CHAPTER XV.
WHAT HE CLAIMS AND DEMANDS.
There is a fact, personal to Jesus, that not only enters vitally into this argument, but more than any thing else explains the power of his words on the conscience: what was considered in another relation in the outset—the perfection of his own character; his sinlessness: his absolute purity.
A perfect doctrine will no doubt affect the conscience, but a perfect doctrine uttered by one who lives a holy life has tenfold the power of the mere statement of doctrine. And it is not simply that the hearer recoils from a doctrine stated by an inconsistent or insincere man because he is inconsistent and insincere, but such a man cannot so much as utter the truth in its fullness; he cannot conceive the truth in its completeness.
When Jesus utters a truth it lays hold upon the conscience and life not simply because it is the truth, but because he is the “Truth and the Life.” His conscience goes with the word and it enters into our conscience. It was this quality in him, more than aught else, that led his hearers, when the Sermon on the Mount was ended, to “wonder at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority.” It is living a truth more than learning about a truth that gives the teacher authority.
An illustrative incident may help us here. The late Mr. Wray was a Baptist missionary in India. He was a man of known consistency of religious character. A child who knew him well was asked the question: “What is holiness?” A man would have done as so many do with lamentable failure, attempted a “definition;” the child answered: “Holiness is the way Mr. Wray lives.” The child was nearly, if not quite, at the bottom of the subject.
The learner in the school of Jesus may find here a truth of first importance. It is twofold: 1. The best way to learn more truth is to live the truth he does know. 2. The only way to rightly teach any truth in morals, in things spiritual, is to live it. Religion, like science, believes in experiment and teaches by facts. The incarnate truth is the truth that has life in it. It is said with reverence, but with confidence, Jesus teaches what spiritual life is more by living it than by his words. His life expounds his doctrine, and without his life we could not understand his teachings.
Try the principle by any test of him. For example, he teaches us that forgiveness is a duty and that revenge is a sin. What does he mean? What he did. You remember his last prayer: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” He teaches us to love our enemies. What does he mean? What he did; always blessing them when he could. He teaches that we best serve God by doing good to men, and that the best proof and only proof of loving God is in loving men. What does he mean? What he did. He was always doing good. And so his life expounds his teachings, and is the one safe and true commentary upon his words.
Contemplate that life for a moment. Begin at Bethlehem and follow him to Bethany, where, it is said, he ascended to heaven. That life is blameless, flawless. He did not lack abuse, denunciation, defamation, persecutions. Men called him a drunkard and a glutton because he was not an ascetic; they said he “had a devil” because they could not understand how any man would do a thing only because it was right. Some called him a lunatic; “he is beside himself,” they said, because he was unworldly, was what they considered “unbusinesslike,” because they, with their selfishness and pride, could not imagine themselves living as he did unless they had lost their reason. Many hated him then, as they do now, because he was, as he is, in the way of their self-seeking and their sins. Bad men cannot be at rest where he is.