(1) Obedience. We have seen that the character of Christ is created by the vocation to which He dedi- cated Himself. We now observe that this vocation is, in the view of Jesus, nothing impersonal, but is the personal will of the Father. This is the Father's ' business,' and to it He, as the Son, is entirely devoted. The \vill of the Father does not mean for Jesus a series of commands. It is rather to His deep conviction a purpose, moving through- out His whole life, and comprehending every detail of His activity. The obedience of the Son, accord- ingly, is not a series of events." Jt is the identifi- cation of His will with the will of the Father, and a complete reproduction of that will in the whole conduct of His life. Sayings in the Fourth Gospel, such as 4** 6^ S"^, bring into clear utterance the impression conveyed by the whole career of Jesus, and express an obedience which has lost the last tiace of distance between the will of the Son and the will of the Father. Again, we must postpone all discussion of the possibility of such obedience, and must emphasize the actuality of the repre- sentation. Two things are plain : first, Jesus was conscious of l^i-iiig in cni]i|ilete and constant har- mony with (lull, ail. I [iiutoundly unconscious of even the slightest failure to fulfil the whole will of God ; and, .second, those who knew Him best believed that in Him they had witnessed a uiiicinc moral achievement, viz., an obedience absolutely perfect, both in its extent and in its inward quality.
(2) Trust. ' Perfect love casteth out fear ' ( I Jn 4"). Jesus' trust in God was, like His obedience, complete. It amounted to an entire and unfailing dependence upon God, .so that Avhatever He did, God wrought in Him. In other servants of God
we observe, even in their deepest experiences, a certain dualism of self and God, a self assisted to a greater or less degree by God. This account would not be adequate to the experiences observable in the record regarding Christ. He is, without doubt, a person, not will-less, but acting in complete self- determination, and yet His deeds are the Father's. No process of analysis can distinguish in any word or deed of His an element w'liich comes from Himself and another which comes from God. In Christ we find a perfect spiritual organism— a man so completely inhabited by God that Hia words .and deeds are the words and deeds of God. Follow Him in His career, as it passes with unbroken steadfastness from stage to stage of an unfoldin" jiurpose, study Him in His dealing with men, and note the sureness of His touch, penetrate the secret of His consciousness as He from time to time lifts the veil(Jn 5-=»- ^ 7'« 12-'9 W-"") ; and the result to which we are forced is, that here is a human life rooted in the Divine, filled and environed by it. This is, of course, no ontological explanation ; but it states the ethical and spiritual phenomenon which demands an explanation ; and this ex- planation must reach to the sphere of personal being.
Precisely at this point, however, when the facts we are describing seem to pass beyond the limits of normal human experience, we are summoned to observe that the trust and obedience of Jesus were not maintained without strenuous solicitude, or the use of those means which aid the human spirit in its adherence to God. His obedience was not easy. His will, in its ceaseless surrender, was subjected to increasing strain. He learned obedi- ence by the things which He suflered (He 5'). The 'disposition of obedience' was always present. ' But the disposition had to maintain itself in the face of greater and {jreater demands upon it. And as He had to meet tliese demands, rising with the rising tide of the things which He suffered, He entered ever more deeply into the experience of what obedience was' (A. B. Davidson on He 5'""*). His ability to bear the strain to which He was thus subjected is ilue to a trust in God which was con- tinually revived by His habit of prayer, to which there is such frequent and significant reference in the narrative (Lk 3='-^ Mk 1», Lk 5" G''-'\ Mt 14-3, Lk 9i8.2e, Mt 26^'=-^', Lk 23«). An increasing revelation of the Divine will, an unceasing advance in obedience, a continuous exercise of trust, are the strands woven together in the character of Christ. The product is that perfect thing, a life which is His own, and is entirely human, which is also, at the same time, the coming of God to man.
3. Love to men.— The source of this character- istic, which shines resplendent from every page of the narrative, is to be found in that which we nave just been considering, Christ's love to God. Here we must do justice to the facts brought before us in the portrait. The noblest servants of God in the field of humanity have done their work out of a sense of obligation. They have received so much from God, that they have felt themselves bound, by constraint of the love of which they are recipients, to serve their fellow-men ; and in this service their love for men has grown, till it has become no unworthy reflexion of the love of God. It would be, however, a miserably inadequate account of the facts of Christ's ministry among men to say that Ho loved them out of a sense of duty, and served them in discharge of a debt which He owed to (iod. The vocation which formed His character was not bare will. It was love, seeking the re- demption of men. Jesus' acceptance of tliis voca- tion meant that His love to God entered into, anil blended with, the love of God to men. He loved God, and the lu\ e of God to Him became in Him