa, the Chinese potter - that he was required to produce a work for the emperor. He summoned to his aid all his genius and taste and skill; executed one after another task in porcelain, each a masterpiece, yet none worthy to be presented to his sovereign. His last work was in the oven, for the finishing process; but, in despair of ever being able to produce anything of sufficient merit to adorn the imperial table, he threw himself into the furnace, and lo! there came out the most beautiful and perfect porcelain ever known - before it, after it, nothing to be compared with it. The Chinese sages wrote wiser than they knew. For the first and only time, this blessed Book has framed into a law the heroic principle of self-sacrifice, teaching us that no work is so precious in His eyes as that which is made complete and beautiful by the offering of self - illustrating this law by a life, such as no uninspired mind ever drew even in outline. This precious Book tells us of one who resigned the throne and crown of heaven, exchanged the radiant robe of the universal King for the garment of a servant, descended to earth, condescended to human want and woe and wickedness, lay in a lowly cradle in a cattle-stall at Bethlehem, and hung upon a cross of shame on Calvary, that even those who crucified Him might be forgiven. Can you span the chasm between the throne of a universe and that cross? a crown of stars and a crown of thorns? the worship of the host of heaven and the mockery of an insulting mob? When you can bridge that gulf, you may know something of the divine grandeur of such self-sacrifice. Whence such a conception of heroism? There is nothing like it in history, not even in fable; poets and philosophers have not approached it; the highest unselfishness is selfish beside it. Could it be the invention of impostors, or the wild dream of deluded fanatics? Is there any supposition that meets the case save this that it was first a divine fact, expressing and exemplifying the divine idea?
8. When we endeavor to picture Him to our selves, no beauty of face, form, figure, can do justice to His perfection. Put the "brow of Jupiter on the form of Apollo," and you have not approached the beauty with which imagination invests His person. Give Him "Luther’s electrical smile, opening the window in a great soul," and you have nothing yet to express the divine charm of His winning grace, which, notwithstanding His majesty, drew little children to His arms. Give Him the wisdom of Solomon and the profoundness of Aristotle, and the originality of Bacon; and all this cannot explain the words of Him who, by the confession of enemies, spake as never man spake, and who, in dealing with truths the most sublime, never forgot to be simple, even in the forms of His illustrations!
Here is the ideal of manhood, in mind as well as body. What thoughts, inspiring what words and works! What sublime conceptions, convincing argument, wise counsel, powerful persuasion, perfect illustration, grand discrimination!
What a heart so pure, so noble! Was ever love so charming in its fervor, its sincerity, constancy, generosity, unselfishness? - nothing but a look of gentle reproach for the disciple who denied Him, and no word of bitterness even for the apostle who, with a kiss, betrayed Him. He left all ideals behind, in His reality. We think no more of the Roman notion of heroic virtue, the Greek notion of culture, the Italian idea of beauty; in presence of Jesus, all these fade, as stars grow pale at morning.
"How, then," says Dr. Porter, "can it be explained that forth from that generation came the loftiest and the loveliest, the simplest, yet the most complete ideal of a master, friend, example, Savior of human kind, that the world has ever conceived; an ideal that, since it was furnished to man in the record, has never been altered except for the worse; a picture that no genius can retouch except to mar; a gem that no polisher can try to cut, except to break it; able to guide the oldest and to soothe the youngest of mankind; to add luster to our brightest joys, and to dispel our darkest fears? Whether realized in fact or regarded only as an ideal, the conception of Jesus is the greatest miracle of the ages!" This humble Nazarene taught the race a new law of progress, viz: Self-oblivion. And since that cross was set upon Calvary, every grand step of advance for the race has been "from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake." He led the way in helping men to live, by himself dying, and the ideas he embodied have been ever since "fighting their way against the original selfishness of human nature."
9. It is evident He was more than man. There is that in the PERSON OF CHRIST which has won almost involuntary homage from even skeptical minds. Daniel Webster, who was the Doric pillar of New England, as Edward Everett was its Corinthian column, drew up, just before his death, the following Declaration of Faith. As his was confessedly one of the few massive masterminds of history, it has double significance: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." "The philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe in comparison with the insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured me and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a mere human production. This belief enters into the very depths of my conscience; the whole history of man proves it."
We set, side by side with this, the testimony of one other man, by common verdict one of the most remarkable of the race - the first Napoleon. While in banishment at St. Helena, conversing with General Bertrand who contended that Jesus was simply a man of great genius and power to command and control, the exiled emperor said: "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man! Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity! We can say to the authors of every other religion, You are neither gods nor the agents of the Deity. You are but the missionaries of falsehood, molded from the same clay with the rest of mortals. You are made with all the passions and vices inseparable from them. Your temples and your priests proclaim your origin! Paganism was never accepted as truth by the wise men of Greece, neither by Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Anaxagoras or Pericles. Paganism is the work of man. One can here read but our imbecility. What do these gods, so boastful, know more than other mortals - these legislators, these priests? Absolutely nothing!" When we study the marvelous history of those thirty-three years, we stand in presence of the most significant period of all history, folding in its bosom the most precious facts ever cherished in the heart of man. The existence of Jesus Christ is the pivot upon which turn the history and destiny of the world. This one man, born in poverty and bred in obscurity; without rank, wealth, culture, or fame; who could call no spot home, and no great man his friend; who was hated by the influential men of church and state, and died as a criminal, by their united verdict; even whose tomb was the loan of charity, to save his body from being flung over the walls to the accursed fires of Topheth - this one man somehow sways the world! We date our very letters and papers, not "Anno Mundi" - the year of the world - but "Anno Domini" - the year of our Lord; and even he who, from his dark chamber of doubt and disbelief, sends out his assaults upon Jesus of Nazareth, still dates his pen’s production "Anno Domini" unwillingly bowing to Christ’s Lordship, even of the world’s calendar! Even creation is forgotten, as the epoch from which all is to be reckoned, since that babe was born in Bethlehem of Judea as though all history had a new birth then. Kings are anointed in His name; the grandest cathedrals unfold their white blossoms of stone to bear perpetual witness to His glory and beauty. Millions of believers offer Him the myrrh of their penitence for sin, the frankincense of their prayers and praise, the gold of their costliest offerings of gratitude and service; and even the profane swearer rounds his oath with the precious name of Jesus, while no other name is spoken with such reverence by the pure and good!
What shall I do then with Jesus? However, I may account for His existence or explain His character and career; whatever I may think of His being born of a virgin and begotten of the Holy Ghost - whatever I think of His words and works, as divine or human, He is Himself the miracle of history! Science and philosophy vainly try to account for Him or interpret Him.
He stands absolutely alone in history; in teaching, in example, in character, an exception, a marvel, and He is Himself the evidence of Christianity. As Bishop Clark says, "He authenticates himself." "The most natural solution of His life is the supernatural. The truths which He uttered were not truths which He had learned. He was the truth!"
It is therefore no marvel that the Word of God is full of this wonderful personage. In the British navy-yards, where all the cordage, from the huge hawser down to finest strands, has braided into it a peculiar scarlet thread, you cannot cut an inch off without finding it marked. So everywhere, woven into and through the word you may find the scarlet thread and beginning anywhere, preach the blessed Christ.
One of the most sublime facts in connection with this wondrous PERSON OF CHRIST is the strange hold He has upon millions of believers at this remote age. After eighteen centuries have passed, a large proportion of the human race, the most intelligent and the most lovely, can say of Christ, with Paul, "Whom having not seen we love." Everything connected with His personal life on earth has perished. We can only guess at the spot where he was born, the place where he lived, the site of the cross and the tomb; and yet, millions are living for Him, and would die for Him. They believe that this unseen presence inspires their faith, hope, love, life; that with this unseen Savior they hold daily communion; they go through the valley of tears, leaning on His arm; and they fear not the shadow of death, cheered by His smile. This fact is absolutely without a parallel, and it impressed the great Napoleon more deeply than anything else about this mysterious person. He looked back through the centuries and saw the blood of Christian martyrs flowing in torrents, while they kissed the hand that, in slaying them, opened the door to Him. "You speak," said he, "of Caesar, Alexander; of their conquests; of the enthusiasm they enkindled in the hearts of their soldiers; but can you conceive of a dead man, making conquests with an army faithful and entirely devoted to His memory? My army has forgotten me while living. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and myself, have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love: and at this hour millions of men would die for Him. I have so inspired multitudes that they would die for me but, - after all, my presence was necessary - the lightning of my eye, my voice, a word from me - then the sacred fire was kindled in their hearts. Now, that I am at St. Helena, alone, chained upon this rock, who fights and wins empires for me? What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ, who is proclaimed, loved, adored, and whose reign is extending over all the earth!" And so it is. A public life of three and a half years, ending with a death of shame at thirty-three; yet - today swaying a world’s history and destiny!
Simple as was His speech, even yet His words move and mould the world! Theremin insists that "eloquence is virtue" - or, as Emerson puts it, "there is no true eloquence unless there’s a man behind the speech," or as Carlyle adds, "he’s God’s anointed King, whose simple word can melt a million wills into his!" All the conditions of the most powerful and persuasive utterance meet in Him! Behind the speech, lay the perfect man - the divine soul; and with an indifference to the lapse of time which reminds us of the indifference of the telegraph to the stretch of space - at this remote day, his simple word melts millions of wills into His. He says follow me! and on through flood and flame, over land or sea, move the true hosts of God’s elect, in obedience to His word.
We have referred to Christ’s birth as attracting the gaze of the world. But if such interest gathers about His cradle, what shall be said of the interest that gathers about His cross? It was a cursed tree indeed, yet the tree of knowledge of good and of evil, which is associated with the first sin and the original curse, has on Calvary been transformed into the tree of life, whose very leaves are for the healing of the nations and whose fruit is abundant and perpetual! That cross of shame is the most precious object that the eye of faith rests upon. It is the focal point of history - toward that, all lines converge from the creation, and from it all lines diverge and radiate until the end of the world.
Again we ask what then shall we do with Jesus who is called Christ? We calmly and reverently say, there is no middle ground. Here is a gigantic fraud, in comparison with which, all the dishonesties, perjuries, and villainies of men sink into insignificance - as mole-hills are forgotten under the shadow of colossal mountains; or else here is the one gigantic fact of history, the one grand personage of all the ages and eternities, the God-man - creator, ruler, judge of all mankind, the Anointed Messiah, and only Redeemer. No middle ground! and yet you dare not call Him an incarnation of fraud - reason and conscience alike forbid; and only when men have ripened or rotted into the most daring and desperate blasphemy, apostates both from God and a right mind and a pure heart, have they dared to hint that Jesus Christ was a deceiver! And when a man does venture such self-evident blasphemy, his own companions in skepticism shrink back from him as himself as great a fraud as he makes the Nazarene to be. And yet there is no middle ground - you must curse him as a wretch or you must crown him as the King. If you claim to hold neutral ground and cast no vote, remember He has said, "he that is not with me is against me." If He be a gigantic deceiver, you cannot be guiltless, unless you do all you can to meet gigantic imposture with gigantic resistance; you are bound therefore to be a pronounced foe. If He is the King - your only Savior, your final judge - your guilt is awful and your exposure terrible, if you simply withhold yourself from His service, or above all lend aid or comfort to His foes! You are, by obligations of the highest sort, bound to be a pronounced friend, and to do your best and utmost to lead others to see and confess His beauty. And so, the voice of truth and duty calls on you, in tones of thunder, to choose this day, what you will do with Jesus! You cannot, dare not be indifferent to the issue. He is or He is not the way, the truth, the life. If He be, then better you had not been born, than to wander from this way, deny this truth, forfeit this life.