Compare now the conditions under which this young carpenter of Nazareth, working at his trade, and doing good work till he was thirty years old, grew into manhood; consider what his people were at their best; consider how little of what was best in Hebrew life entered into his Galilean bringing up; consider the hard conditions and the narrow limitations of his life, and tell me whether Jesus is a normal development of his race and time and place?
We will not now speak of his teachings; compare him with his natural conditions. There is nothing in all human history that makes it possible to believe that a mere Jew, brought up in that Nazareth, could have become this flawless, perfect character. If it be otherwise there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in heredity or environment; then any soil can produce any fruits. Better expect to find the kingly trees of the Yosemite Valley growing with the stunted sage of Arizona.
Consider the teachings of Jesus and tell me can this perfection of truth come out of Nazareth? Consider what he teaches about God, the human soul, sin, reconciliation, salvation and immortality. Consider how he teaches and illustrates in his life the brotherhood of the human race. Consider his ethics—his doctrines of rights and wrongs. What he teaches about rights and wrongs, in principle and practice, is so absolutely full and perfect that good men—the best men in the world to-day, so long after his time—cannot so much as conceive of one single virtue he did not teach or of one single evil that he did not condemn. Nay, the wisest and best are always trying to teach men the truth Jesus taught; and his standard is so high that no sane and honest man has ever professed to have reached it.
One writer has ventured, in order to find one spot on this sun, to say, Jesus did not teach patriotism! His whole life was devoted to his people; his doctrines nourish and conserve patriotism. He did not teach the thing a mere partisan of a clan or tribe calls patriotism; then he would have been only a Galilean zealot. He teaches the only patriotism a good man can respect—a love of country that believes in righteousness and the golden rule that loves its own and another’s too. If Jesus be only a man—a Galilean Jew, we must remember—he contradicts in his flawless all-round character and perfect teaching the conditions of his life. This perfection of character and teaching on the one hand, and this Galilean Jew and Nazarene carpenter on the other, not only do not agree, they cannot exist together. It is by his life that we realize how imperfect all others are; it is by his teachings that we test the rights and wrongs of all other teachings.
There is absolutely nothing in his race or age that accounts for Jesus. That he was a normal product of his race and age contradicts every law of life we know. If it be not so all history goes for nothing and there is no law or reason in the nature of things.
CHAPTER VII.
HIS METHOD OF THOUGHT DIFFERENCES HIM FROM MEN.
In studying the story of the evangelists let us try to come nearer to Jesus. We need not fear; he would have us find out all about him that we can; he would have us know what manner of man he is. If we love beauty, goodness, and truth, we will approach him with reverence. No good man, no man you can respect or trust, will speak of Jesus with flippant words. But we may go to him without hesitation; he who took little children in his arms and blessed and kissed them will not receive the humblest student with coldness. Indeed, the more one needs him the more welcome he is. It was he who said to the “weary and heavy laden,” “Come unto me.”
Let us consider now, as best we may, what we must call his method of thought. It differences him utterly from all mere human teachers. We can find many illustrations.