The important fact is that the New Testament writers were not unconscious of the extraordinary character of this " sinless- ness " with which they credited Christ, or of the marked excep- tion which it formed to the generally normal aspect of His life. It would not be true to say that the Synoptic portraiture of Christ is in the main supernatural. The " Son of man," as described by His biographers, is genuinely human, and moves easily among His contemporaries. There are supernatural elements in the records, no doubt, but they do not obliterate the historical figure of the Saviour, or destroy the generally normal aspect of His earthly course. Mystery there is in abundance, but the true manhood stands out always to view. It would be difficult to construct a juster summary of the Synoptic account of our Lord than that which is contained in the text : " 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." Whatever else might be said of Him, this at
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least must be said, that He was truly man. Only one invariable human trait is absent from the portrait they draw — there is no sin in Christ.
^ The marks of passion, of weakness, of pride, of the love of popularity, and the consequent lack of moral courage, of a thousand infirmities of the flesh, some of which we notice in all other men, are certainly not obvious, or anywhere forced upon our recognition, in the life and conversation which is mirrored in the four Gospels. On the contrary, Jesus was not only followed and loved, but, by those who knew Him best. He was worshipped before He died.^
^ Eenan's Jesus is a charming G-alilean with a certain sym- pathy for beautiful scenery and an affectionate tenderness for the peasants who follow him; but he is provoked to violence, impatience, base trickery, as soon as he finds his mission as a reformer unsuccessful. The Frenchman, bred amidst pious frauds, calls him the most delightful and wonderful of men, who practises innocent artifices, resorts to thaumaturgy unwillingly, iDut when he does resort to it is guilty of wilful imposture beside the grave of his friend. We in England should say he was a horrible liar and audacious blasphemer. We should pronounce the Jews right in the judgment which they passed upon him. To me the book is detestable, morally as well as theologically. It has brought to my mind, as I have said in my paper on it, that wonderful dream of Eichter's in which Jesus tells the universe, " Children, you have no Father." 2
(2) Christ's sinlessness is apparent in the attitude of His enemies towards Him. When Pilate repeatedly asked the priests, who were clamouring for His blood, "Why, what evil hath he done ? " all the answer they could give (sufficient, no doubt, for their purpose) was, " We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God." The impression of Chiist's sinlessness is observable too in Pilate himself, who yielded to the wishes of Christ's enemies, while he admitted the innocence of their Victim ; in the restless anxiety of the wife of Pilate, haunted in her dreams by the thought that the blood of " that just person " might be visited on her husband ; in the lower sense of the pregnant declaration made by the centuiion at the cross — " Truly this was the Son of God " ; above all, in the re- morse of Judas. Judas, who had known Christ as Peter had
^ N. Smyth, Old Faiths in New Light, 94. * F. D. Maurice, Li/c, ii. 464.
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known Him for three years of intimate companionship; Judas, who would gladly, had it been possible, have justified his treachery to himself by any flaw that he could dwell on in his Master's character, was forced to confess that the blood which he had betrayed was innocent. In the hatred of the Sanhedrists, as described particularly in St. John's Gospel, the purity and force of Christ's character is not less discernible. It is the high pre- rogative of goodness, as of truth, in their loftier forms, that they can never be approached in a spirit of neutrality or indifference ; they must perforce create a decided repulsion when they do not decidedly attract. The Pharisees would have treated an opposing teacher, in whom any moral flaw was really discernible, with contemptuous indifference: the sinless Jesus of Nazareth pro- voked their irreconcilable, implacable hostility.
^ Even the Pharisees betray the impression of a quite original and wonderful elevation. For though they regarded Him as a sinner and despiser of the law, from the viewpoint of their in- herited moral and religious axioms, yet they could not stop short at this and view Him as an ordinary sinful man, or teacher of error. Rather He appeared to them, in the very estrangement in which they had placed themselves towards Him, so much one possessed of power (Matt. vii. 29 ; John vii. 46), so wonderfully firm, strong, and great of His kind, that they were obliged to attribute to Him a superhuman power of evil, after they had resolved not to concede to Him a superhuman power of good.^