4. The years of silence. -For eighteen years we lose sight of Jesus. When they are past, not His physical frame only but His moral stature also has reached its fulness. The year.s themselves, apart from the incidents which must liave filled them, are the most potent of the formative in- fluences which are our guide to the understand- ing of Jesus. There are certain deeply marked features of His character, which are the imprint upon Him of the passage of these silent years.
(1) Quietness and confidence. — In His manhood there is no restlessness as of one who is uncertain of his goal, none of the strained eagerness of one who is still in pursuit of undiscovered truth. I'lato's image of the aviary in no way resembles the mind of Jesus. No distinction is to be found in Him between possessing and having. He possesses, or rather is possessed by, fundamental and universal
• in rei: reu lexTfies fM)u, Our argument is not affected whether we adopt the above rendering (AY and RVui), or that of RV, * in my Father's house.'
principles. His life and teaching are their ex- position and illustration. AVe may debate their validity, but we cannot dispute the absolute cer- tainty with which He grasped them. Eighteen years of silence had breathed their restfulness into Him, and conferred on Him the precious gifts of a quiet mind and an assured heart.
(2) Foresight. — Jesus had no magical acquaint- ance with future events. Yet it is most note- worthy that He moved amid the circumstances of His life with no hesitating step. It is not merely that, as a religious man. He knows that God has a plan for Him, and will submit to it, whatever it brings Him, however grievous or dis- appointing ; but also tliat He knew what the plan was. He was in the secret of His Father. In His speaking and acting there is no trace of hesitation or doubt. He never acts on a mere balance of judgment, never wastes a moment on conjecture, not one moment on regret. He acts with instant perception of what is wanted, and goes forward with confident step and calm foreseeing eye. He marvels (twice it is recorded of Him, Mt 8'°, Mk &) ; but it is the wonder which is at once the parent and the child of knowledge, not the stupid astonishment of mere ignorance. Events which threatened destruction to Himself and His mission were met by Him with solemn recognition as the issue of a purpose which He served with full in- telligence. Such calm wisdom, such quiet faith- fulness, such undisturbed peace, had a history ; and it lies in these eighteen years of silent waiting.
(3) Serenity and self -possession. — He was haunted by misconception, beset by malice, harassed by malignity. Yet He preserved an austere reserve, which permitted no rasli action, no unguarded speech. He met His enemies with a silence which «as no dumb resentment, but was on some occa- sions a most moving appeal, on others a most solemn judgment. No man can be thus silent who is driven ignorantly toward an unknown destiny. The silence of Jesus is proof that His life lay within both His jmrview and His command. Only in solitude and obscurity can such qualities be de- veloped. Eighteen silent years are not too much to make a soul like that of Jesus Christ, strong, deep, calm, and wise. Not dogmatic prejudice, but respect for the unity of Christ's character, and for the self-evidencing truth of the portrait pre- sented in the Gospels, condemns, as an outrage upon all psychological probability, the practice of packing into the three recorded years alternations of thought and purpose, and tracing supjiosed dis- tinctions between the hopes with which He began His career and the convictions which were forced upon Him toward its close. Naturalism of this sort is simply unnatural and foolish. There is nothing too great to be the outcome of years so sublimely silent. What He is to be was then formed within His soul. What He has to .say was then laid up for utterance. What He has to do and endure was then foreseen and then accepted.
ii. The Vocation of Christ. —The unity of Christ's character stands out impressively in the Gospel portrait. The allowances we make, and the averages we strike, in estimating the conduct of other men, are not needed in His case. Woven of the strands of common life, it is yet ' without seam throughout.' When we seek to explain this unity, it is not enough to refer to the will of Christ, as though it were a power operating in an ethical vacuum. His is the normal human will, which realizes its freedom by identifying itself with some all-determining principle. When we ask, further, what this principle is, which thus determines His will and unifies His life, we shall be in error if we regard it as an absolutely new idea, to be ascribed to His inventive genius. He is not with complete
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appropriateness to be designated a religious genius. He has nothing to reveal which is new, if by that epithet we mean to indicate a conception which lias no organic relations with the past. Jesus, as believer, thinker, preacher, starts from the OT. His originality consists in perfectly understanding it, in carrying out into concrete reality its ruling conceptions. When, therefore, we seek for the determining principle of the life and character of Christ, we must turn to the OT. From childhood to manhood He lived the life of the ideal Israel, in communion with God and consecration to His service. What is unique in Him is not sonic idea, derived we know not whence, but His actual adoption of the purpose of God toward Israel as the purpose of His o\vn life. When we endeavour to enter sympathetically into the experience of the Prophetic authors of the OT, and when we com- pare with their writings the character and career of Jesus, we are led to the conclusion : First, tliat the core of the OT religion is God's redeeming purpose toward Israel ; and, second, that the voca- tion of Christ, as understood and accepted by Him- self, was to fulfil that purpose. In the nature of the case we cannot have from Jesus a narrative of the e,xperiences which culminated in this great resolve, or an abstract statement of His ideas upon the topic of redemption. Yet, as we follow the occasions of His life, we overhear pregnant sayings, and we observe significant incidents, which cor- roborate and illustrate the impression which His whole career makes upon us. These we may thus arrange —