CHARACTER OF CHRIST
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
the motive-power of His love to men. His love to God and His love to men constitute one energy of His soul. He turns toward the Father with the deep intelligence and the full sympathy of the Son ; and straightway He turns toward the world with the widest and tenderest charity (Mt 11='- '^j of. Jn 10'^). Those, accordinr;ly, upon whom Jesus poured His love, never sougTit to distinguish be- tween it and the love of God. Enfolded by the love of Christ, they knew themselves to be received into the redeeming love of God ; and their grateful love to Jesus was the proof and seal of the Divine forgiveness. ' Her sins, which are many, are for- given : for she loved much' (Lk 7'"). Long before tlie doctrine of His Divinity was framed, the love of Christ was regarded by its recipients as the spiritual medium in whicli the Divine compassion reached them. Hebrew thought did not work with categories of being and substance. The human heart never works with categories at all. But it can identify love when it receives it ; and there- fore it makes an experimental synthesis of the love of Christ and the love of God, and sets Christ in a relation toward God occupied by no other man.
The love of God to man being such as He extends to no lesser creature, implies that man has a value for God which no other creature possesses ; and to Jesus man has the same supreme value. Of this value there are no earthly measurements, not any created thing (Mt W 12'-), not any institution, however sacred (Mk 2-'), not even the whole world (Mk 8^^). Even tlie moral ruin, in which sin has involved human nature, does not diminish its value, but rather accentuates its preoiovisness, and adds to the love of God, and tlicrpforc also of Jesus, a note of inexhaustililo |.:i^-i.iii (\lt IS'"-''^""). Christ's doctrine of man ((■"•-: noi luc:!! he thesinrit of 18th cent, individualism. .N(.|. im- man as a spiritual atom, self-coutaiiifd and all-exclusive, does Jesus have respect. J5ut for man akin to God, capable of Divine sonship, He has deep and loving admiration. Not for 7nan, harassed with passions for whose might he is not responsible, guilty of acts which to comprehend is to pardon, does Jesus have regard. But for man, meant for so much and missing so much, framed for per- fection, destroyed by his own deed, He has love and pity, throbbing in every word, passing through action and through suffering to the ultimate agony, the final victory of the Cross.
iv. Social delations.— We have now to follow the character of Christ, which we have been study- ing in its origin, its development, and its leatling features, as it manifests itself in the relations in which He stood to His fellow-men. The narratives attempt no enumeration of incidents. They pre- sent us with typical instances, in which the true self of Jesus is disclosed. From these we are able to conceive the figure of Christ as He moved amid the circles where human life is ordinarily spent.
1. Family.— It is difiicult, from the very scanty materials before us, to trace the relations of Jesus towards the members of His family circle, and to distinguish clearly their attitude towards Him. Yet the following points may be regarded as cer- tain: (1) The life of Jesus, prior to His baptism, was spent within the family circle, and was char- acterized by two features. First, a loyal and affectionate discharge of the duties of a son, pre- sumably as breadwinner for His iii.illii r. Thi' very astonishment of His fellow-villa.^'i -- .it His sub- sequent career is sufficient eviilm..- ili.n .lining the period prior to His public iiiiiM-i ly Hi' liillillcd the ordinary obligations of l,niiil\ iii.'. >ir,.nil, a deepening sense of His \... ,ii mii, wliirh, while it did not render Him liss duliliil .i, :i s.jii .-iikI brother, could not fail to give lliiu adistiuttiv uncss VOL. I. — 19
which would inevitably excite adverse criticism on the part of His kindred, should they prove unsym- pathetic or unintelligent.
(2) The attitude of His mother towards Him, both before and after His baptism, was twofold, (a) Belief in His unique mission and extraordinary powers. Her words to Him in Cana of Galilee (Jn 2^) are pointless, unless they express a per- suasion, born of long pondering, and revived by the recent events connected with His baptism, that He has a mission which could be nothing less than Messianic, and that the time has come for the dis- play of powers with which necessarily He must be endowed for the fulfilment of His task, (b) A profound misconception of the nature of His mission, and of the means by which it should be inaugurated and carried on, together with a critical attitude towards Him, in regard to what she evidently considered an inexplicable, and even blameworthy, negligence on His part to seize the opportunity presented in the circumstances of the feast. For this misunderstanding we need not greatly blame her, for it was shared by His dis- ciples even after the Resurrection ; unless, indeed, we conceive, what is most probable, conmiunings between mother and son during those long silent years, which might lead us to marvel that she, who .surely might have understood, failed as com- pletely as others to discern His purpose.