1. His Deiignation of His vocation. — When we inquire how Jesus designated His life's aim, we are met early in the narrative with one general, yet most definite statement. He is addressing an audience composed of His own disciples, together with a wider range of auditors for wliom also His words are meant. We have, indeed, no verbatim report of what is usually callc(l tlie Sermon on the Mount. Its theme, however, is unmistakable. It is the Kingdom of God as it exists at the stage which, in the person of the Speaker, it has now reached. Plainly, the Kingdom, as Jesus proclaims it, is a new thing. Its righteousness is new. Its blessings are new. At once the question arises, and was thrown at the Preacher with bitter con- troversial animus, How does this new Kingdom stand related to that which had endured through the centuries of Israel's history, wliich was now indeed obscured by political oppression, but which was destined one day to receive a glorious vindica- tion J How do its new views of God and man and duty compare with the venerable system of law, of which the Scribes and Pharisees were the ac- knowledged defenders ?
Then Jesus pronounces words which place Him in the central stream of tlie Divine purpose, and designate Him as its goal and its complete realiza- tion : ' I came not to destroy, but to fulfil ' (Mt 5"). It is noteworthy that to ' the Law ' Jesus adds ' the Prophets,' thus emphasizing that element of the OT religion wliich the legalists of His day were most apt to neglect. He grasps the OT as a spiritual whole, and this totality of Divine meaning He declares it to be His vocation to fulfil. He has come into the world to carry forward all that had been signified by Law and Prophets to an end foreseen, or at least felt, by OT believers, but not attained in their experience. In Him the OT religion is at once perfected, and accomplished as an abiding reality.
Such a consciousness as this may well suggest thoughts as to the person of Him who thus asserts Himself. What is important for us now, however, is the fact that it ivas His consciousness, that the vocation thus announced was the end for which
Jesus lived, and constituted the organizing principle to which is due the perfect unity of His character.
The same impression of the loftiness and the definiteness of His vocation, as Jesus conceived it, is deepened by a consiileration of other sayings in whicli He condensed the purpose of His life. While, of course, critical conclusions are manifold, it is not reasonably open to doubt (a) that Jesus claimed to possess authority to forgive sins, and so dispense the characteristic blessing of the New- Covenant (Jer 31", Mt9«) ; (6) that He claimed to possess a knowledge of God wliich, in its immediacy and fulness, was generically distinct from that en- joyed by the most advanced OT saint, and to be empowered to reveal God, thus known, to men (Mt 11-') ; ((■) that He regarded His death as laying the basis of the New Covenant, and being, there- fore, the medium of its blessings (Mt 26-" and parallels).
Again, we cannot fail to feel, in connexion with such words, the drawing on of a mystery in the person of Him who uttered them. Turning aside, however, from all such suggestions, and refraining from all doctrinal construction, we are, neverthe- less, not merely permitted, but constrained, to ob- serve that they described the commission under which He acted. They disclose the root of con- viction from wliich His character grew. Take this away, and His character falls to pieces, and be- comes no more an ethical unity, but a congeries of inconsistencies. The belief that He was com- missioned of God to execute the Divine purpose towards Israel, and, through Israel, towards the world, moved Him from beginning to end of His career, and made Him the character which He was, which we come to know in the Gospels, and which has put its sjiell upon all subsequent gene- rations.
2. His Dedication to His vocation. — The de- termining purpose of His life was not made known to Jesus for the first time in the experiences of His baptism. The consciousness whicli He then manifests had certainly a history. The experiences through which He then passed imply a perfectly prepared soul. In His whole bearing, from the moment of His approach to Jolin, there is not a trace of hesitation or bewilderment. A new thing, no doubt, came to Him ; but it did not take Him by surprise or usher Him into a calling which Ho had not foreseen, or from which He hail'shrunk. By the discipline of the silent years in Nazareth, by the operation of the Divine S|iirit. acting along with all external instrumentalities ami bciicatli tlio conscious movements of His own spirit. His mind had been informed of the task wliicli awaiteil Hiin, His faculties had been exercised in the aiipropria- tion of so great a destiny. His soul had been fed at sources of Divine strength, and thus enabled to accept in deep surrender the Divine appointment. His character, when first we see Him pass out of obscurity into the light of history, is not like an unfinished building, with seaflblding to be cleared away, and much still to be done before it be beauti- ful or habitable. It is like a living organism, rooted in the discipline of past years, perfected by adequate preparation, and now ready for its destined uses and its full fruition. His thirtieth year found Him well aware of His vocation, and waiting only for the summons to take it up. The cry of the Baptist reached Him in Nazareth, and He knew that His hour was come. ' Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan, unto John, to be baptized of him ' (Mt 3"). His baptism is at once Christ's dedication of Himself to His vocation, and the first step in its accomplishment. His experiences at such an hour are too intimate and profound to be comprehended even by the most reverent study. But their meaning must gather