286 CHARACTEK OF CHRIST
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
rouiiJ three points — (1) First, tlie Avord 'thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness' (v.'*). In this pregnant saying we are conveyed back to the heart of tlie OT. God is righteous -nhen He fulfils the obli^^aticins which He imposed on Himself when He in>titntiil His covenant with Israel. It is still His liL'htciMi-iicss which moves Him, when, after Isnul lias sinned itself out of the covenant relationsliip, He promises a New Covenant, and brings near a better salvation. This is the right- eousness which Jesus has full in view on the verge of Baptism. If this righteousness is to be fulfilled. He who is the executor of the Divine purpose must not shrink from His task, whatever it may bring Him, and he who has a lesser function in the Kingdom must not withstand or hinder Him through any mistaken reverence.
(2) Seconcl, the symbolic deed of baptism. Here also the only possible clue is to be found in the OT. There we see the godly in Israel, themselves right with God, bearing in their own souls the load of the people's transgressions. What is thus, through successive generations, done and suffered by exer- cised believers, is assigned in Deutero-Isaiah to tlie Servant of the Lord, who is in that writing tlie ideal Israel making atonement for the sins of the actual Israel. In descending to baptism, Jesus is certainly not acknowledging personal unworthi- ness. It is not even enough to say that He is vicari- ously confessing the sins of others. He is definitely assuming tlie plSee and office of the Servant of the Lord. Himself righteous. He assumes in His deepest soul the load of human sin, and thus at once fulfils the righteousness of God and ' makes many righteous.' The Baptism of Christ, accord- ingly, is at once the culmination of a life's experi- ences, the product of long years of tliouglit and prayer, and the inauguration of a career whose movement and whose goal were already plainly before His inward eye.
(3) Third, the Divine response (v.'^'). A decision, whose issues we cannot calculate, was accompanied by a pain Aviiicli we cannot fathom. The doctrine of the two natures, even supposing it to be proved, throws no light on the experiences of that hour. Jesus never found relief in His Divinity from His human suffering. He tciok i.fiiu,> iu imiyer (Lk 3='). The Father ;uisu,i.,l «:il, ;iii .iidbwment ample enough even fm I In- i :i-K . mi ,i ui^uice strong enough to raise Him aliuve ail iImimh. Tlie terms in which the assurance is gi\en form a synthesis of tlie two great figures through whom iu the OT the consummation of the Kingdom is achieved, the Messianic King and the Servant of the Lord (Mk 1"), and afford additional proof of the conscious- ness with which Jesus began His ministry. Wliat we observe in lesser men, we see in Jesus— a great puijiose determining the life, creating the cluiracter. In JHis case, as in others, to miss tlie purjxise leaves the character a hopeless enigma, the life a meaning- less puzzle.
3. His Confirmation in His vocation. — Tesns does not sweep forward in emotion:il iiiihn la-^m from Baptism to the announcennni ni \l\~ ■ Lmns. The tide of His endowment 'drov.' II nu iSt. Mark's phrase) not to cities and tluunys, Imi, into desert solitudes, there to win tlirough conflict wliat was His by right. Jesus certainly did not describe to His disciples in full detail the strife by which He won His soul. Something He did tell, and told it, as alone it could be told, in symbols. The point at issue in the conflict is the vocation to which Jesus has just dedicated Himself. That \ocation is the synthesis of all the lines of action by which, in the OT, God's nurpose was being gradually fulfilled ; and specially the synthesis of sovereignty and service. The strain of the Temp- tation IS directed to the rending asunder of these
two. The clibrt to which Jesus is summoned is to hold them together in indissoluble connexion, and not, under whatever subtle seductive influences, to snatch at the one and renounce the other. Any breach between them will mean the defeat of the Divine righteousness. Failure here will make Jesus not the Servant of the Lord but His adversary, servant of His enemy. The stages of the Temptation, accordingly, turn upon the humiliations which the element of service will bring into His career, and their supposed incom- patibility with the sovereignty, which is His goal. Surely hunger and toil and poverty are insuper- able barriers in the way of reaching that suprem- acy which Jesus would exercise with such be- nignant grace I The alternative lay clear before Him, the pathway of supernatural power, leading away from normal human experience, or the patli- way of service and suffering, leading nearer and nearer to the throbbing heart of humanity. Jesus made His choice, and in that great decision gained His vantage ground. As for Him, He would be man, and would stand so close to men that He could assume their responsibilities and bear their burdens. Thus Jesus won His victory, a solitary man, in death grips with evil, with no strength save the Spirit of God, no weapon save the AVord of God. It was a complete victory. Within a character, thus welded by trial, there was no room hereafter for breach with God or with itself. Though other assaults will be made, though they be made by His dearest (Jn 2^- ■"), His most loyal (Mt 16----'), though in one final onslaught they wring from the Victor sweat of blood, the certainty of their overwhelming defeat is already guaran- teed. In studying the character of Christ, we are led from one surprise of loveliness to another ; but we are never in any uncertainty as to its per- manence, never haunted by any dread of its failure. From the beginning there is the note of finality and absoluteness.