We know not what was the subject of Christ's teaching on this occasion. But the effect on the people was one of general astonishment. They knew what common unlettered Galilean tradesmen were - but this, whence came it? [3964] How does this one know literature (letters, learning), [3965] never having learned?' To the Jews there was only one kind of learning - that of Theology; and only one road to it - the Schools of the Rabbis. Their major was true, but their minor false - and Jesus hastened to correct it. He had, indeed, learned,' but in a School quite other than those which alone they recognised. Yet, on their own showing, it claimed the most absolute submission. Among the Jews a Rabbi's teaching derived authority from the fact of its accordance with tradition - that it accurately represented what had been received from a previous great teacher, and so on upwards to Moses, and to God Himself. On this ground Christ claimed the highest authority. His doctrine was not His own invention - it was the teaching of Him that sent Him. The doctrine was God-received, and Christ was sent direct from God to bring it. He was God's messenger of it to them. [3966] Of this twofold claim there was also twofold evidence. Did He assert that what He taught was God-received? Let trial be made of it. Everyone who in his soul felt drawn towards God; each one who really willeth to do His Will,' would know concerning this teaching, whether it is of God,' or whether it was of man. [3967] It was this felt, though unrealised influence which had drawn all men after Him, so that they hung on His lips. It was this which, in the hour of greatest temptation and mental difficulty, had led Peter, in name of the others, to end the sore inner contest by laying hold on this fact: To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life - and we have believed and know, that Thou art the Holy One of God.' [3968] Marking, as we pass, that this inward connection between that teaching and learning and the present occasion, may be the deeper reason why, in the Gospel by St. John, the one narrative is immediately followed by the other, we pause to say, how real it hath proved in all ages and to all stages of Christian learning - that the heart makes the truly God-taught (pectus facit Theologum'), and that inward, true aspiration after the Divine prepares the eye to behold the Divine Reality in the Christ. But, if it be so is there not evidence here, that He is the God-sent - that He is a real, true Ambassador of God? If Jesus' teaching meets and satisfies our moral nature, if it leads up to God, is He not the Christ?
And this brings us to the second claim which Christ made, that of being sent by God. There is yet another logical link in His reasoning. He had said: He shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself.' From Myself? Why, there is this other test of it: Who speaketh from himself, seeketh his own glory' - there can be no doubt or question of this, but do I seek My own glory? - But He Who seeketh the glory of Him Who sent Him, He is true (a faithful messenger), and unrighteousness is not in Him.' [3969] Thus did Christ appeal and prove it: My doctrine is of God, and I am sent of God!
Sent of God, no unrighteousness in Him! And yet at that very moment there hung over Him the charge of defiance of the Law of Moses, nay, of that of God, in an open breach of the Sabbath-commandment - there, in that very City, the last time He had been in Jerusalem; for which, as well as for His Divine claims, the Jews were even then seeking to kill Him.' [3970] And this forms the transition to what may be called the second part of Christ's address. If, in the first part, the Jewish form of ratiocination was already apparent, it seems almost impossible for any one acquainted with those forms to understand how it can be overlooked in what follows. [3971] It is exactly the mode in which a Jew would argue with Jews, only the substance of the reasoning is to all times and people. Christ is defending Himself against a charge which naturally came up, when He claimed that His Teaching was of God and Himself God's real and faithful Messenger. In His reply the two threads of the former argument are taken up. Doing is the condition of knowledge - and a messenger had been sent from God! Admittedly, Moses was such, and yet every one of them was breaking the Law which he had given them; for, were they not seeking to kill Him without right or justice? This, put in the form of a double question, [3972] represents a peculiarly Jewish mode of argumentation, behind which lay the terrible truth, that those, whose hearts were so little longing to do the Will of God, not only must remain ignorant of His Teaching as that of God, but had also rejected that of Moses.