1 E. H. Divall, A Believer's Hnl, 14. ' J. E. B. Mayor, Sermons, 9.
ST. JOHN XIV. 6 119
was being strained by what He had just been saying to them. Here was a man in most respects hke themselves : a man who became hungry and sleepy, a man who was to be arrested and executed by the rulers, assuring them that He was going to prepare for them everlasting habitations, and that He would return to take them to these habitations. He saw that they found it hard to believe this. Who does not find it hard to believe all that our Lord tells us of our future ? Think how much we trust simply to His word. If He is not true, then the whole of Christendom has framed its life on a false issue, and is met at death by blank disappointment. Christ has aroused in our minds by His promises and statements a group of ideas and expectations which nothing but His word could have persuaded us to entertain. Nothing is more remarkable about our Lord than the calmness and assurance with which He utters the most astounding statements. The ablest and most enlightened men have their hesitations, their periods of agonizing doubt, their suspense of judgment, their laboured inquiries, their mental conflicts. With Jesus there is nothing of this. From first to last He sees with perfect clearness to the utmost bound of human thought, knows with absolute certainty whatever is essential for us to know. His is not the assurance of ignorance, nor is it the dogmatism of traditional teaching or the evasive assurance of a superficial and reckless mind. It is plainly the assurance of One who stands in the full noon of truth and speaks what He knows. For every question which our most anxious and trying experiences dictate He has the ready and sufficient answer. But more than this is contained in His words. He says not merely " I speak the truth," but " I am the truth."
2. Our Lord has declared that He is Himself the truth. We are to discover in Him all we can learn of the ultimate nature of things Divine and human, all we can need to know of the mystery of the universe and the meaning of our lives.
(1) Christ is the truth about man. — "I am the truth," said Christ. ' Our attitude in respect of that saying of His is determined by our belief as to His person. It is revealed in Scripture, and accepted by the Church, that God in becoming man took upon Him the nature of humanity at large, that He
I20 THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE
united to Himself not the personality of a favoured individual, but the nature of the race. Thus He represents in Himself all men, past, present, and to come, with their gifts and their achievements no less than their troubles and their tears.
He shows us what man is, and what man may be. We measure ourselves over against Him, and for the first time we realize ourselves. We hold ourselves aloof from Him, and our ideals seem glorious, and our attainment passable, and our sins venial. We measure ourselves against Christ, and we abhor ourselves in dust and ashes. We stand up face to face with Him who is the truth about man, and for the first time we understand what we are — all the misery and the flaw of our lives, all the shame and the loathsomeness of our shortcomings. And we look up into His face once again, and we see there not alone what we are, but what we may be. We hear Him speaking of Himself as the Son of Man; we hear Him telling us that the Father sent Him to show what in the Father's mind we are, and that we may hide ourselves in Him. Jesus Christ is to us the truth about ourselves as we are and as we may be.
^ Christ's unique power as a teacher of morals lies in the fact that He embodied in His own life His whole teaching. Did He teach the love of God and man ? His life expressed just that ; for His whole career was nothing but the utterance of love to God and to man. Did He teach the duty of personal, sincere, absolute righteousness? Did He teach humility and meekness and purity ? Did He say, " As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise"? Did He say, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you " ? All this was pictured in His own condition and character for the admiration and imitation of mankind. He could say, " I am the truth." ^
^ Though Goethe's history be known but imperfectly, the Faust, with what there is of teaching in it, will live. Though Dante's sad life-path be never followed, we can still tremble at the Inferno, or drink hope from the Purgatorio, and from the Paradiso consolation. Though dim to our minds the life-struggle of Shakespeare, we shall still weep and wonder at Portia, at Hamlet, at Lear. The message — such as it is — comes, though the messenger be withdrawn into shadow. Not so with Christ. He is absolute truth.*
1 G. T. Purves, The Sinless Christ, 129.