T[ In one constituted like Jesus, to be without the sense of sin * J. H. Snowden, The Basal Beliefs of Christianity, 80.
ST. JOHN VIII. 46 403
was to be sinless, to be conscious of no disobedience was to have always obeyed.^
If An artist goes into a building and is troubled by it exceed- ingly; a thousand laymen are there, and are quite comfortable. The artist's eye instantly detects the false proportion, the line that is out of course, and his eye will turn to it ; he may put very severe repressive restraints upon himself ; he may make many a vow to be blind to the defect ; but the trouble will come again and again upon him, because on that side of his life he is highly cultured, so much so as to be almost perfect. And by so much as any man is himself perfect, does he instantly detect what is defective and imperfect in other people.^
II.
The Value of Christ's Sinlessness for Us.
1. Christ is our Ideal. — The sinless Christ satisfies a deep want of the soul of man — the want of an ideal.
11 No artist can attempt a painting, a statue, a building, without some ideal in view ; and an ideal is not more necessary in art than in conduct. Each nation has its ideals ; so has each city, each family, each profession, each school of thought; and how powerfully these energetic phantoms of the past control and modify the present is obvious to all who observe and think. There is no truer test of a man's character than the ideals which excite his genuine enthusiasm ; there is no surer measure of what he will become than a real knowledge of what he heartily admires.^
^ Just as there are two ways for indicating the road to a traveller, even thus there are two ways for moral guidance in the case of a man who is seeking the truth. One way consists in indicating to the man the objects which he will come across, and then he is guided by these objects. The other way consists in giving the man the direction by the compass, which he is carrying with him, and on which he observes the one immutable direction, and, consequently, every deflection from it. The first way of moral guidance is the way of external definitions, of rules : man is given definite tokens of acts which he must perform and which not. " Observe the Sabbath, be circumcised, do not steal, drink no intoxicating drink, kill no living being, give the tithe to the
^ A. M. Fairbairn, Studies in the Life of Christ, 61. « J. Parker. a H. P. Liddon.
404 THE SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST
poor, make your ablutions, and pray five times a day," and so forth, — such are the injunctions of external religious teachings, — of the Brahmanical, Buddhistic, Mohammedan, Hebrew, and the ecclesiastic, falsely called Christian. The other way is to indicate to man unattainable perfection, the striving after which man is cognizant of ; man has pointed out to him the ideal, in relation to which he is at any time able to see the degree of his divergence from it. " Love God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself. — Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Such is the teaching of Christ.^
Whate'er thou'st won, remaineth still much more; Heaven hath abundance yet for thee in store; Still glows the grand Ideal on before ! —
Which all thy best achievements doth degrade, Thy boasted virtues dwarfs, and makes to fade, Yea pass into complete eclipse and shade.
Ev'n he who such high eminence had gained Yet counted not that aught was yet attained, But onward to the goal with ardour strained, — •
Beckoning his reach but as the starting-place, Whence to pursue the spirit's boundless race; Of life's grand edifice but laid the base.
E'en saints on high with heavenly honours crowned Their crowns of glory cast upon the ground, Not otherwise loyal and faultless found.
Great is the goal, the guerdon 'fore thee set, No self-complacence must thy progress let, Press boldly on, the things behind forget;
Part with thy past, let go ! ^
(1) Humble penitence grows in the life of a saint. How is it, then, that with our Lord the very reverse is the case ? How is it that He is absolutely unconscious of any shortcoming or sin ? Why is there not a vestige of personal penitence in any word of Christ's ? Why is He absolutely satisfied as He contemplates Himself? How is it that the possibility of sinning, or failing to do God's will, never enters His mind ? A good person is full of regrets,
* Tolstoy, Epilogue to the Kreutzer Sonata {Complete Works, xviii. 426).
* WiUiam Hall.
ST. JOHN VIII. 46 405
always discontented because he knows he is still far off from his ideal. Why does our Lord never express any such regret ? How is He so sublimely conscious that His ideal is reached, or rather that He has never been for one moment separated from its realiza- tion ? There is practically no answer to these questions but this — He is Himself the ideal that man is reaching after.