“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Had Jesus been only a man, conceiving vast plans for propagating his doctrines and perpetuating his kingdom, he would have done all the things he did not do. He would have relied on force, money, diplomacy, argument. He would have considered what human selfishness is, and he would have appealed to it. He would have provided institutions and have founded schools. There would have been a “propaganda” compassing the world in its plans, and his agents would have been drilled in forms and methods after the manner of men. He would, to have been at all like a man in his plans, have left a system of “ethics” or “theology.” He would have formulated a “creed”; he would have drawn up a “constitution” with “bylaws” for his Church, stating in terms every principle and providing, according to the foresight given him, for every contingency, as did John Wesley with his Discipline and Legal Hundred. (Can it be necessary to say this illustration is no reflection upon the great and good English reformer, who was a mere man?) He would have set for rigid observance forms and ceremonies of which he had none and prescribed none, not so much as telling men how they were to do in the matter of the sacraments—baptism and the memorial supper.
Mere men always do such things. Jesus did not adopt a man’s way in any of his work or plans, unless we except those who have learned of him something of the divine art of doing good to the souls and bodies of men.
CHAPTER XIII.
“JESUS CHRIST TOOK THE WAY OF PERISHING.”
If Jesus was only a man there is another marvelous thing you must have thought of before this time. He talked of a kingdom that was to endure forever, that was to conquer the world, and that was to bind the human race into a holy brotherhood; but he made no preparation for a successor. He expected to die early, as he did; he told his disciples, time and again, that he would not be with them long; but he provided for no representative or visible headship when he was gone. The idea of such a representative did not occur in all his thoughts, as it was not intimated in any of his words. Napoleon shows us a man’s way in his eager concern for a successor and in the cruel and wicked method he took to secure his ends.
What Jesus did not ordain and require men may use in his work, if their methods be in themselves good, and consistent with the spirit of his kingdom. But what he did not require men must not demand of his free children.
So far as plans are concerned, of a sort recognizable by men as plans—of a sort they will admit who believe he was only a man—there was just one thing he did and commanded. He called about him a few fishermen and other plain people—of what are called by some the “lower classes”—and said in effect: “Go up and down through the earth and tell every body what you have seen me do and what you have heard me say; tell the people of me; tell them to go on repeating the story; tell them to hand it down through the ages, telling it over and over.”
These are the very words: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”