Now arises the question, How far did our Lord Himself determine which among His doings and sayings should be recorded and which not? If He had Himself left a record, every word would have been regarded as inspired, and the Christian church would have been ruled, not by an indwelling Spirit, but by a book written once for all. It could not have been ruled by both,—for men cannot walk after the letter and after Faith at the same time—and that wooden fixity which characterised Rabbinical Judaism, would have affected Christianity as well. It pleased God that it should be left to men to tell the tale, and so other men may venture to use their judgment about it. But as Christ passed on His course, He must Himself have felt that this or that incident or discourse ought to be handed down. How could He effect this without miracle of any kind? It seems to me that He may have selected, as it were, matters for preservation thus. When He desired an incident to be known, “Wheresoever the Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world,”[302] He emphasizes [pg 401] it, by some action or declaration, as above, viz. by letting drop some vivid expression which takes hold of the minds of men. Thus the story of the denials of Peter is rendered indelible by the words, “before the cock crow twice.” The hard saying or striking expression, sometimes because it touched the quick of men's understandings, and sometimes because it puzzled them to make it out, was thought of again and again, and remained by them as part of themselves. The incident which called the saying forth, or the colloquy in which it occurred would have to be recorded to explain the saying itself: a mass of the matrix would go along with the precious metal embedded in it. What it was not thought needful to preserve, was not enriched with these pregnant sayings and has not survived.
Hence I believe that the withdrawal from us of those “many other things that Jesus did” was not without design. The consequences of this may be of service to us in many ways, but the only one of which I shall speak is this. If every detail of our Lord's acts had been set down, many more of those matters of daily life, on which judgment is now left open, would have been determined for us by the recorded example of our Lord. Many Christians would have felt bound to act as Christ had done, even in those concerns of ordinary life which might well be left to the individual; and many inexorable necessities—many rigid lines for [pg 402] which there was no occasion—would have traversed the field of Christian action.
That our Lord should have thus placed a limit on the particulars that should be recorded about Him falls in with the views taken in this book, viz. that He was anxious to preserve individual freedom of action, and that He looked forward with a general prescience to the course of events.
It is my opinion that our Lord foresaw, that, in time to come, men of different races and under different conditions would desire to fashion their lives after His, and that therefore He purposely freed the account of Himself that should come into their hands from all that was immaterial, and particularly from all that was exclusively Jewish in its garb; but whether this were so or not, the fact remains that no particular national institutions or social usages are consecrated by our Lord's words or practice. Supposing that our Lord knew that posterity would regard His example as a sacred rule, and that He wished men not to be hampered in this way, but to retain free play of thought and will, it is hard to devise for Him a course more expedient for the end in view than that which he actually took.
Several instances occur in the Gospels, of appeal being made to our Lord about vexed matters belonging to the life of that time. Such appeals He always meets much in the same way. He puts the matter aside, either by positively refusing [pg 403] to judge or by giving the question an unexpected turn.
The cases to which I shall refer are, (1) the disputed inheritance, (2) the woman taken in adultery, (3) the paying of the didrachma, (4) the judgment on the tribute to Cæsar.
1. It seems to have been during the ministry in some city, either in Judæa or Peræa, when the people were pressing on one another to get near our Lord, that one of the multitude said to Him, “Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me.”[303]
This man was influenced by some notion that he had been wronged, a notion which was very likely born of cupidity. This greed he carried always about him, it was uppermost in his mind, and when he found the crowd listening to the Preacher of righteousness, he thought that he might turn the influence of this Preacher to account for his own ends. If, by an ex parte statement he could get Christ's judgment on his side, possibly his brother would do His bidding. The Jewish Law of inheritance was plain and courts of Law were accessible, but perhaps his claim had been disallowed; at any rate he thought it a cheaper plan to get the great Preacher to interfere.
Our Lord repudiates in strong terms the notion that He is a “judge or a divider.” Judges and dividers through many ages had been provided for [pg 404] regular duty in a regular way; but Christ's coming was an act standing by itself in the History of the race. It had nothing to do with the internal concerns of this people or of that. Its influence was worldwide. He was to kindle the new fire, to set alight the spiritual passion in mankind. He notes how, in the man who appeals to Him, every affection had been absorbed and killed by his covetousness. He turns to the multitude and inveighs against this insidious vice, and delivers to them the parable[304] of the rich man who would pull down his barns and build greater. There is no hidden meaning lying behind this parable as there is in those in which He set the Kingdom forth, it is only an instructive story for the hearers to carry away. Then, turning to the disciples, He puts the matter in a higher light. His moral is ever this, that to improve a man's well being, whether of a material or a social kind, you must begin by making the man himself as good as you can. Such material well being as is needed for society will follow on the moral and spiritual improvement of individual men. “Seek ye first,” says He, “the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”[305]
Let us suppose for a moment that our Lord had listened to this man and reviewed his case and left a judgment. What would have been the result? We should have had an isolated [pg 405] case of the Law of inheritance, on which an irreversible decision had been pronounced. Every code framed for Christian lands would have had to accept and embody this. Endless comments on this particular case would have been written, endless guesses at the circumstances of it would have been made, and every one who contested a distribution would have endeavoured to shew that this decision covered his claims. Moreover, whenever the Christian missionary came to a new country, instead of holding a purely spiritual position he would have brought with him a new law of inheritance as part of the new religion, and people could not have accepted his teaching without changing usages to which they clung.