1. The sincerity of Jesus. — The character of Jesus sets the standard of perfect sincerity ; ' guile was not found in his mouth' (I P 2'--) ; He is 'the true one ' (6 dXridii'ds, 1 Jn 5'"), op^josed by that title to all that is counterfeit. To know Him is to know the Truth and the Life (Jn 17=*). The perfectly sincere man must be one (a) whose mind is perfectly responsive to the trutli. It is not enough that he should speak and act from conviction. The con- viction must be sincerely formed, without double- mindedness, without any falsehood of heart (Mt 5^, 2 P 3^). All that Jesus said and did must be the manifestation of an inner life ; but the believer needs also the assurance that there was nothing in the mind of Jesus to distort the truth. It is not enough to believe that He means what He says ; we must believe that He is able to receive without loss or deflexion the rays of the truth. In the Fourth Gospel much is said of the truth of Christ ; this is more than His veracity (cf. Robertson's Sermons, vol. i. * The Kingdom of the Truth '). He is the Way because He is the Truth (Jn H**) ; He is the Light of the world (8'^), and His light is the light of life. He is full of grace and truth {V). His Kingdom is of the truth (18^^). He is set over against all that is unreal and partial and transitory. In Him there is an unbroken course for the revelation of the light and life of God (lys. 10. 21 g^(;^_ Sincerity implies the single heart and eye, which alone can receive the vision of God. The sincerity of Jesus is more than the consistency of His action and speech with His thought ; it in- volves His trustworthiness as a mediator of the truth, {b) But sincerity, in the more common usage of the word, implies that between the inner self and the expression, nothing intervenes to con- fuse or to distort. In the Gospels there is a picture of a life in which there is nothing to conceal ; Jesus speaks and acts in such a way as to convince men that He is revealing His con- viction. The Gospels manifest a life of perfect harmony. The manifestation is varied, but the motive is single. His gentleness and His sternness are alike the expression of His holy love, and never spring from idle sentiment, or personal feeling, or those cross-motives which break the peace of other lives.
At the outset of His ministry there comes the temptation to accept a compromise in the pursuit of His aims : He answers, ' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve' (Lk 4^) ; no tampering with the mission in its means or in its ends could be tolerated. ' His means are pure and spotless as his ends ' (Words- worth). He is early contrasted with the scribes becau.se of His authority (Mk 1-'') ; this impression could have been made only by One acknoAvledged to be sincere. He wins from the first grouji of disciples the confidence accorded only to a manifest conviction. Even the scribes come to shrink from His clear gaze (11'^). The accepted opinion is that Jesus speaks truly (Lk 20-^). Many think Him mistaken, or beside Himself (Mk 3^'), or blasphemous (H^^-^*), but none treat Him as a conscious deceiver. Jesus proves His sincerity by His stedfastness in His calling ; dark as the way l)ec()mes, He never wavers (Mt 16"- -^). It is pos- sible that the Pharisees would not have been un- willing to compromise Avith Jesus, but He would keep back nothing of the truth.
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SINLESSNESS
In his Life of Jesus, Renan makes allowance for a lower standard of sincerity in the East than that to which the Western nations conform. 'To the deeplj' earnest races of the West, conviction means sincerity to one's self. But sincerity to one's self has not much meaning to Oriental peoples, little accustomed to the subtleties of a critical spirit. . . . The literal truth has little value for the Oriental ; he sees everything through the medium of his ideas, his interests, and his passions. History is impossible if we do not fully admit that there are many standards of sincerity ' (ch. 16). By such means Renan seeks to explain the attitude of Jesus to popular illusions, and the willingness which he finds in Jesus to take advantage of them in the interest of His enthusiastic purpose.
A truer criticism would rather attribute the story of such accommodation, if it were discerned, to the imperfect under- standing of the disciples. There is, however, no need to resort to such explanations ; the narratives make it sufficiently plain that Jesus deliberately refused to work upon popular illusions. Nor can it be forgotten that the standard of sincerity, of which Renan speaks, has been set by Cliristian faith. Nowhere is there a more stern demand for truth and sincerity than in the Apostolic writings, which owe their inspiration to ' the mind of Christ.' It is impossible to regard as one among many phases of Oriental religion a faith which in its preparatory history declared that God demanded truth in the inward parts, and in its fulfilment manifested to the world One who was known as ' the Truth.'