word or one deed which indicated that Jesus was fanatical or fraudulent in his pretensions to be the Messiah from God, he certainly would have sought out the most insignificant foible, so that he might palliate his crime and relieve his conscience in view of the fearful results of his treachery. But he can find nothing. He feels himself forced to make the bitter confession,-I have betrayed innocent blood; yea, the consciousness of this crime presses so insupportably upon his spirit, that he at last goes out and gives himself over to death!

If the traitor is forced to testify thus concerning his Lord, what shall we expect from Christ's true friends, but the unconditional acknowledgment of, and the highest veneration for his perfect goodness and holiness of motive and conduct. With entire harmony, they point him out, in an especial manner, as the just man and the holy;2 as the man who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin 3 who is the most eminent pattern for us, because he knew no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; as the pure and spotless lamb;5 as the true high priest who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who therefore needed not, as other high priests, to bring an offering for his own sins; who rather, simply because there was no iniquity found in him, was able to take away our iniquities. Without this persuasion of his perfect innocence and holiness, the apostles had not been at all able to discover in him that which they did discover, not only the noblest prophet, but the Messiah, endued with the whole fulness of the divine Spirit ; the founder of a new divine kingdom of love, truth and righteousness, in which he himself would be the lawgiver, king and pattern; the Redeemer from sin; the vanquisher

1 Matt, 27: 4.

Acts 3: 14. 7: 52. 22: 14. 1 Pet. 3: 18. 1 John 2: 29. 3: 7. 3 Heb. 4: 15.

Heb. 7: 26, 27.

41 Pet. 2: 21, 22.

5 1 Pet. 1: 19.

7 1 John 3: 5. 2 Cor. 5: 21. Consult on the first passage Lücke's Com. pp. 161, 162.

8 In the Old Testament description of the Messiah also, he is represented as free from sin; Is. 53: 9. If the Messiah must be a true servant of God, a pure minister of Jehovah, a representative of God in the Theocracy, then he must in all respects perform the divine will, be perfectly righteous, and free from iniquity.

of all evil; the image of God, the only good and holy One. Indeed no man can be an image of Jehovah, a living expression of the divine nature, in whom there is a single moral error or delinquency, who in a single respect deviates from God's moral law. He only can be this image, who is altogether without sin, and in the highest sense of the term, holy; who is, as it were, the incarnated will of God, and who through his whole life brings into distinct view the law of, holiness. Even so a Redeemer from sin and the power of evil, can be no other than one who is himself free from the same; every other would have stood in need of his own redemption, and reconciliation with God.1

By these remarks, however, we would by no means give room for the idea, that the assertion of Christ's sinlessness was made by the apostles merely from the dogmatical point of view, that Jesus could not, unless holy, have been the Messiah and Redeemer. No, their conviction rested on a thorough knowledge of his life; they did not model the life of Jesus according to their own ideas, but their own ideas were by degrees modelled according to the instructions and the life of Jesus. They were indeed, at the beginning, scarcely able to understand him; they frequently were perplexed concerning him; but they always found themselves drawn to him again with new spiritual power, until, advanced from one degree of evidence to another, they were able to take clearly into their vision the lofty spiritual image, which the whole deportment of Jesus held out before them. And accordingly this image is exhibited in the Gospels with such artless, convincing truth, that every unprejudiced man feels and will confess, that it was not a doctrinal presupposition from which the apostles started, and then described a man who might answer somewhat to their ideal of pure holiness; but it was an actual, real life which was displayed before them, and from which was developed in their minds, a faith in the Holy and God-like

man.

Heb. 7: 26, 27.

2 See, for example, John 6: 69.

51

SECTION IV.

Peculiar elevation of Christ's character; his serenity, moderation, condescension, power to govern both nimself and others, dignity in the treatment of his enemies, tenderness of sympathy, liberality of mind, expansive benevolence, completeness of character, physical temperament.— Ruling motive of his life.-Importance of his character, as a bare idea; how this idea must have been obtained by the evangelists.

The idea which Christ's disciples give us of his character is elevated and peculiar. There is in it this peculiarity; though always unattainable, the character stands before us in so much the greater dignity and pureness, the more highly we cultivate our own spirits, and the more strenuously we endeavor, under the influence of love, to assimilate ourselves to it. Every attempt therefore to represent the fulness of Christ's moral nature must of necessity be but partially successful. And the following remarks must be received with a full understanding of their necessary imperfection. For they are remarks, that venture to arrange in one connected order what the evangelists have left scattered, and to reduce the whole to the principle which pervades and animates the entire practice of Jesus.

The events of Christ's life give the impression, that he had the greatest calmness, clearness of mind, and discretion, united with living, deep enthusiasm. It is not the vehement strain, the flaming spirit of Isaiah and Ezekiel, that distinguishes him; not the legislative, sometimes violent energy of Moses; his whole nature is serenity and peace; and the blazing, consuming fire of the old prophets changes itself in him into a soft creative breathing of the spirit, into an uninterrupted consecration of the soul to God. In the spiritual atmosphere to which others raise themselves only in the hours of their special consecration, he walks as in his appropriate element of life. As the sun in a clear firmament, so he, still and sure, travels on in his safe path, and never deviates, dispensing light and life. His action is full of love, without effervescence of feeling, without vehemence and passion. He does nothing indiscreet and aimless; whatever he begins is securely finished and accomplishes its design. Even when with holy reluctance, he comes to reprove in word or in deed, it is no irritated personal feeling, that vents

itself, but it is always the indignation of love; holy, free from all selfish aim, hating the vice, but yet, in the vicious, loving the man who is still susceptible of improvement. And in all this, he never oversteps the bounds of moderation.

Jesus is soft and mild; he seeks above all, the lowly, the helpless, the despised; and of his own free will lets himself down to the deepest degradation, and the most ignominious suffering; but from under the veil of poverty and distress which covers him, there shines forth in every situation of his life a high, kingly spirit. He possessed that talent for government, that commanding power, by means of which great minds are always and entirely their own masters; by which they know, in the most embarrassing situations and with the composure of one free from doubt, just what is right and fit to be done, and by which they hold a sway over other minds that is like enchantment. With this dignity, this kingly mien, sealed by his spiritual greatness, did the same Jesus who had not where to lay his head, move about among his friends, and present himself before his foes. "His deed was decisive as his word, his word as his deed." Where his enemies sought to lay snares for him, he rent asunder the snares, and with his superior power of mind, repelled all attacks, until himself was convinced that his hour had come. Not seldom did he shame his enemies by bare silence; a silence which was then most effective when, in calm consciousness of innocence, he stood before the Sanhedrim as they were burning with revenge. But nothing exceeds the dignity with which Jesus bore testimony of himself, in face of the secular governor and judge. "I am a king: for this end I was born, and have come into the world, that I may testify to the truth whoso is of the truth, heareth my voice." How all other before the consciousness of such elevation! greatness fades away, And what word of sage, hero, or any one of the greatest or mightiest men, can for its inward majesty, be placed by the side of this, "I am a king; for this end have I come into the world, that I may testify to the truth!"

With the greatness of a hero Jesus stepped forth in the garden of Gethsemane, among the officers who sought him, and said, "I am he," and they fell on the ground before him. With a power that cut to the heart, he said to Judas, "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss!" With a look full of love, yet doubtless full of reproving dignity, he deeply pierced the soul of the disciple, who had de

nied him; and what irresistible effect must the thrice repeated words have had, which, soon after rising from the dead, he addressed to the same disciple, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ?" It was the court of love, which here pronounced its decision upon the unfaithful friend; a decision in which lay a marvellous power to humble deeply the magnanimous disciple, and, at the same time, to afford him a truly exquisite relief, and to strengthen him.

Such words of life and power, spoken with the majesty of Jesus, must work irresistibly; they must entrench themselves in the souls of those who heard, so as never to be expelled. They show to us a man in the noblest sense of the word, a king-like hero, who is so much the greater, because without any outward power, he merely bears the sword of spiritual worth. And even this great man, whose will, never deviating from the way of God, no power of earth could bend, who was even as mighty in deed, as silent, self-denying, and piously trustful in suffering, he was also as mild and full of love, as the gentlest woman, when he would aid, console, feelingly sympathize. He went about and did good, helped the poor in body and in spirit; blessed children, placed himself on a level with the least of his brethren; for whoever comforts one of these least with a cup of water, hath done the same unto me.2 Nothing that concerned humanity was foreign from him; every man stood near to him as a brother. His characteristic action was, to raise up again the bruised reed, to enkindle anew the glimmering wick. He wept over the city that rejected him, and prayed on his cross for those who had nailed him to it. His whole life was a sacrifice.

As Jesus, in his moral constitution, did not belong exclusively to one sex, so neither in any of his higher operations, was he fettered by family ties; nor in his whole spiritual formation, was there any national feeling, which could restrain his comprehensive, pure philanthropy. He was the best of sons, and performed the duties imposed by the filial relation, with the tenderest love, even in the hour of death. But at the same time he made all that was personal in

He blended in his nature the virtues of the noblest manliness, with those of the purest womanhood; and was also, in this respect, the most complete model of a perfect human being; so that although his destiny required him to belong to one sex, he yet is a suitable pattern for the purest virtues of the other.

2 Matt. 10: 42.