01.096. JESUS THE ALTOGETHER LOVELY
Lesson Eighty-one JESUS THE ALTOGETHER LOVELY Scripture Reading: John 8:31-46
Scriptures to Memorize: “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” (John 8:46). “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
15. Q. What second aspect of the Jesus of history shall we now investigate?
A. The second aspect of the Jesus of history, which we shall now investigate, is His character.
Having already studied Him as The Great Teacher, we shall now study Him as the Altogether Lovely, our Perfect Exemplar.
16. Q. In what respect especially is Jesus unique among all the world’s teachers?
A.Jesus is unique among all the world’s teachers in the respect that He gave not only a Perfect Teaching but a Perfect Example as well. In Jesus of Nazareth teaching and life are perfectly blended. He not only taught the most exalted principles of life and conduct, but He lived them as well. This cannot be said of any other of the great teachers of history.
17. Q. What claim are we justified in making for Jesus of Nazareth?
A. We are justified in making the claim that His character is faultless.
“This is the high claim we make for our Christ. We assert that He is the only one who has carried the spotless purity of childhood through youth and manhood; the only one who has passed through life, touching it at every point, and then emerging from the tomb and going back to the bosom of the Father as pure as when He came. And this is the claim He makes for Himself. Speaking to those who were thirsting for His blood, He said: ‘Who of you convicteth me of sin?’ (John 8:46). And this challenge has been ringing down through the ages from that day to this, and no man has yet been able to convict him of sin” (M. M. Davis, How to Be Saved, pp. 75–76).
18. Q. What special designation is Jesus given in Scripture that indicates His faultlessness of character?
A. He is called The Holy One of God.
Mark 1:23-24—“And straightway there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit: and he cried out, saying: What have we to do with thee, Jesus thou Nazarene? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” (Demons, like wicked men, are invariably filled with fear and trembling in the presence of true holiness). Acts 2:27—“neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption” (cf. Acts 13:35, Psalms 16:10). Cf. also Song of Solomon 5:16, “His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely” (here the allusion is to the Bridegroom of whom the Church is the Bride).
19. Q. In what first respect is the faultlessness of His character evidenced?
A. The faultlessness of His character is evidenced, first, in His complete freedom from the more ordinary and universal faults of humankind.
1. He was free from selfishness. (1) In no instance did He put His own interests first, but always those of His Father, His work, and humanity. (2) He refused even to perform a miracle to benefit Himself; as, e.g., on the Mount of Temptation, when Satan suggested that He turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger (Matthew 4:1-4). (3) He gave special emphasis in His teaching to the principle that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Matthew 20:26-28, “Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant; even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (4) He exemplified this principle perfectly in His life, and especially in His death, in which He gave Himself in supreme sacrifice not only for His friends but for His enemies as well. John 15:13—“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (5) Even when suffering the most excruciating agony on the Cross, He prayed for the forgiveness of those who were putting Him to death. Luke 23:34—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
2. He was free from worldly ambition. Although His qualities of leadership were such that, at the height of His popularity, the people sought to crown Him their king, yet He departed from them into a secluded place that He might be alone with the Father (John 6:15). His sole ambition was to reign, not on an earthly throne, but in the hearts of His people. John 18:36—“My kingdom is not of his world.” “We scarcely know which to admire most, the prodigious originality of His conceptions, or His entire freedom from worldly ambition in the execution of His plans.”
3. He was free from pride. “This was the first sin to enter the human heart, and it seems determined to be the last to leave it. Give man money, position and power, and he is filled with pride. When the flowers are fullest of the dews of heaven, and when the wheat is richest and ripest, they bow their heads in gratitude; but the more we are enriched of God, the higher our heads. But how different the Christ. When He preached His great sermons He acted as if there were scores about Him who could have done better. After His stupendous miracles He seemed unconscious of the fact that He was the only being on earth who could do such deeds. When He lifted the heavy heel of death from the heart of Lazarus He walked away from the grave as if he were leaving the carpenter’s shop after a day of ordinary toil” (Davis, ibid., pp. 77–78).
4. He was free from couetousness. This one sin of which every human being is more or less guilty, is not to be found in the character of Jesus. He might have made millions through His miraculous powers, yet He lived and died the poorest of the poor in this world’s goods. Matthew 8:20—“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heavens have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He was so poor that it was necessary for Him to perform a miracle to obtain the coin with which to pay His temple tax (Matthew 17:24-27). Even in death His body was laid at rest in a borrowed grave, through the benevolence of a friend (Matthew 26:57-60). In life and in death He exemplified perfectly what He taught with regard to dependence upon God rather than upon earthly possessions (Matthew 6:19-34, Luke 12:13-21).
5. He was free from revenge. When the natives of an obscure Samaritan village refused Him hospitality, two of the Apostles, James and John, indignantly demanded that He retaliate by bidding “fire to come down from heaven, and consume them.” But Jesus “turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village” (Luke 9:54-56). Thus did He rise above all petty slights and grievances. “He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Amidst His intense suffering on the Cross, He prayed for His enemies: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). And when He sent His Apostles forth to make disciples of all the nations, He sent them first to His own people and city: and by His explicit command, they preached the Gospel beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47 )to a great multitude many of whom had participated in the crucifixion tragedy (Acts 2:23; Acts 2:36). 6. He was free from sectarianism. How vast the gulf between Jesus and other world leaders in this respect! They are invariably identified with some particular people and age, and partake of their peculiarities. Not so with Jesus! By no possible stretch of the imagination can He be regarded as distinctively Jewish either in His teaching or in His life. He had none of the racial pride or narrow prejudices of the Jewish people. As a matter of fact he exposed their rigid legalism in a series of denunciations without parallel for their severity. He foretold the destruction of their city and temple; also their dispersion and the calling of the Gentiles (Matthew 8:11-12). He rose above the wall that had separated Jew and Gentile for fifteen centuries or more. He became the one cosmopolitan character of the ages, and is so regarded today by all nations. “Like the sun, He cannot be monopolized by any, but shines equally for all.”
20. Q. In what second respect is the faultlessness of His character evidenced?
A. The faultlessness of His character is evidenced, secondly, by the many excellences which inhere in it.
Isaiah 33:17—“thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty.” (1) We see in Jesus the beauty of righteousness. His one consuming passion was to do the Father’s will and to accomplish the work which the Father had sent Him to do (John 4:34). His supreme interests were the Father’s house, the Father’s will, the Father’s word, and the Father’s work. (2) We see in Him the beauty of stedfastness. We are told that He set His face stedfastly toward Jerusalem. His sacrifice was a voluntary one. He went to the Cross of His own volition; and when He had set His face in that direction, there was no wavering, no turning back. (3) We see in Him the beauty of righteous indignation. How he loved publicans and sinners!—and how He hated sin. Indignation without malice, without envy, without petulance, without smallness—righteous indignation! It has been said that “spiritual beauty is first of all discerned in its reactions to evil.” The tragedy of modern Christendom is the church’s complaisance in the presence of the world’s evil! The modern pulpit seems to accept sin and vice with fatalistic calmness! But Jesus struck boldly at evil in every form. He hated sham, affectation, greed and hypocrisy. There are no denunciations in all literature quite so severe as those which he hurled against the self-righteous legalism of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-39). (4) We see in Him the beauty of strength. We have been accustomed to linking beauty with frailty. But real beauty is strength. “The words of Jesus were beauty, but it was the beauty of flashing angels driving back all the cohorts of sin. His deeds were beauty, but it was the beauty of the sun dispelling the mists of miasma, elbowing out the dark, scorching the roots of ancient evil, leading on the invincible soldiers of the day. His soul was beauty, yet before that beauty went down a mechanical Judaism, went down an unspiritualized paganism, went down the Caesars and their legions” (Dr. Geo. H. Combs). Was He not the Lamb of God? Yes—and the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Conqueror of Satan, sin and death. The grave could not hold Him, death had no dominion over Him, because of the beauty of His strength. (5) We see in Him the beauty of compassion. How compelling His attractiveness in the presence of that “poor painted disaster of the street” and her hypocritical accusers; when, without so much as looking into her face in order to spare her the added blush of shame, He so graciously bent down and began tracing letters in the shifting sands. Then when her accusers, lashed by conscience, had slunk away one by one, like whipped curs, He arose and said with ineffable tenderness, “Go thy way: from henceforth sin no more” (John 8:1-11). O those tears of Jesus! Tears of sympathy at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35). Tears of anguish over the rebelliousness of the city of His love. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! . . . how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). (6) We see in Him the beauty of perfect proportion. In Him, even as in the Father, “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalms 85:10). In Him we find love and justice perfectly balanced; sympathy and sinlessness perfectly correlated; sociability and piety perfectly proportioned; life and death perfectly related. Pascal has rightly said: “In Jesus Christ all contradictions are harmonized.” (7) Finally, we see in Him the beauty of sacrificial love. He made the one and only Supreme Sacrifice (John 15:13). That Sacrifice is the summit, the mountain peak, the highest height of either divine or human service and attainment. In everything He was beautiful! He is the One Altogether Lovely! Viewing the immaculate beauty of His character and person, we are moved to sing:
“Thou, O Christ, art all I want; More than all in Thee I find.”
21. Q. In what third respect is the perfection of the character of Jesus evidenced?
A. The perfection of the character of Jesus is evidenced, in the third place, in its blending of diverse elements.
(1) For an excellent presentation of the argument from the character of Jesus, see Bushneil, Nature and the Supernatural, pp. 276–332. Bushnell calls attention to the originality and vastness of Christ’s plan, yet its simplicity and practical adaptation; his moral traits of independence, compassion, meekness, wisdom, zeal, humility, patience; the combination in Him of seemingly opposite qualities. With all His greatness, He was always humble; He was unworldly, yet not austere; He had strong feelings, yet was always self-possessed; He had indignation toward sin, yet compassion toward the sinner; He showed devotion to His work, yet calmness under opposition; universal philanthropy, yet susceptibility to private attachments; the authority of a Savior and Judge, yet the gratitude and tenderness of a son; the most elevated devotion, yet a life of unceasing activity and exertion. Quoting again Pascal’s epigram: “In Jesus Christ all contradictions are harmonized.” (2) “Not a single gem is absent from the tiara of moral beauty which encircles his brow. And they are not only present, but they are perfectly blended. Nothing is out of proportion: the symmetry is complete. There is no one-sidedness in Him. No one virtue towered above the rest, but each was moderated and completed by its opposite grace. His character never lost its equilibrium, and hence needed readjustment or modification. He was vivacious without levity; vigorous without violence; serious without melancholy; dignified without pride or presumption. He combined the strength of the lion with the meekness of the lamb, and the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove. Every element of character finds in Him the happiest harmony—harmony like that in the summer and winter, and in the day and night” (M. M. Davis, How to Be Saved, p. 80).
22. Q. In what fourth respect is the perfection of His character evidenced?
A. The perfection of His character is evidenced, in the fourth place, by His serenity under the most trying outward conditions and circumstances.
(1) “His unrepining attitude, maintained in the presence of judicial butchery, was nothing extraordinary for Him. It had marked the whole of His public life. When He was assailed by the vituperations of scribes and the invectives of Pharisees, no bitter or passionate syllable passed His lips. He uttered no recrimination when they blasphemed and charged that His beneficence was due to collusion with demons. He was defamed as a drunkard, a madman, or what was almost worse in Jewish eyes, a Samaritan. These malignant shafts glanced off His shining armor, leaving Him serene and victorious. Arrogant and hypercritical High Priest, cruel and imperious Herod, vacillating and cowardly Pilate, could not disturb His peace. He surrendered His body to the smiter, to the lictor who bound Him on the cross, to the soldiers whose hammers drove in the nails. One prayer and one only broke that hallowed silence: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ . . . When was there such a death as this, apart from its sacramental or its theological significance? The Kingly Christ passes through the tribulations and trials of His crucial phase uncomplainingly, without accusation against those who had robbed Him of His right to justice and of His life. There have been countless deaths of moment, of honor, and of glory: found at the martyr’s stake, in the arena of the ravenous lions, and on the fields of war. But Christ’s Cross towers above them all” (Dr. S. Parkes Cadman, in The Christian Herald, Apr. 10, 1925). (2) In most men poise will be disturbed by either success or disappointment, and to the degree that the success is phenomenal and the disappointment grievous. Jesus experienced both: in His early ministry, it was success; in His later ministry, it was execration. At first His popularity was unusual and inspiring—the people even sought to make Him their king; but at the last His opposition was organized, unrelenting, deadly. Yet under these widely divergent circumstances and conditions, Jesus invariably maintained His perfect poise. Serenely He stood before Pontius Pilate; calmly He heard the sentence of death pronounced; patiently He bore the agonies of the Cross; prayerfully He remembered His mocking murderers; resignedly He committed His spirit to the heavenly Father. Not once did He falter, except for the few moments of overpowering dread and loneliness in the Garden of Gethsemane! (3) “On a barren hill beyond the city walls they nailed His perfect body to the cross. Two robbers were crucified with Him. It was over. The rabble had sickened quickly of its revenge, and scattered; His friends were hiding; the soldiers were busy casting lots for His garments. There was nothing left of the external influences which fire men’s imaginations, or grip their loyalty. Surely the victory of His enemies was complete; He could do no miracle there, hanging on a cross. And yet——‘Jesus!’ It was the voice of one of the robbers. ‘Jesus,’ he says painfully, ‘remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom!’ Read that, O men, and bow your heads. You who have let yourselves picture Him as weak, as a man of sorrows, uninspiring, glad to die. There have been leaders who could call forth enthusiasm when their fortunes ran high. But He, when His enemies had done their worst, so bore Himself that a crucified felon looked into His dying eyes and saluted Him as King!” (Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows, pp. 219–220).
23. Q. What is the theory advanced by certain scholars to account for the sinlessness of Jesus?
A. The theory advanced by certain scholars to account for His sinlessness is, that He was a man who was illumined by the Spirit of God perhaps to a greater extent than other world leaders, but withal just a man.
(1) This is the view of so-called Modernists generally, who hold that He was a man who possessed the gifts and powers of the Divine Spirit without measure beginning from the time of the Spirit’s descent upon Him following His baptism (Matthew 3:16). This fulness of divine leading and illumination is, they contend, a sufficient explanation of His matchless character and life as a man. (2) A. Maude Royden, for example, writes: “Only once has God been perfectly received. Only once has he been able altogether to enter in and take possession. This is the Incarnation. Is Jesus God then? Can we believe in the divinity of Christ? Yes: for God, his love neither destroyed nor decreased by his world turning from him and casting him out, had never rested ‘in His home in heaven,’ but sought us out. This is the truth of Immanence and Incarnation, and it was inevitable that love should act so. . . . He finds us, the human race, but none of us receives him wholly, except Jesus Christ.” Again: “In Jesus Christ we recognize humanity at its best. This has been the verdict upon him of His brothers and sisters, the rest of mankind. To this day men, even while they shrug their shoulders at the impossibility of it, admit that if we were all like Christ our problems would be solved. What is this but to admit that to be like him is to be in perfect harmony with the purpose of God?” (I Believe in God, pp. 103, 104, 127). (3) It will be seen that this explanation involves the unanswerable question of how and why it is that Jesus of Nazareth was the only one of the untold millions of humanity who did “receive God perfectly.” It raises the problem of His uniqueness, a mystery no less profound than that of His sinlessness. (3) It should be noted, too, that the advocates of this view speak and write quite fervently of the “divinity” of Christ, but they are as silent as the grave with respect to His deity. In fact they never use the term deity in writing of Him. Let it be remembered that there is a vast difference between divinity and deity, a difference not of degree but of rank.
24. Q. On what ground, then, do we reject this “divine illumination” theory?
A. We reject it on the ground that it utterly fails to account for the uniqueness of Jesus.
(1) If the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him at His baptism was the incident in which He was clothed with “divinity”—then how does it happen that other men are not made perfect by the indwelling of the Spirit? How does it happen that Jesus alone, of all humanity, possessed the Holy Spirit without measure? Moreover, the idea of the Holy Spirit dwelling without measure in an imperfect person, an ordinary human being, is an anomaly. It just doesn’t happen. But the Holy Spirit could—and did—indwell Jesus without measure, because He Himself was immaculate. (2) “Between Pilate and Titus, thirty thousand Jews are said to have been crucified around the walls of Jerusalem. Many of these were young men. What makes one of them stand out on the pages of history? There are two answers: The character of Jesus was a perfect character, and He was God as well as man” (Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 187). As Matthew Arnold has written, in “The Better Part,”
“Was Christ a man like us?
Ah, let us see If we then too can be Such men as He!”
George Bernard Shaw, “the plumed knight” of modern literature, concedes that the Christ of Luke’s Gospel “has conquered the world.” Similarly, H. G. Wells is moved to ask: “Is it any wonder that to this day this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” (The Outline of History, p. 505). And even the half-mad German philosopher, Neitzsche, declares that there has been only one Christian in all history and He died on the Cross. (3) Is it possible, then, to account satisfactorily for the uniqueness of Jesus, which is universally conceded, by non-believers and believers alike, on the basis of this “divine-illumination” theory? We answer, No; that this theory merely enhances the mystery of His uniqueness. (4) Finally, as a matter of fact it is evident that the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus following His baptism in the Jordan, was not for the purpose of imparting to Him a divine nature. He had that already by virtue of His incarnation. The coming of the Holy Spirit upon Him was for the purpose, rather, of officially launching Him upon His divine mission and work as Messiah and Redeemer of mankind. It was His official anointing (Acts 10:38); and it signified His divine authorization to enter on His public ministry.
25. Q. On what sole ground, then, can we account for the sinlessness of Jesus?
A. We can satisfactorily account for the sinlessness of Jesus only on the ground that He was God in the flesh.
(1) He not only taught as God, but He lived as God. John 14:9—“he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Matthew 27:54—“Truly this was the Son of God.” Those who would deny the supernatural element in His life and work, must account first for the sinlessness of His character. His very faultlessness is, in itself, an element quite as supernatural as His miracles. So why attack the miracles? Why not account first for the Jesus of history who is Himself the greatest mystery of all time? (2) Note carefully the following excerpt: “Here is the central miracle of Christianity: Christ. The central miracle is not the resurrection or the virgin birth or any of the other miracles: the central miracle is just this Person, for he rises in sinless grandeur above life. He is life’s Sinless Exception, therefore a miracle. Now, turn from that Central Miracle toward these lesser miracles and they become credible in the light of his Person. Being what He was, it would be amazing if he did not touch blind eyes and make the lame to walk. These miracles fit in with the central miracle of his Person. ‘Being a miracle, it would be a miracle if he did not perform miracles.’ The miracles do not carry Jesus—he carries them. The ‘whom’ carries the ‘what’—the Person carries the manifestation.” Again: “In the light of his Person I see no difficulty whatever in believing in the virgin birth. Since he rose above life in sinless grandeur, it becomes possible to believe that he rose above the ordinary processes of birth. ‘The virgin life of Jesus makes it possible to believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.’ An Arya Samajist asked me if I could produce in human history another example of the virgin birth. I replied that I could not, for I could not produce another Jesus Christ. He was the Unique, and therefore did the unique. A converted Jew was talking to an unconverted Jew when the latter asked: ‘Suppose there were a son born among us and it were claimed that he was born of a virgin, would you believe it?’ The converted Jew very thoughtfully replied: ‘I would if he were such a Son.’ That is the point. He makes it possible to believe in it. But the virgin birth does not carry Jesus: he carries it. When the emphasis is on the whom then the how becomes credible. . . . In regard to the resurrection the same things hold. Jesus rose above life. This makes it perfectly credible that he would rise above death. Two things take us all—sin and death. Jesus conquered the first—our own inward moral consciousness being witness. Will he conquer the second? It would be surprising if he did not. I say it reverently: If Jesus did not rise from the dead, he ought to have done so. The whole thing would come out wrong if the grave held him captive. When the broken and dispirited disciples, now radiant with a wild hope, whispered to each other, ‘He is risen,’ they were simply echoing what his whole life had done. Throughout his life he arose. Where we sank, he arose. The resurrection fits in with that fact. There must be an empty tomb where there is such fulness of life. . . . Do not misunderstand me. The whats of Christianity are important. A body of doctrine is bound to grow up around him. We cannot do without doctrine, but I am so anxious for the purity of doctrine that I want it to be held in the white light of his Person and under the constant corrective of his living Mind. . . . But we must hold in mind that no doctrine, however true; no statement, however correct; no teaching, however pure, can save a man. ‘We are saved by a Person, and only by a Person, and, as far as I know, by only one Person,’ said Bishop McDowell. Only Life can lift life” (E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, pp. 169–172). (3) Note the following also: “To be brought face to face with Napoleon is to become war-conscious. To be brought face to face with Shakespeare is to become drama-conscious. To be brought face to face with George Washington is to become America-conscious. To be brought face to face with Jesus Christ is to become God-conscious. What have our psychologists and sociologists and philosophers, who have thrown the Christian Gospel aside, to tell us about God? Their God has no name. They spell ether, or the cosmos, or force, or electricity, or electrons, or energy, or evolution, with a capital and let it substitute for God. The fact is, you lose your God-consciousness when you follow their lead; but when you are in the presence of Christ you immediately become God-conscious” (Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr, Old Things New, p. 43). After all these centuries there is no clearer word than Browning’s:
“What lacks then of perfection fit for God, But just the instance which this tale affords Of love without a limit? So is strength, So is intelligence, let love be so, Unlimited in self-sacrifice, Then is the tale true and God shown complete.”
Note, in this connection, the following tributes from eminent men of letters, no one of whom could on any ground be regarded as an orthodox believer:
1. John Stuart Mill, British philosopher: “But about the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality, combined with profundity of insight, which must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer and martyr to that mission who ever existed upon earth, religion can not be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of humanity; nor even now would it be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than the endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life” (Essays on Religion).
2. Emil Ludwig, modern biographer, Jewish: “All Jesus’ miracles might be shown to have been no miracles, or a hundred new miracles might be successfully ascribed to him; neither the one nor the other would diminish his greatness” (The Son of Man, Intro., p. 13).
3. Ernest Renan, French “free-thinker”: “Rest now in thy glory, noble Founder! Thy work is completed; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy efforts crumble through any fault! Henceforth beyond all frailty, thou shalt aid from the depth of thy divine peace the unending results that follow from thy deeds. At the cost of a few hours of suffering, which have not even touched thy great soul, thou hast achieved immortality the most complete. During thousands of years, the world will breathe life from thee. Around thee, as an ensign lifted above our conflicts, will be fought the hottest battle. A thousand times more living, more beloved, since thy death than during the days of thy pilgrimage here below, thou wilt become so completely the cornerstone of humanity, that to tear thy name from the record of this world would be to disturb its very foundations. Henceforth men shall draw no boundary between thee and God. Do thou, who hast completely vanquished death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither, by the royal road thou hast pointed out, long generations of adorers shall follow thee” (Life of Jesus, Last paragraph of Ch. XXV). It will thus be seen that even the rationalists cannot look at Jesus except upon their knees.
4. H. G. Wells, in an article entitled “The Three Greatest Men of History,” in Reader’s Digest, May. 1935, writes: “Of course the reader and I live in countries where to millions of persons, Jesus is more than a man. But the historian must disregard that fact. He must adhere to the evidence that would pass unchallenged if his book were to be read in every nation under the sun. Now, it is interesting and significant that a historian, without any theological bias whatever, should find that he cannot portray the progress of humanity honestly without giving a foremost place to a penniless teacher from Nazareth. The old Roman historians ignored Jesus entirely; he left no impress on the historical records of his time. Yet, more than 1900 years later, a historian like myself, who does not even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man. We still catch something of the magnetism that induced men who had seen him only once to leave their business and follow him. He filled them with love and courage. He spoke with a knowledge and authority that baffled the wise. But other teachers have done this. These talents alone would not have given him the permanent place of power which he occupies; that place is his by virtue of the new and simple and profound ideas which he released—the profound importance of the individual under the Fatherhood of God and the conception of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is one of the most revolutionary changes of outlook that has ever stirred and changed human thought. No age has even yet understood fully the tremendous challenge it carries to the established institutions and subjugations of mankind. But the world began to be a different world from the day that doctrine was preached and every step toward wider understanding and tolerance and good will is a step in the direction of that universal brotherhood Christ proclaimed. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is: ‘What did he leave to grow? Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him?’ By this test Jesus stands first.”
(I have found after several years’ association with secularly educated men—college professors—that they are prone to criticize dogmas and practices of institutionalized Christianity, without realizing that their objections do not apply to the Christianity of the apostolic age (New Testament).