Concluding estimate. —When we have studied the character of Christ from the points of view sug- gested in the foregoing scheme, we are conscious that we are only on the threshold of a great sub- ject, to whose wealth of meaning no formal study can do justice. The character of Christ presents ■unsearchable riches ' to every sympathetic student. Every generation, since His bodily presence was withdrawn, has been pursuing that investigation ; none has comprehended His fulness, or been forced to look elsewhere for information and inspiration. He has laid upon us the necessity of continuously seeking to understand Him, and of applying, in
the manifold occasions and circumstances of life, the fulness of the moral ideal presented in Himself.
1. When, however, we pause in our detailed study —to whatever length we may have carried it— or in our application of His precept and example— however successfully, or with whatever wistful consciousness of failure, we may have pursued it ; wlien w;e lift our gaze afresh to the portrait pre- sented in the Gospels, the impression deepens upon us with new and overwhelming conviction, that in Christ there is achieved, as a fact of the moral universe, goodness, not merely comparative, but absolute. It is not merely that among the choice spirits of our race He occupies tlie front rank, but that He stands alone. Jesus Christ is the Master of all who seek to know God, in tlie sense that His character is supreme and final in the moral progress of humanity. He is completely human. Like men. He pursued the pathway of development. Like men. He was assailed by temptation, and waged incessant warfare with evil suggestions. Yet He is absolutely unique. He is not merely better than other men. He is what all men ought to be. It is not merely that we see in Him an approximation to the moral ideal, nearer and more successful than is to be discerned in any other man ; but that we find in Him the moral ideal, once for all realized and incarnated, so that no man can ever go beyond Him, while all men in all ages will find it their strength and joy to grow up toward the measure of His stature. Again and again we are made to feel, when we contemplate such virtues as have been adverted to in the preceding pages, e.rf. love to God, love to men, consecration, unselfishness, and tlie like, that there is the note of absoluteness in His attainment. Between Him and the idesj there is no hairbreadth of disparity. His fulfil- ment of the will of God is complete. What God meant man to be is at once disclosed and finished.
2. The positive conception of the absolute good- ness of Jesus carries with it the negative conception of His sinlessneSB. As we stand before the figure in the Gospels, our sense of His perfection reaches special solemnity and tenderness in the impression of His stainless and lovely purity. Attempts, no doubt, have been made to fasten some charge of sin on Jesus, e.g. that of a hasty or imperious temper ; or even to extract from Himself some acknowledgment of imperfection (Mk 10'^). These attempts have totally failed, and have exhibited nothing so clearly as the fact that they are after- thoughts, designed to establish the a priori dogma that sinlessness is an impossibility. Such pro- cedure is, of course, wholly unscientific. If a record, otherwise trustworthy, jiresents us with the portrait of a sinless man, we are not entitled to reject its testimony because, if we accept it, we shall have to abandon a dogma or revise an in- duction. When, accordingly, we study the NT with unprejudiced mind, two great certainties are establislied beyond question.
(1) The impression of His sinlessness made vpon His disciples. — Some of these men had been in close contact with Him, a fellowship so intimate that it was impossible that they could be mistaken in Him. Through this intimacy their moral ideas were enlarged and enriched ; their spiritual insight was made delicate and true. The men who created the ethic of the NT are the spiritual leaders of the human race, and they owed their inspiration to their Master. They knew all the facts. They were spiritually competent to form a sound esti- mate. Without a tinge of hesitation they ascribe to Him complete separation from the very principle of evil (1 P 2^; 2 Co 5=1, 1 Jn 3=, Ho i]" 1"-% They assign to Him an office which required absolute sinlessness, knowing that any jiroof of deviation
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
from the holiness of God would have reduced the claim they made on behalf of their Master to utter confusion (Ac 3" 7^° 22", 1 Jn 2'). A group of men, who knew Christ thoroughly, believed Him to be sinless. A generation, which had the facts fully before them, accepted this as the truth re- garding Jesus of Nazareth. Add to this tlie mysterious effect the personality of Jesus had upon those whose contact with Him was brief, even momentary — Pilate (Lk 23^^ Pilate's wife (Mt 27"), the centurion who superintended the judicial murder (Mk 15^, Lk 23"), the malefactor who died beside Him (Lk 23**-). Among all the witnesses the traitor himself is the clearest and fullest (Mt 27^).
The knowledge which spirit has of spirit, the insight of our moral nature, the verdict of con- science, are all confounded if the taint of sin lay on the soul of Jesus.