In this connexion a word must be said on His relation to the stock of Israel. All His personal habits and customs, all His infonnation. His re- ligious premises, found their starting-points in the national life and customs of Israel, and in the Scrip- tures and other cun-ent ideas of its noblest minds belonging to previous days. And He never hesitated to adopt and use freely the practices and religious language Avhich He found in the Israel of His age. But it is impossible, for all that, to regard Jesus as a typical, or as a perfect Jew. He had indeed all the best characteristics of the greatest sons of Israel, and notably of the prophet^s of the past ; their zeal for righteousness, their fear of God, their tenacity of purpose, their noble scorn of the little- ness of the earth and all that is in it in comparison with ' the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, whose name is Holy ' (Is 57^^). But He was likest them jxist where they were least repre- sentative of the race from which they sprang, just where they towered above their fellow-countrymen and were least appreciated by the latter. He' rose above them all ; and while nothing truly Jewish was discarded or denied, the Jew was left below. He was fully conscious of this Himself, and so the term by which He continually named Himself wa.s at once the simplest and the greatest that a human being can bear — He was the 'Son of Man.' It is a title all can use, but He alone exhausts. And to this day it continually receives corroboration from many quarters, for His disciples, drawn from many
races, never find Him alien to their own needs. To the Oriental Wliever Jesus is an Oriental, to the Western He has all the Western nature. The ancient Greek philosopher, the modem Hindu, and the Negro slave, no less tlian the British subject, see indeed ditterent aspects of Him salient, but none feels in Him a national character which makes Him a foreigner from their several points of view.
4. A few negative obser\ations are required, as they serve to define more clearly .some of the char- acteristics of the Lord Jesus. («) He was sinless. Amidst men whose eyes were sharpened by en^■y to detect the least fault, and who tried manj- times to ensnare Him in His words because they despaired of tripping Him in wrong conduct, He threw down the challenge without misgiving : ' Which of jou convicteth me of sin?" And none dared take it up, either then or later (Mk 14*5) . jj^j. jjj ^j^g ^Lxty generations that have pa-sed since then have anv such ethical advances been made that, looking liack from our present vantage ground, we can point to anything as sin in Him. But His sinlessness did not consist merely in the fact that no act of fuU- gTOA\-n sin could be dLscovered. There was no f'^'hif anywhere in Jesus" mind. Everjihing bore the bloom of perfect spiritual liealtii and maturity. Spiritual disease could find no foothold whence to spread its poison, not even in the hours of spiritual conflict and interaal agony. ' One that hath been tempted in all point* like as we are, apart from sin' (He 4^^), is the only possible description of Him. (b) He made no use of limiting qunlijica- tions in Hk sayings, or sinular rcscrrations in His action. He did not use ' ifs ' and ' but*,' but s^wke with sunple decisiveness on the most complex ques- tions. At times He would carry this to the length of paradox, and bid a man struck on one cheek turn the other to invite a blow. At other times He would restate a problem to strip it of those adventitious difficulties ■with which it is enveloped in common minds ; as when He met the unuitered question whether He would break the Law by healing on the Sabbath, by putting the inquiry, ' Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm ? to save a life, or to kill ? ' (Mk 3*). But more often He went straight to the centre of the matter in hand with a simple directness which made all qualifications needless : His dealing with the Sadducees' puzzle (12^^""-^) is a striking in- stance. This can be done only by one whose 'eye is .single.' (<■) Jesus was never critical. More nearly than anywhere else one seems here to dis- cover a deficiency in Him ; for the critical faculties are of great value, and in some minds are in admirable vigour. In Him they were in abeyance. And yet it is plain this resulted from no want of faculty. He could on occasion prove Himself matchless in dialectic ; and in more than one controversy with skilled opponent* He used this dialectic power with crushing eflect. What could be finer than His api>eal to the ima^e and super- scription of the tribute-money when plied with the insidious question, ' Shall we give, or shall we not give?' (12"); or than His rejoinder to the challenge of His own authority, 'The Imptism of Jolui, was it from heaven, or from men ? answer me' (11^), — a rejoinder which not only silenced objectors, but went to the root of the question they raised as to the criterion of ' authority ' ? His dialectic skill .sometimes passed into biting sarcasm, as when He pointed out how the scribes and Phari- sees witnessed to themselves that they were the sons of them that slew the projihets, bj- the way they garnished their tombs (Mt 23^-^M. ' Here are all tlie faculties for critical efliciency, but the Lord Jesus was never critical. The fact seems to b« that His mind was too creative. In minds of lesser stature, criticism may hold an honourable place.