01.10. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST: THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS TEACHING
CHAPTER X THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST: THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS TEACHING
There have been many attempts to formulate the teaching of Jesus Christ. Of these the earliest is that contained in the Epistle to Titus: " The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." [1] This summary of Christ’s teaching may certainly be taken as an indication of the opinions respecting that teaching entertained by the Apostolic Church, and it is clear from this summary that the Early Church thought of Christ as a systematic teacher, or, at least, as a teacher of truths which could be systematized, and which, being systematized, proved to be comprehensive and complete, covering all the categories of human experience. For man stands in four relations in his life involving ethical obligation, and only in four. First, in a relation to a material universe, and to his body, which is a part of that [1] Titus 2:11-13. material universe, through which he comes in contact with the world outside. Second, in a relation to his fellow men, that is, to human society. Third, in a relation to God. Fourth, in a relation to the future. These four include all the possible categories of experience: relation to the material world, relation to his fellow men, relation to God, and relation to the future. We stand, it is true, in a certain relation to the past; but we cannot change it, and therefore it is not a relation which affects our duty. What the Epistle to Titus declares is that Jesus Christ has taught how we should live in these four relations. He has taught us what are our ethical relations to the physical world, to our fellow men, to God, and to the future.
It is also clear that in the Apostolic age the teaching of Jesus Christ was regarded as vital and practical rather than as philosophical and theological. He taught the practical art of living rather than any abstract theory of life. If one had asked the primitive Church, in the second century, what Jesus came to teach, he would probably have been answered in the words of the Apostles’ Creed. He would have been told that the essence of Christianity lies in certain historic facts. If one had asked a couple of centuries later what was the epitome of Christ’s teaching, the answer would have been in the words of the Nicene Creed, that Jesus Christ is " God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father," in other words, that the essence of Christianity consists in certain beliefs respecting the relationship which Jesus Christ bears to the Eternal and the Infinite. If one had asked the Christians of the sixteenth century, whether Protestant or Roman ’Catholic, they would have presented in reply certain theories of the universe as constituting the essence of Christianity. We find them to-day embodied in the Creed of Pius IY, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, or in the Thirty-nine Articles. But in this earliest summary of Christ’s instruction he is represented as teaching, not what we should think, but how we should live. There is nothing in this epitome concerning theological or other opinions. It concerns itself wholly with life. Jesus Christ has come to teach us that we should live soberly, righteously, godly, and hopefully in this present world.
I. What does Jesus Christ mean by soberly? In the first century the condition of the world was that of gross animalism. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of a very few. At least half the world were slaves, and of the other half the great majority lived in abject poverty. At the same time a few lived in the possession of wealth so great that they knew not what to do with it. The result was a state of dissipation and degradation almost incredible in our times. The world was ransacked for materials to add to the gratification of the body. From two hundred thousand dollars to four hundred thousand dollars were sometimes spent on a single banquet. It is said of one man that he spent four millions of dollars in luxurious eating and drinking, and then committed suicide because he had only four hundred thousand dollars between himself and starvation. The feasts lasted for days, often for a week. Sometimes a governor was appointed, who required men to drink their due quota of wine. The grossness of indulgence in animal passion was such that it is impossible to describe it in explicit terms in such a volume as this.
Such a state of affairs called for reform, and there were those who proposed reform. There grew up sects which declared that all animal pleasure was shameful, degrading, sinful. In Rome were the Stoics, who claimed that pleasure was always degrading. In Palestine were the Pharisees and the Essenes, who, in different forms, made the same claim. The Pharisees were the Puritans of the first century. They were the separatists. They lived in the world, mixed with the world, made money, went to feasts, had fine houses, wore fine clothes; but they held that religion was apart from this life. When they feasted, they were not religious; to be religious they fasted. They were not religious when they lived in fine clothes; to be religious they took off their fine clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes.
Religion consisted in separating themselves from the enjoyments in which for most of the time they indulged. The Essenes were more consistent, if less practical. They separated themselves from the world; lived away from the towns where the temptations were great; gathered in little villages or in settlements in the desert; forbade, it is said, though this is doubtful, all use of meat and of wine; certainly forbade all -marriage. They cut themselves off from everything in life from which it was possible to cut themselves off, and still maintain an existence.
This, broadly speaking, was the condition of the world when Jesus came into it, - on the one hand, men giving themselves up to unbridled lust and appetite, without restraint of any kind; on the other hand, men saying, All indulgence in pleasure is irreligious, and to be religious we will take certain times for denial of the body, or, more consistently, saying, We will deny the body entirely as far as we can do so and still keep soul and body together.
It would not be difficult to find in our own time parallels to both these classes. On the one hand, there are men and women - a few, though not so many now as there were in the Middle Ages - who hold that the highest religion requires that we should separate ourselves from the world altogether; there are many more who hold that religion consists in cutting off certain things which they characterize as worldly. It is irreligious to play cards, but not to play dominoes; to play billiards, but not to play croquet; to go to the theatre, but not to witness tableaux. A line is drawn; all on one side of the line is wrong, all on the other side of ^he line is right. There is more than one man who eats poor pastry and drinks strong coffee until his flesh is as flabby as the one and his skin as yellow as the other, and yet thinks that he is a temperance man because he does not drink beer. Such men conceive that religion requires us to put certain things in packages and write " prohibited " on them, and certain other things in packages and write "permitted " on them.
Jesus Christ did not accept any such notion.
He came into the world, and in the world lived as a man among men. He was no ascetic. His first miracle was making wine at a wedding, simply to add to the festivities of that joyous occasion. He continued throughout his life in the same spirit. The sect of Essenes, who separated themselves from the world, he did not join. John the Baptist, as a protest against the sensuality of his time, went into the wilderness and lived there on locusts and wild honey. Jesus pursued the opposite course. John, he said, came neither eating nor drinking; the Son of man came eating and drinking. It is not recorded that in the history of his life he ever declined an invitation to a feast. Sometimes it was given to him by the rich, sometimes by the poor, sometimes by a Pharisee, sometimes by a publican; but whoever gave it, he went. He accepted the common pleasures of life, and was not prevented from so doing by the fear that his example would be misinterpreted. It was misinterpreted: because he came eating and drinking, men said of him that he was a wine-bibber and a glutton; they lied, but still he went on eating and drinking as before. [1], And what he -did he advised others to do.
Again and again he portrayed a great feast to illustrate the kingdom of God. He never spoke of dancing with displeasure, and more than once with apparent commendation. He spoke of the sports and games of the children in the market-place with apparent approbation. He told the story of a boy who had wandered off into a far country, and come back after his experience with the harlots, footsore, ragged, unkempt, poverty-stricken, and when his father received him it was to music and dancing and a feast. Paul, in one of his letters, tells us in a phrase which has been often misquoted and misinterpreted what he thinks the spirit and teaching of Christ embody on this subject. "Wherefore,"
Paul says, u if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, [such as], Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using; after the commandments and doctrines of men? " " Touch not, taste not, handle not "! How often that has been quoted as though that were the law laid down by Christianity! Paul [1] John 2:1-11; Matthew 11:18-19; Luke 12:36; Luke 11:37; Luke 14:1; Luke 19:2-5; Matthew 9:10; Matthew 26:6-7. quotes it from pagan literature, and says to Christians: You are free from that law if you are a follower of Christ. You are to touch, you are to taste, you are to handle; the world is yours. That is the first teaching of Christ. [1], But while Christ was not prevented from taking the innocent pleasures of the world even by the misrepresentation and abuse which resulted from it, his happiness did not depend on what we call pleasure, - on fine clothes, fine houses, fine food, or anything that ministers merely to the body. He took these things if they came; he left them alone if they did not come; but he did not care. A man said to him once, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest; he said, Will you? Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests; I have not where to lay my head. He went to all sorts of feasts provided for him, but the food that he provided for himself was apparently of the simplest kind. One incident tells us what it was. A great crowd listened all day long; they were hungry; Christ wished to feed them. He turns to his disciples: What provision have we? Five crackers and two little fishes - like our sardines - the humblest food of the peasants. This was his food. He lived a poor man, and poverty did not trouble him. He depended on the charity of men for his livelihood while he taught them, and he told his disciples to do the same. When he sent them forth, he said, Take no money [1] Matthew 11:16-17; Luke 15:25; Colossians 2:20-23. in your purse; depend on what men will give to you.
Once he came out from Jerusalem and stopped at the house of a friend. There were two sisters. One of them was interested in his teaching, and sat at his feet, listening to him; the other bustled about the house to get a great supper for him. When the busy sister called on him to send her sister to help her he refused. He preferred the listening pupil to the too busy housekeeper. He would rather teach than eat. He and his disciples had no servant.
Once when they came in from a long walk, tired, footsore, with soiled feet, - they wore no shoes and stockings in those days, and therefore men washed their feet as we wash our hands before meals, - and there was no one to do this for them, he poured the water into the basin and washed their feet himself. [1], He was no Stoic, but he was no epicure; he was no Pharisee, but he was no Sadducee; he was no Puritan, but he was no Cavalier. He did not depend for his happiness on the things the world gives, and he told his disciples not to depend on them. Happiness, he said to them, is a disposition, not a condition.
Men are happy according to what they are, not according to what they have. Blessedness depends on character, not on possession; on what you are, not on what you have; on how you live, not on where you live. The true man is independent of his possessions. This was his teaching, and it was [1] Matthew 8:20, Matthew 14:16-17; Luke 10:4-11, Luke 10:38-40; John 13:1-5. taught by him in his life as well as by his words.
He lived it as well as taught it. Sobriety with him did not mean cutting off certain things and allowing himself certain other things; it meant counting all things as his if he chose to use them, and yet not depending for his pleasure on them. For sobriety involved, in the second place, the fundamental principle that things are for men, not men for things. This principle had been announced by an unknown Hebrew prophet in that wonderful poem which describes the creation of the world.
" So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." [1] All things are made for man, - all material things, all animal things, - made that they may be the servitors of man, that they may make him happier and wiser and better. All animals are his servants, and the animal nature that is a part of him is no less his servant. The animal in the man is made to serve that which is higher than the animal in the man, as all external things are made to serve him. This was a fundamental principle both in the teaching and in the living of Jesus. All material things outside and all material things [1] Genesis 1:27-28. within the man himself are made for the intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, the immaterial. The lower must serve the higher. When he saw a man who did not understand this principle, and who thought there was joy in the simple possession of things, he called him - for sometimes he spoke in very plain language - a fool.
He told the story of a man who, having filled his barns to bursting, said, What shall I do? I have no more barns to dispose of my goods. I will build greater barns, and put my harvests in the greater barns, and I will say to myself, Eat, drink, and be merry. And then Jesus said, God called to him, Thou fool, this night thy life shall be required of thee. A man who cannot think of anything better to do with things than to fill his house with them, and then build another house and fill that with them, and then a third house and fill that with them, Jesus calls a fool. And there are a great many such fools in America. He put this truth again explicitly in a question which it will be well for Americans to ponder: " What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own life? " [1] The world is made for life, and if a man exchanges his life for the world, what does he gain? Yet there is many a man who does exactly this. He can purchase pictures in France or Germany or England, and pay what prices he will, but he has no eyes for [1] Luke 12:16-21; Matthew 15:26. This is the meaning of the Greek word " soul." art. He can buy libraries, and with them make beautiful wall-paper for his rooms, but the only books he cares for are the ledger and the day-book.
He has money which will enable him to put all the luxuries of all the markets on his table, and a digestion which forbids him to eat any of them. He has lost his life in gaining things. In our American world are many such men. In contrast with such living, common now, almost universal then, Jesus said, Things are for men, not men for things. His first affirmation is, Your happiness does not depend upon what you have, but upon what you are; his second, Things are for you, not you for things. To live soberly according to the example and teaching of Jesus Christ is to live under the guidance and inspiration of these two simple and fundamental principles. It is not to put certain things on one side and say, I will not take those, and certain things on the other side and say, I will take those, - it is to say, I will take everything that will help me to be a better man, and nothing that will not help me to be a better man.
There are three conceptions possible respecting our relation to the material world. First: that we should give ourselves up to the enjoyment of it: let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.
Rome did that, and Rome died; and the land that had given a Cicero, a Caesar, a Tacitus, a Sallust, a Virgil, lay for centuries dead, killed by its own self-indulgence. The second is, to shut one’s self off from the world, and shut off all those things in the world that bring what we call pleasure. The Puritans tried this plan. They broke the glass windows in the cathedrals, destroyed the statues, tore down the pictures from the walls, prohibited the novel, shut the door of the theatre. But all that they abolished came back again: the stained-glass windows are in Puritan churches; the statues are restored to the niches; the pictures are on the walls; the theatre doors are wide open; the novel is here to stay. The third method is the method of consecration. It is the method of one who says, Whatever I can use to make myself, my family, my world wiser, better, happier, I will enjoy; and what I cannot so use I will prohibit to myself. This was the method which Christ urged alike by his precept and example. Soberly, as interpreted by Christ, means the free use of all things in the service and for the upbuilding of the spirit. It is interpreted by Paul in his declaration to the Corinthians, " All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." [1] All teachers, all material things, all activities, present and future, all belong to us, to use as Christ used them, in loyalty to God and in the service of our fellow men.
II. What does Jesus Christ mean by righteously?
What did he teach concerning the right relation of man to his fellow men? In interpreting the teaching of Jesus Christ we ought not to forget, as we are too apt to do, that he was a Jew and primarily a teacher to Jews, and that he assumed as the basis of his teaching the fundamental faiths held and inculcated by the Hebrew prophets. And fundamental to their teaching was the doctrine that God is a righteous God; that he demands righteousness of his children, and demands nothing else; that the one thing that arouses his anger is man’s inhumanity to man; that the one way to please him is for man to serve his fellow man.
It is true that there had grown up in Judaism an elaborate sacrificial system, a great temple, and a great priesthood; but this sacrificial system, with its priesthood and its temple, was not essential to the Hebrew religion. That it was not is evident from two facts: first, that, as modern scholars have abundantly shown, this system did not exist in anything like the form in which we now find it in the Old Testament until the fifth or sixth century before Christ; second, that with the destruction of Jerusalem, seventy years after the birth of Christ, the temple, the sacrificial system, and the priesthood disappeared. No Jew now offers sacrifices, no Jew now recognizes a priesthood, and yet the religion of the Hebrew people remains to-day fundamentally what it was fifteen hundred years before Christ.
Jesus Christ has himself given a summary of the Hebrew religion, as it is to be found in the writings of its great law-giver and the subsequent prophets, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto- it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." * All the law and all the prophets are the development and application of these two principles, or this twofold spirit. In thus summarizing the Hebrew law and prophets Jesus summarized his own reply to the question, What is righteousness? In his first sermon at Nazareth, in defining his mission in the terms of an ancient Hebrew prophet, he significantly ignored all ecclesiastical requirements, and summed up the object of his mission in terms of helpfulness to suffering humanity. His mission, he said, was to bring glad tidings to the poor, healing to the broken-hearted, deliverance to the captives, sight to the blind, liberty to the bruised. When John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to ask if Jesus was the Messiah, this work of help and healing was the only evidence of his Messiahship which he offered: " Tell John," he said, " what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the glad tidings are preached." 2 Christ’s whole ministry is in harmony with this [1] Matthew 22:35-40. a Luke 2:16-19; Luke 7:19-23. teaching. In his parables he portrayed, as his ideals of the religion which he taught, not characters famous for devoutness or theological lore or mystical faith, - he portrayed men who, living common lives, lived them on the plane of a high and noble morality. The farmer who was diligently sowing seed; the father who received back into his arms the wayward son; the man who, having found the pearl of great price, did not put it in his pocket, but looked for the owner and sold all that he had in order that he might buy it honestly; the steward who administered a great estate fairly for his lord, and was ready to return a good account of it when the time of administration had passed, - such were the men Christ held up before his disciples as his conception of religious men. To illustrate this principle he told a story which has often been misunderstood because the emphasis of it has been disregarded.
He assumed the common belief of his time in a future hell and a future heaven. According to that belief, to hell the heathen and the heretics and the publicans and sinners were sent. Christ told the story of two men, one of whom fared sumptuously every day and was clothed in purple and fine linen, and, so far as the account went, did no harm to any one - simply did no good, leaving the poor man to suffer at his door, while the dogs licked his sores. And Christ said that this is the kind of man who is to go to hell, the man who leaves suffering and trouble and sorrow unrelieved in the world when he has power to relieve it. Once, and only once, be drew a picture of the judgment. God, he said, will set men on his right hand and on his left, as the sheep and the goats might be divided by a shepherd, and he will say to those on the one hand, " Come, ye blessed of my’ Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, and to those on the other, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And when they ask why, he will reply, You shall go into everlasting punishment because you did not feed the hungry, you did not clothe the naked, you did not visit the sick and the imprisoned; and, You shall go into everlasting life because you did feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and visit the sick and the imprisoned. [1], This, Christ’s teaching, was emphasized by his example. He was not a priest. He went to the Temple and the Temple feasts, but apparently because the people crowded there and thus afforded him an opportunity for teaching. He never, so far as we have any account, sacrificed for himself. Again and again he told men their sins were forgiven them, and never told them to offer a sacrifice for their sins. Once, indeed, he sent a leper to the Temple, but it was because the priest was the health officer of that time, and the leper must have a clean bill of health from the priest before he could go back into society.
[1] Matthew 13:3-9, Matthew 13:45-46; Matthew 25:14-46; Luke 10:30-37; Luke 15:11-32; Luke 16:19-31. The life of Jesus Christ was not spent in ceremonial observance; it was spent in going about doing good. He gave himself to his fellow men. He fed the hungry, comforted the sorrowing, helped the discouraged, instructed the ignorant. Never, within the limits of the human strength which was given to him, did he refuse aid to those who came to him for aid. No barrier could separate him from his fellow men. It was deemed in that time irreligious to teach pagans. He taught pagans as well as Jews. It was considered indecorous to preach religion to women; he never hesitated to preach to women. No moral degradation was sufficient to separate man or woman from his sympathy. The woman that was a sinner, the woman that to-day scarce any man is willing to recognize as a hopeful object of redemption, to her he brought the words of hope; to her he said, "Thy sins are forgiven, go in peace." * In these teachings of Christ concerning man’s relation to his fellow men, there are five great laws of life which he inculcated. Let us look at them separately. 2
First was the principle of human brotherhood, " All ye are brethren," and " One is your Father which is in heaven." That motto which has come into our American industrial life might well be [1] Matthew 9:6-13; Luke 12:36-50; John 8:2-11.
3 These laws of the Christian life I have treated more fully in Christianity and Social Problems. founded on his teaching, for it expresses his spirit, "An injury to one is an injury to all." But he taught it with a far wider application than is common in our time. The injury to one laborer is an injury to other laborers; but it is also an injury to the capitalist. The injury to one capitalist is an injury to other capitalists; it is also an injury to the laborer. Whatever builds up the interest of the one class builds up the interest of the other; whatever injures the interest of the one injures the interest of the other. We are one great corporate body, one universal brotherhood. And the basis for this doctrine is a religious basis. It is easy to understand why I am brother to the man whom I meet in daily social intercourse, to the man who worships in the same church with me, to the American born on the same soil and having the same blood in his veins; but why am I brother to the man in a wholly different social circle, to the Jew, the pagan, the unbeliever, to the stranger and foreigner, to those men who are outside my life and never come in touch with me? Why? Because we are children of one Father which is in heaven. The fatherhood of God - without that there is no brotherhood of man; and without the brotherhood of man there is no fatherhood of God. The two go together; the one cannot be separated from the other. The second great law that Jesus enunciated was the Golden Rule of honesty; and he enunciated it in these words: " All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." [1], That is not, as it is sometimes called, a law of love; it is a law of justice. Who am I that I should demand of my neighbor what I would not give to him if we were to change places? Equity demands that anything which I ask of him I should be ready to give to him, and anything which I should be willing to ask of him if we changed places, he has a right to ask of me. This is not charity, this is justice. It is expressed in the familiar motto, Put yourself in his place. It is a very simple principle, and it is very easy of application.
What are the duties of the preacher and pastor?
What he would wish of his pastor if he were a layman in the pew. What are the duties of the doctor? What he would desire if he were the patient and the doctor came to see him. What does the lawyer owe to the client? What he would desire of his lawyer if he were the client. What are the duties of the workingman? What, if he were the employer, he would ask of his workingman. What are the duties of the capitalist? What he would expect the capitalist to do for him if he were a laboring man. What does the mistress owe the cook in her kitchen? They are sisters, one in the kitchen, one in the parlor: let each put herself in the other’s place and then ask and answer the question. This is Christ’s law of honesty: Whatever you would demand of another, that you owe to [1] Matthew 7:12. him. It is a ploughshare that runs deep, and were it to run through American society it would be found in many respects revolutionary; but no man can question its inherent and absolute justice. The third law of righteousness which Christ propounded is that property is a trust. There is a familiar motto, What is mine is my own. That Jesus Christ emphatically denied. All wealth is really common wealth. Every man is contributing to his neighbor, whether he will or whether he will not. How many men contributed to make the breakfast we ate this morning! Our coffee came from Mexico, our sugar from Louisiana, our milk from Orange County, our beefsteak from Chicago, and our wheat bread from Minneapolis. How many contributed to make the clothes we wear! How many men are dead who contributed to make this contribution possible! How many lives have been sunk in making the great flour mill in Minneapolis!
How many lives in making the loom that wove our garments! Can we pay the dead? Can we pay even the living? Every man is debtor to every other man. As well might one spring that has contributed to the Croton reservoir claim its own separate drops of water, and say, These are mine, as for any man to say, What has come into my possession even by my industry I have made myself. No man ever made his wealth; be it little or much, the whole world has contributed to make it.
Communism affirms that inasmuch as all property is made in common, all property should be administered in common. Christ drew no such deduction; neither did he condemn it. He said nothing against men’s administering their property in common, he said nothing in favor of it; he simply said that all property is a trust, and whatever man has, be it little or be it much, he holds it in trust for his fellow men. [1] It is said of a great railroad magnate that he is worth a hundred million dollars or more. What does that mean? It simply means that he is the administrator of an enormous trust. His wealth is not, and cannot be, expended on himself. He cannot wear more clothes at a time than his poor neighbor, nor eat more food without injuring his digestion, nor live at any one time in more houses. He has some advantages. If he is sick, he can call in what medical attendance he likes; and yet the poorest man may get the best medical attendance in our great hospitals. He can have what books he wishes to read; and yet we are coming to the time when the great public libraries will give the best books to all men. He owns a great railroad, that is, he operates a great highway; and if he is a man of honesty, he operates it for the benefit of the people. Our food, our clothes, our provisions, the products of our labor, come and go on this great highway which he owns and operates.
It is a trust in his hands to administer for the benefit of the American people. That which eight [1] Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27. een centuries ago was the declaration of Jesus Christ is to-day the declaration of our own courts of justice. It is not only Christianity, it is law today; for the courts declare that the great highway belongs to the people, and that the man who seems to own it is but a trustee and must administer it under their control and according to their direction. The fourth law of righteousness which Christ enunciated was: He that would be greatest among you, let him be servant of all. The greatness of a man is measured by the greatness of the service he renders. Are we put into this world to see how much we can get out of it, or to see how much we can put into it? The issue is perfectly simple, and yet it is one of those alphabetic issues that, because it is so simple, men constantly forget. No man is worthy to be called a man who is not ambitious so to live that the world will be left richer and better and happier and wiser because he has lived in it. No man is worthy to be called a man who is, as a rule, idle; there is work that he can do. If he walks the streets with ragged shoes and ragged clothes, he is a tramp; if he travels the continent in Pullman cars and does nothing for the world he lives in, he is the worse tramp of the two, because with less excuse for his idleness. The unprofitable servant Christ condemned because he was unprofitable. A man or a nation is like a fruit tree; if it bears no fruit for the benefit of others, " cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? " The onlyexcuse for leaving it is the hope that it may justify itself by becoming useful. [1] This world is not a grab-bag in which we are all to put our hands, some to draw a prize and some a blank. It is a great confederacy in which every man is appointed to render some service to his fellow man. The fifth law of righteousness which Christ enunciated was the law which his greatest follower epitomized in the sentence, " Overcome evil with good."
Christianity is medicinal. Christianity offers to help men to be better men; and Christ has told us how we are to accomplish that for our fellow men. " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." 2 Not by wrath, not primarily nor chiefly by pain and penalty, but by love and service and self-sacrifice, is the world to be made right. The penologists are beginning themselves to accept this principle, and to recognize that we need in our country, not a system of justice which will give to every offense its proper proportion of suffering, but a system of mercy which will give to every man who has been thrust into wrong-doing by circumstances, or who has walked into wrong-doing [1] Luke 13:6-9.
These are the five great laws which Christ enunciated as laws of social righteousness: First, the law of human brotherhood, - we are all one organic whole; second, tfie law of human justice, - put yourself in his place and do to your neighbor as you would have him do to you; third, the law of possession - count all property a trust to be administered for the world; fourth, the law of activity - all life is a service, and he is the greatest man who renders the greatest service; and, fifthly, the law of healing - love, not wrath. As Jesus Christ was about to die, he called the twelve disciples about him and said to them, " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." [1] His life gave to love a new significance. Not that self-sacrifice had never been known before, but never on such a scale and with such an inspiration. He did not merely love his neighbor as he loved himself; he loved men and gave himself for them. As he marched to death women followed after him weeping tears of pity, and he turned toward them with the word, " Weep not for me; weep for yourselves." The soldiers laid him on the cross and drove the nails through his quivering hands and feet. He cried for mercy, not for himself, but for the men who were nailing
1 John 13:34. him to the cross. As he hung there, the hot sun beating upon his head, the pestering gnats stinging his unprotected face, his head throbbing with unutterable anguish, he saw before him his mother and his beloved disciple; and in that hour, when he might well have looked to them for strength, he thought alone of them and their future loneliness, and when he could no longer speak a completed sentence, in broken accents he commended them each to the other’s care: " Mother - look - thy son! Son - look - thy mother! " And so he died. And from that figure comes down through the ages this word, that every man might well honor and revere: As I have loved you, that so also ye love one another. This was the consummation of Christ’s law of righteousness.
III. What did Jesus Christ mean by godly?
What did he teach, what by his life did he exemplify concerning the relation between God and man? We are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.
What, if anything, can we know of this Infinite and Eternal Energy? What are or may be our conscious relations to it? To these questions there are four answers which have been given by serious thinkers, and more or less widely accepted by large bodies of men.
First is the answer of agnosticism, the answer of those who reply, We can know nothing about this Infinite and Eternal Energy, except that it exists, and that it transcends our knowledge. This answer underlies Confucianism. It is the basis of the religious philosophy of the Chinese, and of what is known in this country by the general name of the School for Ethical Culture. It may be epitomized in a sentence thus: We are and always must be ignorant concerning the character of God; therefore we would best cease trying to know him or worship him or obey him, and give ourselves to the service of our fellow men whom we can know. [1], The second answer is that of ancient paganism. It is, that we can know this Infinite and Eternal Energy as a great and awful power, - moving towards unknown ends, to which it is conducting all things as irresistibly as the glacier, - and as impassible.
It is the affirmation that there is a great power in the universe, but a power without what we are accustomed to regard as moral principles, and certainly without moral sympathies. A religion founded on this conception will be, as it always has been, a religion of fear. Plutarch has graphically portrayed it, Of all fears none so dazes and confounds as that of superstition. He fears not the sea that never goes to sea; nor a battle, that follows not the camp; nor robbers, that stirs not abroad; nor malicious reformers, that is a poor man; nor emulation, that leads a private life; nor earthquakes, that dwells in Gaul; nor thunderbolts, that dwells in Ethiopia; but he that dreads divine powers [1] For a full exposition of this doctrine see John Cotter Morison, The Service of Man. dreads everything, - the land, the sea, the air, the sky, the dark, the light, the sound, a silence, a dream. [1], The third conception of this Infinite and Eternal Energy is that it is a Person, who stands related to the human race somewhat as a king stands related to his subjects. He is an awful Person, an inexorable Person, perhaps a terrible Person, but he is a just Person. He has made certain laws; they are like edicts issued by a king. We must understand them and obey them or suffer the consequences. In this conception of religion conscience comes to reinforce fear, and fear to reinforce conscience. This was the earlier Jewish conception, - God a Lawgiver; the moral laws edicts or statutes issued from God; men his subjects, who must understand his laws and obey them. But in this conception, God appears to stand apart from the world that he has made, as the mechanic stands apart from the engine which he has made; and apart from the human race which he governs, as the king stands apart from the people whom he governs. He resides in the palace; they reside in their peasant homes. The fourth answer to our question is that God is the friend of humanity. This was the conception of the later Hebraism. It believed that God was a righteous Person, a King, but it believed that he was much more than a king. John Cotter Morison has thus, in a sentence, characterized this later Hebrew faith, [1] Plutarch’s Morals, i, 169, 170. The Jew was, therefore, on a footing of familiarity and intimacy, so to speak, with his God, to which the metaphysical Greek, with his wide discourse of reason, never attained. To the Jew, God is the great companion, the profound and loving yet terrible friend of his inmost soul, with whom he holds communion in the sanctuary of his heart, to whom he turns, or should turn, in every hour of adversity or happiness. [1], Put side by side these four conceptions of the Infinite and Eternal Energy. First: We can know nothing about this Energy: let us leave it alone and go on our way. Second: This Energy is awful, terrible, a power to be dreaded: let us appease its wrath by sacrifice and win its favor by gifts. Third: This Energy is that of a just and righteous Person, but an inexorable Lawgiver; we must conform to his laws or suffer the penalty.
Fourth: He is a sympathetic Person, friendly, companionable, helpful; if we lay hold upon him rightly, he will lay hold upon us and we can count upon his assistance. These are the four great conceptions of the Infinite and Eternal Energy. What was the teaching of Jesus Christ?
He was not an agnostic. He claimed a personal acquaintance with God. He said of himself, " As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father. " He did not look back across the centuries to find what Moses or David or Isaiah told him. He knew the Father; had personal acquaintance with [1] John Cotter Morison: The Service of Man, p. 181. him; the relationship between him and the Father was that of intimate, confidential friendship. He conversed with the Father. He was accustomed to go into the mountain-top and spend long nights in talking with this Father. He heard what the Father had to say, and he told his disciples that the messages which he brought to them he received from the Father. He had no fear of this Father, with whom he lived in these intimate and close relationships. He never calls him the Great King, or the Holy One of Israel, or the just and righteous God, or the Infinite and Eternal Energy, or the Almighty Power: he calls him Father. I think only once in the Gospels does he address him as God, and that is when he dies upon the cross, and even then the personal relation is manifested in the cry, " My God! my God! " Jesus Christ believed that he knew the Father, that he lived intimately with the Father, that he had friendship with the Father, that he talked to the Father, that the Father talked to him. He said in one of his recorded prayers, " I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always." [1] He would no more have discussed the question whether God hears prayer than we would discuss the question whether we can talk with our friends. He was as sure of personal converse with the Father as we are sure of personal converse and communion with our earthly companions.
[1] John 11:41-42. And this Father was not to him some One apart from him, some One who issued laws which he must obey if he would escape the penalty of disobedience. The will of his Father was the very sustenance of his life. ’He wished to do what his Father wished him to do. It was so from very childhood. In the one incident that we have recorded about him as a boy, he wondered that his father and mother should have looked anywhere else for him in the Holy City, with its architectural splendor, its shops, its processions, its crowds of people, its varied magnificence, except in the one university of the city, trying to find out his Father’s will. This at the beginning of his life. And at its close almost his last prayer was, Thy will, not mine, be done. [1] A husband and wife grow up together in loving friendship. As the years go by, the color of their eyes and the very form of their features seem to change. They grow more and more into even the physical likeness of each other. They come into such closeness of relationship that the wife does not need to hear what the husband has to say, nor the husband what the wife has to say, but each, by a kind of telegraphy, perceives the wish and will of the other, through an all-mastering love. These two are one. So Christ was one with the Father, thinking the Father’s thoughts, living the Father’s life, loving the Father, talking with the Father. Was this to be exceptional? On the contrary, [1] John 4:34; Luke 2:49; Matthew 26:42. what he claimed for himself he taught his disciples to expect for themselves. He did not undertake to tell us about God; he undertook to introduce us to God. A little babe does not know anything about the mother, but she knows the mother. I may not know anything about God, but according to Jesus Christ, I can know God. For Jesus Christ taught that God, who is his Father, is also our Father. "When his disciples asked him, How shall we come to God? he replied in substance, Tell him the things you want. You are hungry, ask him for bread; in perplexity, ask him to guide you; in temptation, ask him to make you strong, that you may put the temptation under foot; you have fallen, ask him to lift you up and put you on your feet again. He will listen to you, for he cares for you. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground and he does not know it; and you are worth a great deal more to him than sparrows. Ask your father-heart, Will you not give good gifts to your children? and do you not think that He will give good gifts to you? Do not be afraid of him; he is not one to be afraid of. Have you done wrong? Still do not be afraid of him. Have you sinned against him? Still do not be afraid of him. Have you sinned against him times and ways without number, so that you are no more worthy to be called his son? Still do not be afraid of him. To illustrate this truth Christ told the story of a boy who sinned, deliberately sinned, ran away from his father, spent his substance in riotous living and with harlots, and never thought to turn back to his home again until he was sick, hungry, friendless, and famished; and when he returned, the father uttered no word of reproach, no word of condemnation, but welcomed him, saying, I have been waiting for you; here is the robe, the ring, the thanksgiving dinner. This was Christ’s interpretation of our relation to the Infinite and the Eternal Energy from which all things proceed, that we may be one with this Father; that we may have our will attuned in accord with the Father’s will; that we may live in fellowship and companionship with him; that the Father offers to pour bis life into our lives that we may live. And his last prayer for his disciples was " That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." This is the summary of Christ’s teaching concerning God: The Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed is a loving Person, a Father who cares for his children; we can know him; we can talk with him; we can get answers from him; we can come into fellowship with him; we can live in the kind of unity with him that a husband lives with a wife, or a friend with a friend.
IV. Jesus Christ’s teaching respecting the future is expressed by the phrase, " Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ." * This glory of our God [1] So in the Revised Version. and Saviour Jesus Christ is the consummation of his kingdom on the earth, a kingdom which Paul has defined as " righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." [1]
It would be difficult to find a more hopeful teacher in history than Jesus of Nazareth. The times were indeed dark; moral life seemed to have died out of the human heart; there were no philosophers in Greece, only sophists, no prophets in Palestine, only scribes, no justice in Rome, only despotic power. In that day, to that people, the message of Jesus was, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
More audacious optimism the world has never seen. And a large part of his teaching was concerned with what he called, and what his people had called before him, the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven. The phrase " kingdom of heaven " has sometimes misled men. They have imagined heaven as a celestial sphere apart from the earth, and the kingdom of heaven as a kingdom in that celestial sphere. But the kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom in heaven, - it is a kingdom which is to come, on earth as it is in heaven. We speak of the " American idea." Whether we meet it in France or Germany or Italy or England, still, if it is the spirit of Americanism, we call it the American idea. We speak of the " Republic of letters," meaning by it that common life which is derived from a common experience [1] Romans 14:17. and a common enjoyment of literature. So the Master spoke of the kingdom of heaven, not as something that was to take place in heaven, but as something that was to take place on the earth, which was interpreted by the imagination which men have of heaven, and deriving its power and its spirit from heaven. What is the kingdom of the sun? It is here on earth, and is in everything that lives and moves. It sings in the bird, and waits in the egg not yet hatched; it is in the fragrant blossom and in the bud unopened; it is in the blades of grass upspringing, and in the germinant seeds just breaking through their shell in the darkness of the earth. So is the kingdom of heaven already here, - here, as the day is here when the sun begins to rise; here, as the summer is here when spring begins to come; here, as manhood is here when the babe lies in the cradle, for the man begins when he is born. The kingdom of God begins when it is first upon the earth, and it is first on the earth when the spirit of righteousness and justice and love and peace is in the hearts of men and is working its way into the institutions of men. So Christ said, The kingdom of God is among you. Look for it in the mother’s love, in the hero’s sacrifice, in the patriot’s devotion; look for it in the honest laborer, the faithful servant, the loyal friend. It is here; it is now. And yet it is only here in the beginning. For Jesus further taught, respecting this social order, that it must come by a gradual process of growth. The kingdom of heaven, he said, is like a seed planted in the ground, which groweth secretly, no man knows how: first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Out of the previous condition will grow the following condition; out of the poorer will grow the better; out of the cold earth will grow the fruit for the food of men. Christ was an evolutionist long before the word evolution was known. He never defined evolution; but he declared that the spiritual laws of the universe are the same as the physical laws of the universe; that as the plant grows gradually from the lower to the higher, from the simpler to the more complex, so must the kingdom of God grow. Little by little, according to him, the world was to grow better; by no sudden, no revolutionary, no cataclysmic force. Those of us who have believed in the Master sometimes grow weary of waiting, and wonder if the dawn will ever come; but we ought not to be surprised at the delay.
He gave us fair warning. Again and again he told his disciples that the process would be a long and slow one. But not only is this kingdom of God coming gradually; it has to fight its way. When love comes into the world, will not every man welcome love? Will not all men throw open their doors and say, Come into our homes? Will not industry open its doors and say, Come into our factories? Will not every heart say, Come in and rule in me? Alas, no! Love finds wrong, and fights against wrong, and wrong arms itself to kill love.
Love sets itself in battle array against what men call vested rights, but which should be called vested wrongs, and vested wrongs arm themselves to crucify love. It was so then; it always has been so. And Christ foretold it. Do not expect, he says, that you will be better treated than I have been.
They have called me Beelzebub; they will call you Beelzebub. They have persecuted me; they will persecute you. They have reviled and maligned me; they will revile and malign you. Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. If that time comes, be sure you are not doing a good work in the world.
He told us that the kingdom of God would have to battle against the inertia and the laziness of men, against the dull content that says, What was good enough for our grandfathers is good enough for us; against the spirit that says, What has been must be. The kingdom of God, he said, is like a little leaven - the ancient yeast - that is put into a lump of dough. It takes time for it to pervade the lump of dough; time for it to change the character of the lump of dough; and it can do it only by fermentation and agitation. So Christ himself had to battle against this inertia in his own disciples. They did not understand him. He looked upon them sometimes with pathetic sadness, saying, Shall the Son of man find faith on the earth when he returns? How long have I been with you, and you have not understood me! It has been well said, when he talked in parables they thought he was talking literally; when he talked literally they thought he was talking in parables. He had to work his way into the hearts of men through parables despite them. Having ears, he said, they hear not; and eyes, they see not; and hearts, they cannot understand. It was so then; it is so now; it will be so till the end is achieved. Truth makes its way against the inertia of mankind. But not only that, it makes its way also against open opposition. Christ compared the kingdom of heaven to wheat sown in the field; and when men went out to cultivate the wheat, they found tares growing by the side of the wheat. They said, Shall we not pull up the tares? No, replied the householder; if you do, you will uproot good wheat; let them both grow together, the good and the evil. That is a part of the history of the kingdom of God; both grow together, the evil with the good.
Increased civilization brings increased temptations, and increased temptations bring increased vices.
Man never experienced delirium tremens until some one invented distilled liquors. There could not be forgery until men learned how to write; nor murder by poisoning until men learned chemistry; nor embezzlement until there was a credit system.
Evil grows with the good, and evil fights the good, in the individual, in the community.
One other thing which Jesus Christ taught, and which often men have failed to note, is that God seemingly leaves men to fight the battle for themselves. The Master said in one of his parables that the kingdom, of heaven is like a nobleman going away into a far country, and leaving his estate in the charge of his stewards. He has gone, I want instructions how to pursue my work, but there is no telegraph wire. I want to be told what I shall do, but there is no mail. I want authority.
He says: You have it in yourself. I put this estate in your hands: make the best you can out of it. That is Christ’s own figure of the kingdom of God.
Sometimes this seems to us hard: sometimes we wish that he would come and by some sudden and wonderful revelation of power transform society, put an end to the injustice and wrong of life, and put righteousness and good-will in their place; or at least, that he would tell us exactly what to do and how to do it. But this he does not do; and the Master has told us that this he will not do. He throws the responsibility of life upon us, and leaves us to fight the battle out and reach the result by our own strong effort. Strange! and yet we are learning that this is the only way. We are learning in our colleges and higher institutions of learning to throw the responsibility on the college boys, who used to be watched, with tutors and guardians and monitors, to see that they did their work aright.
We are learning, in politics, to trust the government to the people, and not to a few men watching over the people, ruling the people, or acting for the people. Does Christ not say that he is with us always, even unto the end of the world? Surely. Are we to come back to that notion of an absentee God from which Christianity has led us out into the freedom of fellowship with the living God?
Surely not. But he is not a father confessor to whom we go with our hard problems and come away with solutions ready made. His presence is not to solve our problems for us, but to inspire us to solve our own; not to bear our burdens for us, but to strengthen us with patience that we may bear our own; not to take our temptations from us, but to fill us with a courage to be ourselves conquerors and more than conquerors through him that loved us. He holds himself apparently apart. No eye sees him; no ear hears his voice; no telegram from him brings instructions; no letter brings us word what we are to do. We blunder on, but by the blundering we learn wisdom; by failures we hew our own way to success; by our mistakes, our errors, yes, even by our very sins, we grow in character - and character is everything.
This, then, is what Christ said about the future, There is a new regime yet to come. It has begun already. Time will be required to work it out. It will have to be worked out by yourselves, against your own inertia, against your own blunders, against opposition of others, against the opposition that will spring up in yourself. Did he say nothing of personal immortality? Yes! but much less than men have sometimes imagined.
He spoke not as a higher animal to higher animals, but as a Son of God to sons of God. He told his disciples once that " he that liveth and belie veth in me shall never die." There is no dying, only transition, a passing through the curtain to the other realm that is close at hand. He told his disciples that this world is not the only dwelling-place in the universe; in it are many dwelling-places, and there will be a place for us beyond. [1] When sometimes the worker grows weary and the soldier faint-hearted, or his little life comes toward its end, and he looks back and sees how little he has done or can do for others about him, and then looks forward to see into what kind of life his children are launched and in what kind of conflict they are to take part - then, in that hour, he may take comfort from the reflection that, having done his little here, the end is not, but there is another life out of which he can still put forth influences for the redemption and the upbuilding of humanity. And when the grave covers all that he can see of the one he loved and lived with here on earth, he then can take hope from the faith that it covers only what he saw, and that that which he really loved and which was invisible, - the love, the faith, the patience, the long-suffering, the gentle [1] John 11:23-26; John 14:1-3. ness, the courage, - these invisible things that made her what she was, these death cannot touch.
" We know in part and we prophesy in part "and " we see through a glass darkly." No one disciple can do more than give a partial interpretation of a teaching so fundamental in its principles, and capable of such an infinite variety of applications, that nineteen centuries of study have not yet exhausted it; and no disciple can portray more than one aspect of a character so infinite in its perfections that after nineteen centuries of spiritual growth it still remains the unapproached ideal for all humanity. This chapter is not and does not pretend to be a complete answer to the question, What is Christianity? But this I believe may be safely said, No man is a Christian minister, whatever his ecclesiastical ordination, and however sound his theological orthodoxy, unless he possesses the spirit of sobriety, which puts the inner life above outward possessions, and measures all things by their spiritual values; unless he possesses the spirit of righteousness, which counts life an opportunity for service, and no life well spent which is not spent for others; unless he possesses the spirit of godliness, which knows the living God as a Companion, a Friend, a Helper and Saviour; unless he possesses the spirit of hopefulness for himself and for his fellow men, which enkindles for them and in them an exhaustless and expectant aspiration. And he is a Christian minister, whatever his church and whatever his philosophy, if he possesses this spirit and gives himself to the endeavor to impart it to his fellow men. For Christianity is such a perception of the Infinite manifested in Jesus Christ as tends to produce Christlikeness of character, and a Christian minister is one who, inspired by that perception, imparts that Christlikeness of life to those to whom he ministers.
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Horace Bushnell. With portraits. Crown 8vo, $2.00. The Freedom of Faith. Crown 8vo, $1.50. The Appeal to Life. i6mo, $1.50.
Lamps and Paths. Crown 8vo, $1.00. On the Threshold. Crown 8vo, $1.00. THE NOBLE LECTURES 1898. The Message of Christ to Manhood. By Alexander V. G. Allen, Francis G. Pea body, Theodore T. Munger, William DeW.
Hyde, Henry van Dyke, and Henry C.
Potter. With portrait of William Belden Noble. i2mo, $1.25.
1899. The Field of Ethics. By George H.
Palmer. i2mo, $1.10, net; postage, 11 cents.
1900. Christian Ordinances and Social Progress. By William Henry Fremantle. I 2mo, $ [1].50.
1903. Witnesses of the Light. By WASHINGTON Gladden. Illustrated. i2mo, $1.25, net; postage, 11 cents.
LEVI LEONARD PAINE The Ethnic Trinities and their Relation to the Christian Trinity. Crown 8vo, $1.75, net; postage, 14 cents. A Critical History of the Evolution of Trinitarianism, and its Outcome in the New Christology. Crown 8vo, $2.00.
GEORGE H. PALMER The Nature of Goodness. i2mo, $1.00, net; postage, 11 cents.
(See also " The Noble Lectures.") FRANCIS G. PEABODY Mornings in the College Chapel.
Afternoons in the College Chapel.
Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion. Each, i6mo, $1.25.
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