I.
Christ's Yea.
" In him is the yea."
There are two ways in which we may think of Christ as Yea. First He is Himself certain, and next the promises are certain in Him.
1. Christ Himself is certain. — Nothing is more noteworthy,
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when our attention is drawn to it, than the confidence of the assertions of Christ, so vast and far-reaching in their scope, so unquahfied by any " perhaps," by any hint of uncertainty or conjecture.
(1) This is so with regard to His own earthly life. Strange indeed is the contrast between the words of His Apostle, " I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there," and the explicit and detailed warnings given by Jesus of the manner, the circumstances, and the date of His death. " Not on the feast-day," said the priests ; but the knowledge of their Victim outran their most subtle calculations. " After two days the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered up to be crucified."
(2) Again, we all feel the pressure and solemnity of the problems of human existence. Eevelation is perfect as a practical guide, but a solver of theoretical problems it is not. What am I ? Whither am I going ? He may be a good Christian, but assuredly he is a dull thinker, who supposes that every cloud is lifted by religion from the twin problems of our origin and our destiny. Dimly these questions loom up, like gigantic mountain slopes visible through rolling vapours, before us and behind. Through changing mists we see them, half illumined in the radiance of our Christian trust, but their head and their base alike are swathed in impenetrable mystery.
In this baffled peering wonder Jesus had no share. He alone of human beings could say, without reserve, " I know whence I come, and whither I go." And yet the mystery of His being was the most profound of all.
(3) The same tone of unwavering certitude is audible in His teaching about duty and God. Others have taught with a wonderful confidence, but it has always been avowedly a derived and imparted message. Gabriel spoke to Muhammad. The spot is shown where Gautama, after agonies of search, became Buddha, which means, " the enlightened one." Even the prophets of the true faith were men " to whom the word of the Lord came," a position which Christ contrasted with His own. But if men had known Him they should have known the Father. "The Father sheweth him all things that himself doeth." "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father ; ^either knoweth any
2 COR. I. 20 33
fche Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."
(4) In quite the same confident tones Jesus spoke of the life to come ; " In my Father's house are many mansions ; I go to prepare a place for you " ; " Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am."
Eeview the whole circle of spiritual truth, and see whether there is any part of it where Jesus trod with hesitating step. Find one conjecture, one mere inference, one example of truth arrived at otherwise than as a fact within His own consciousness. He used Scripture to repel Satan, to refute gainsayers, to convince the hesitating; and, as in His last words upon the cross, to ex- press the deepest emotions of His own heart. But His natural and characteristic method, with all teachable souls, is as He expressed it to Nicodemus : " We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen."
This certainty of Christ's is part of the completeness of His character and life. And hence it becomes part of that assurance we have when we put our trust in Him.
^ The character and doctrine of Jesus are the sun that holds all the minor orbs of revelation to their places, and pours a sovereign self-evidencing light into all religious knowledge. It is no ingenious fetches of argument that we want ; no external testimony, gathered here and there from the records of past ages, suffices to end our doubts ; but it is the new sense opened in us by Jesus Himself — a sense deeper than words and more immediate than inference — of the miraculous grandeur of His life ; a glorious agreement felt between His works and His person, such that His miracles themselves are proved to us in our feeliug, beHeved in by that inward testimony. On this inward testimony we are willing to stake everything, even the life that now is, and that which is to come. If the miracles, if revelation itself, cannot stand upon the superhuman character of Jesus, then let it fall. If that character does not contain all truth and centralize all truth in itself, then let there be no truth.^
Let me forget all else that I have known — All else that I have heard; Let me remember Thee, and Thee alone, 0 Jesus — living Word!
' Horace Bushnell, Nature and the Siipematvmi, 2 COR. ft GAL. — 3
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It is enough to know that I am Thine — That Thou dost undertake To hold and keep this helpless life of mine- Accepted for Thy sake.