The Teaching of Jesus.
a. General Characteristics of the Teaching.
(1) Itr: Hclntiiin tn tlir Trnrlii'mt of thr Ihlfillst
and til Hint nf tin' .Srriliis. — \Vc have seen tliat.Icsus began by taking up not only the announcement of the Haptist that the Kingdom of (!od was at hand, but also bis call to reformation oi life and the rite of baptism by which that call was im- pressed upon the conscience. AVe are also expressly told that the call to repentance was part of the apostolic coinmis.sion (Mk 0'-). And we find it no le.ss insisted upon after the resurrection (Lk 24'', Ac 2'» .•!'» ■)" 1118 i7;io 20-21 20-i').
This is clear proof of the continuity which bound together the teaching of Jesus with that of the Baptist. The starting-point of both was the same. .\nd yet this starting-point was very soon left behind. The heads of the Baptist's teaching are .soon told ; the teaching of Jesus expafids and ramifies in a thousand directions. It is like pass- ing from the narrow cleft of the .lordan to a Pi.-;gali-view over the whole Land of Promise.
Although it was permitted to the Baptist to prepare the way for the teaching of Jesus, so far as even to enunciate its opening lesson, the place of the Baptist is quietly a.ssigned to him ; and it is a place outside the threshold of the Kingdom : ' He that is but little in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he ' (Mt 1 1 n ; ).
If Christ thus drew a line between His own teaching and that of John, still more marked was the difference between it and other contemporaiy teaching. John was at leiust a prophet, and spoke with the full authority of a prnphet (.Mt ll-'- i-'). The scribes had no original authority at all ; they did but interiiret a law whirli they had nut maile. .lesus sji'ilo' with an aufhurity not imly above that of the scribes (Mk 1--||), but'higher still than that of John. He is the legislator of a new law (Mt o-"- etc.), the founder of that Kingdom which John did not enter.
(2) Its Universal Jianije. — With this command- ing character of the teacliing of .fesus there goes a corresponding width of outlook. We began with a rapid survey of the state of parties and opiniims in Palestine at the titne of Christ. But the object of this survey was not to explain the teaching of Jesus by affiliating it to any existing school. It was remarked of Him that He had had no regular training (Jn "i"). He was not a Pharisee, not a Sailduoee, not an Essene, not an Apocalyptist. The direct affinities of the teaching of Jesus were with nothing so transitory and local, but rather with that which was mo.st central in OT. We might call it the distilled es.sence of OT : that essence first clarified and then greatly enlarged, the drop became a crystal sphere.
JESUS CHRIST
JESUS CHRIST
oi;
We un; iiiJt';ikiiif<, of cuui-se, of the substance, and of the main part nt the substance, of tlie teachhij; of JusuK. The mere fact that it wa« conditioned by time and space involved that it sliould be addressed to a given generation in a language
which it underst i. Nor was it wholly without
deliuite and particular aiiplications — sideliglits, so to spealv, upon tliat space in history within which it falls. But history itself ha.s shown tlial in the iiuun it transcends all these conditions, and is as fresh at the end of eighteen centuries ius when first it Wius delivered.
Qi) Us Mrthdil, — This wonderful adaptability in the teacliing of Jesus is accounted for in part by its extreme simi)licity. If it had been a doctrine of tlie schools, something of the fa.shion of tlie schools would have adhereil to it. But, as it was, it was addresseil chiefly to the connnon people — sometimes to congregations in synagogues, some- times to the chance comjiany collected in private liouses, more often still to ciusual gatherings in the open air.
And the language in which the teaching was couched was such as to appeal most directly to audiences like these. As a rule it takes hold of the simplest elements in our connnon humanity, 'dius allgemein Menschliche.' The trivial incidents of everyday life are made to yield their lessons: the .sower .scattering his seed, the housewife baking her cakes or sweeping the hou.se to find a lost piece of money, the shepherd collecting his sheep, the fishermen drawing in their net. .Sometimes the story which forms the vehicle for the teaching takes a higher flight: it deals with landed pro- prietors, and banipiets, and kings with their sub- ject.s. Uut even then there seems to be a certain deliberate simplification. The kings, for instance, are tho.se of the pojiular tale rather than as the courtier would paint them.
'4) The rariilibs. — We have been naturally drawn into describing that which is most char- acteristic in the outward form of the teaching of Je.su.s — His jiarables. The (ireek word irapafSo\-/i is u.sed in X'l' in a wider .sense than that in which we are in the habit of using it. Xii I.k 4-^ it = •proverb.' In Mt lo'''" (conip. with vv. "■ "'■--'") it = 'niaxitn,' aconden.sed moral truth, whether couched in figurative language or not. It covers as well brief aphoristic .sayings (e.y. Mk 3-^ 13^ I, Lk 5^*' ()*^^ as longer discoui:ses in which there is a real 'comiiari.son.' Hutthe.se latter are the 'parables' in our modern acceptation of the term : they .ire scenes or short stories taken from nature or from connnon life, which present in a pictnresi|ue and vivid way .some leading thought or principle which is capable of being transferred to the higher spiritual life of man. The 'parable' in a some- what similar sense to this had been employed in or and by the Kabbis, but it had never before been employed with .so high a purpose, on so large a scale, or with such varieil application and unfail- ing perfection of fi>rm.