(2) Between Jesus and His fellow-men the rela- tions are no less perfect. It is true, H e could not realize in His own ca.se all possible circumstances in which a man might be placed. But He could, and did, hold such an attitude to men as would enable Him to enter with perfect sympathy and entire appropriateness into anj' situation into which DiAnne Pro\ddence might conduct a man. In a word. He loved men. It is abundantly cedent that He knew them, both in the broad qualities of humanitj and in the indi%'idual features of the lives which came before Him. The amazing fact, accordingly, is, that, in spite of .such knowledge. He loved men, believed in their high destiny, yearned to save them, and was ready to give the supreme proof of His love by dying for them.
We conclude, then, that Jesus was good, not merely as being one of a class of men upon wlioni we may pass this verdict without setting them thereby ai);irt finm their MI.av-, but as standing alone in tli^ miniilit.ni— ut Hi- ctliical acliieve- ment. His rli.tinrtci lH>:n> the mark of attain- ment aii.l liii.iliiy. All other -oudness is to be estiiii.iii I 1 \ ''m 1 1 II 'asure in which it approximates to 111 I I matter of dogma but of observa- tion ! inference from the moral history of tlioini i'ii'inint to His appearing. It is a fact that He is the ethical head of humanity. To say this, however, is to define Him as more than man. However we may construe His person, it will he
INCARNATION
INCAENATION
impossible to confine ourselves to a merely humani- tarian interpretation of it. ' He wlio alone stands in this universal relation to humanity cannot be merely a member of it' (Forrest, Christ of History,
etc.
ness. The evidence of the portrait constrains us to conclude, not merely that Jesus was a very good man, in whom there was ' the minimum of sinfulness' and ' tlie maximum, of holiness,' but that in Him was no sin. The testimony of His contemporaries might not suffice to establish this result, though it is, indeed, most im[iressive to note how those who knew Him iiil ii]i;i(.'ly bear unani- mous and most solemn tc-t inioii\ l(. Mi- ^inlr^^ni-^-, and ascribe to Him an lAh^i- wliirli c'l.nlil l«' Ih-IiI
only by an absolutely 1 Jn 21 3=,
i-h(, of proof lieyond ques- w as no sense ]iiii;i;s or fall- mlil. otlitTs to ii.ulit it of the
nmra]
k1 a (conviction
Ac 3' lies in His own
tion that in that consiidn-in'^^ of personal unworthiness, nf sh ures, even the slightest. He wl pray for forgiveness, and ne\er Divine mercy for Himself ; He wlio pniclaiuied llic necessity of regeneration for all men, and Himself never passed through any such phase of experience ; He who in tenderest sympathy drew close to the sinner's side, and yet always manifested a singular aloofness of spirit, and never inil\nled Himself
among the objects of tin- [li\in .ni passion ; He
who made it His vo(tati<'n to dii- u,v ihe remission of sins, must have been, in ,i((n,il either that, or He must \\:\\r l.ei-n darkness more profound lli.in >in duces, even in the \\m>l ni nnii. of Jesus is a fact whose imssiliilily questioned through mere miwillir tlie inferences which follow from sinless. He stands alone in the mor race. He cannot be clas.sed along however good and great. They aic to an ideal. He is the Ideal. I moreover, cannot be interprete.l a- naturiE, or a special product of The difference between Jesus and is this, that while He has ]iroduc of sin immeasurably more profound than they have evoked .among' their admirers. He has also awakened a eor.lidence an^l .i. pe.ne which tliey have never wrnn-lil in tin'ir clo^r^i Mni(alor>. Unnumbered ninltihnle, oi Imman >oul - li:i\ .■ r,,uie under repenerati\e an.l sanetilyin;; inllnences, which, without doubt, liave emanated from His personality, and which have wroiight in them a type of character which is the reflex of His. There is only one place in which a reverent and open-minded study of the character of Christ can set Him, and that is beside God, as essentially Divine. He is certainly human. The closer we draw to Him, the more clearly do we discern His humanity. There is nothing, sin excepted, to divide us from Him. Pain and sorrow, tempta- tion and conflict, discipline and growth, — He knows them all. In His universality all the endless variety of human experiences is comprehended ; so that He is kinsman of every family on earth, contemporary of every generation, neighbour and friend of every soul that breathes and suft'ers. Yet this very hunumity is the unveiling of Divinity. If, because of His humanity, we have been inclined to draw Him into our ranks, we soon find that He will not be tlius classified. He is man, yet more than man— the Holy One of God. He was born a man, yet His Inrth was not the inevitable product of physiological and racial conditions ; it was the entrance into humjinity of one whose home and native air were elsewhere. They were within the circle of Divinity. See, further, art. Sin, § 7.
A study of the character of Christ does not pro- vide us with a ready-made dogma of the constitu- tion of His person. Two things, howcxer, it does etteut : (n) it sets the person of I'lni-i in the centre of Christianity as its main deelaiali.ju ami its most cogent proof ; (h) it makes a nieieli' hunninitarian construction of His personality for ever impossible. We are constrained to conceive of the sinless Christ, not as the bloom and efflorescence of humanity, but rather as One who has entered into humanity on an errand of profound significance for the moral liistory of the race. We turn, there- fore, once nujre to the portrait in the Gospels, to