2. There is no sign that progressive revelations were made to Him during the course of His ministry. Many efforts have been made to show that Jesus attained at certain turning-points to new views of His mission, and of the means by which His work was to be accomplished. It is certainly true that in His teachin'' it is possible to discern two stages, the first marked by a broad and more ethical treatment of the (lospel of the Kingdom, the second dealing with tlie moans by which the Kingdom is to be established. His own Person, sufferings, and death. But it is quite impossible to show that these two stages are not essential parts of one organic whole. The truth is that they are perfectly consistent, and form to- gether one great scheme of revelation. To suppose any change of purpose, or even fresh insight into the means by which our Lord's mission was to be accomplished, during His ministry, is to go beyond the evidence afforded by the Gospel history, in obedience to some a priori psychological or theo- logical theory. It is supposed by some that He began with the belief that the Kingdom would be, somehow or other, introduced miraculously when the people as a whole were ready to receive it, but that, as time went on, and He found Himself rejected by the leaders, He became con\dnced that the Kingdom was already being realized in the
hearts of the faithful, and finally saw that it was necessary that He Himself should die for its ad- vancement. But how is this consistent with such passages as these : JMk l'"- ^- »^- "■ **• "■ « 2=" 3'=, and the corresponding passages in St. Luke ; also the whole Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew ? Why should our Lord so sternly and so con- sistently forbid the spread of popular excitement if He thought the Kingdom would suddenly appear, supervening miraculously upon the old order? Here is clear proof that from the begin- ning He understood the spiritual nature of the Kingdom. Why again should He, from the be- ginning, foreshadow the days of mourning ' when tlie Bridegroom shall be taken away,' unless He had in view all along the great sacrifice which was to end His ministry? (See Mt 9'S Mk 2'9- =», Lk 5W. 35 This saying obviously belongs to the earlier days, when the disciples of Jesus were marked by their joyous acceptance of all the good gifts of their Father in heaven). These con- clusions are greatly strengthened by a considera- tion of the crisis which was brought alnjut by the feeding of the five thousand. That there was a crisis is evident from Jn 6'^- "*■ ** compared with Mt 14»- =* and Mk 6*^-'''. But it was not a crisis in the consciousness of Jesus. It concerned rather the response of the people. Now at last they are utterly disappointed of their hopes of a worldly ilessiah, and the very manner of their disappoint- ment shows our Lord's perfect consistency. His conduct throughout is that of one who.se mind is made up and whose course is absolutely clear. At the very end, it may be thought, we have, in the Agony in the Garden, a crisis at which He became at last fully persuaded of the necessity of His death. But surely it is much more in accord- ance with the whole history to regard this as a moral crisis, when, for the last time. He was tempted to turn aside. There are indications that, all along, this temptation was presented to Him (.see Mt 16---=', Mk S''-'^, Jn 12='). Our Lord's utterances before the Agony show the very fullest consciousness of His mission, and of how it was to be accomplished.
3. Repentance Lad no place in the consciousness of Jesus. As Harnack {What is Christianity ?, \i. 32 f. ) puts it, ' No stormy crisis, no breach with His past, lies behind the period of Jesus' life that we know. In none of His sayings or discourses . . . can we discover the signs of inner revolutions overcome, or the scars of any terrible conflict. Everything seems to pour from Him naturally, as though it could not do otherwise, like a sprin" from the depths of the earth, clear and unchecked in its flow.^ This is the strongest proof of our Lord's perfect sinlessness. It is incredible that the keenest spiritual insight ever possessed by man should have been blind to its own condition. In confirmation of this the following passages are important : Mt o^""- 7" 18=*- =*-^, Mk 9*'"'-, Lk 13^- " 17'" etc. show our Lord's sensitiveness to the presence of sin in the hearts of men ; how He recognized its universality in the world, and how high was His standard. Mk 1", Lk 6*', Jn i-"* 8=*-**, give a direct insight into His conscious- ness of His own moral condition. Lk 5', 1 P 2- 3", 1 Jn 2-"" 3'- ', 2 Co 5=', He 4'* etc. show the impres- sion He produced, in regard to this matter, upon the minds of His di.sciples. Our Lord's conscious- ness of union with His Father was not marred by any sin within His own soul.
On the subject of grow th, then, our data lead us to the conclusion that there was a real develop- ment in tlic c.iiivci. (Illness of Jesus durinj; His j'outh, but timt this df\cloi)ment was completed, certainly in all its essential elements, before He began His ministry.