1. For thirty years after His advent, Jesus was silent as to His mission. He allowed Himself ample time for the natural development of all His powers and faculties. He passed through the ordinary phases of childhood, boyhood, youth, and attained the maturity of manhood before He took up the burden of His brief career. It is the lesson of self-repression, of concentrated preparation for
a great work. Jesus took no step He was obliged on maturer consideration to retract.
2. And before He took up His lifework there is a still deeper and more significant silence, the silence of the Temptation. (Mt 41-", Mk P^- 13, Lk 4}'^^). Acts are but symbols, the true human drama is the drama of the soul. All epoch-making events have been lived through in some human soul before tliej^ emerged upon the arena of history. It was in the monastery of Erfurt that the Reformation was wrought out. It Avas in the cave of Manresa its victorious progress was stayed. And it Avas in the Avilderness that Jesus lived His life, fought His tremendous battle with evil, faced every possible contingency of temptation, and came out victorious. In the silence of His oAvn great soul A\as the campaign finished and the adversary baffled.
3. After the ordeal in the Avilderness, Jesus began His active career, Avhicli Avas merely the symbol and seal of the victory already gained. The Synoptists are uniform in asserting that during the greater part of His ministry He Avas silent as to His Messiahship and His supernatural origin. His teaching, of Avhich the Sermon on the Mount is a summary, is purely ethical. The first indication of any recognition of His true nature is to be found in the striking incident near Csesarea Philippi, and it is significant that it is the spontaneous acclama- tion of His oAvn disciples. It is Peter who gives expression to the general feeling in the historic Avords, ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Peter's confession draws forth the im- mediate injunction to the disciples that they tell no man that He Avas Jesus the Christ (Mt 16^"). This silence of Jesus as to His Messiahship was not merely, or mainly, from motives of prudence. It Avas because the only homage He valued Avas the homage that sprang from a real perception of the inherent Divineness of His character. He sought to draAv out of men a recognition of His Divine nature by the sheer force of His Personality. It was the tribute of the heart, the spontaneous uprising of the spiritual instinct in response to His Godhood, that alone had ethical worth. The mere tribute of the lips, the result of convention or authority, Avas meaningless to Him. Jesus was silent in order that those Avho kneAv and loved Him, and in whose soul the Divine energy was Avorking, might testify of Him.
4. The silence of Jesus regarding His miracles is significant of His own attitude toAvards them (Mk 3^-, Lk 5"). Silence here cannot have been from prudential considerations, for miracles must un- doubtedly have enhanced His reputation among the people, and it Avas His refusal to Avork miracles to gratify the Pharisees that formed the ground of their offence against Him (Mt IG'"'^-)- But Jesus knew how little miracles really proved. He knew that the faith given to Him merely on account of the physical marvels He did was on a distinctly loAver level than the soul's spontaneous recognition of His spiritual transcendence (Jn 14^1). He Avas afraid that the unhealthy craving of a supersti- tious people would dull their perception of ethical truth.
5. Very striking is the silence of Jesus to direct questions asked. He never ignores a question sin- cerely put, or even Avhen it is put as a challenge, but He rarely gives it a categorical answer (Mt 11-'' W 2P3 2216-34, Mk 10", Lk IS^^). He generally rises above the individual case and settles the general principle of which it is an instance. Jesus kncAV Avhat Avas in men. He ansAA^ers their thought rather than their Avords. Soul meets soul Avith no interposing medium of physical utterance. The sincere seeker after truth gets a truth deeper than he dreamt of, Avhile the insincere casuist is put to silence.
SILENCE
SILENCE
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6. Tlieie are various striking silences of Jesus to individuals which have each its own peculiar meaning. (1) The silence of probation (Mt 15^). AVhen the Syrophccnician woman pleads with Jesus to cure her daughter, He answers her not a word. When she persists in her pleading, in spite of all dissuasion, He speaks, but the ethical position of the two is strangely inverted. The words of Jesus breathe the narrowness of Judaism. Tliose of the woman reflect the universality of the gospel. This silence of Jesus to her pitiful en- treaty is the silence of probation. He recognizes her faith ; and because He sees it will stand the strain. He tests it to the uttermost. See Syro- PHfENiciAN Woman.
(2) The silence of horror (Mt W^). When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, He said no word, but de^mrted into a desert place to calm the tumult of His spirit in silence. The iniquity of the world He had come to redeem swept over the pure spirit of Jesus with such overwhelm- ing force that utterance was choked, and His human nature had to seek, in silence, communion with the Fatlier in order to regain its equanimity. It is a silence more eloquent than words of vehement denunciation would have been. It is the instinctive shrinking of a high nature from the grossness and baseness of sin.