In considering the theme before us, I shall speak, first, of the external history of Christ, next of his teaching, and finally of his personality, in their relation to the present age.
In considering the relation of Christ to the present age, we are met, then, first by the most external form of this relation. The external history of Christ, the very framework of many of his highest and purest teachings, contains elements that are utterly opposed to the habits of thought which are most peculiar to the present century. I refer to whatever in the history of Christ implies the exercise of any miraculous power by him.
The idea of a miracle is opposed to the fundamental axioms of the popular thought of the present. The writers who best represent this thought do not hold it necessary to disprove the fact of miracles. They simply affirm, with Strauss, that the time is past when a miracle can be believed. On the other hand, the miraculous is inextricably intertwined with the history of Christ. We find miracles recognized, not merely in records the genuineness of which has, with or without reason, been suspected. In Epistles of Paul, the genuineness of which no critic of repute has ever dreamed of assailing, the miraculous element is recognized as distinctly as in the Gospels. We have at least the testimony of Paul—one of the grandest souls that ever lived, a man whom we know and honor as we know and honor few—that he believed himself to have wrought miracles, and that he believed the other apostles had done and were in the habit of doing the same. And we further have his testimony, with that of others indorsed by him, in regard to the most important of the miracles of Jesus; namely, the manifestation by Jesus of himself to his disciples after his death.
Here is a collision between the form of the external manifestation of Christ and the spirit of the age. The age itself has given such prominence to this that we cannot overlook it. The idea of miracle is so foreign to the spirit of the age that it has a fascination for it. It has less importance than any thing else in the history of Jesus, and yet nothing has more occupied the thoughts of the thinkers of the present generation.
For the reasons already stated, we must concede a certain degree of right to both sides of the great controversy. If we cannot eliminate the miraculous from the history of Jesus, neither can we, nor would we if we could, eliminate from the spirit of the age that element which finds it hard to accept a miracle. The very antagonism between the two, the right which each maintains being granted, shows the need that each has of the other. Each has a contribution for the other which could be received from no other source.
In the first place, the absolute incredulity with which the most thorough representatives of the thought of the time receive any story of the miraculous shows that now, for the first time, a miracle is seen to be in the truest sense of the word a miracle. To the child or the savage a miracle is hardly possible. Either every thing is a miracle or nothing is. It is only as the absoluteness of law is recognized that a miracle, which is in appearance a violation of this law, begins to produce its full impression. The present age has placed behind miracle a mighty background of law. From out this does miracle first stand forth in its true nature, as something demanding yet defying credence. Those who blame the spirit of the age for lack of faith in this direction should at least give it credit for this immense contribution to the idea of miracle, by which, for the first time, a miracle stands forth absolutely in its true nature.
Not only does the spirit of the age thus furnish to miracles the background that they need: it furnishes to them also a content. The thought of law does not stop with the background of laws of which I spoke. Laws may be finite: law is infinite. The miracle sets at defiance the great background of recognized laws; but itself can be only the manifestation of some higher, grander, more comprehensive law. Thus does a miracle more truly than ever before come as a real revelation. For the first time it has its full and logical meaning. It was before expected to prove something which from the nature of the case it could not prove. No miracle, however stupendous, can prove the truth of a principle in morals. It can show, indeed, some superiority, in some respect, in him who works the miracle; but this superiority may not be of a nature to demand implicit confidence towards the person in all respects. It may be like the superiority of the European over the ignorant savage. The missionary may win the trust of the simple barbarian by sending a message written upon a chip; but the sailor, bringing the seeds of all the vices of civilization, can "make the chip speak" as well as the missionary. But when the miracle testifies of the comprehensive law which it manifests, then first does it have a meaning which cannot be wrested out of it. Nay, then first does it become really sublime. Before, it was a single meteor flashing in short-lived brightness across the sky. Now, it is the first manifestation of a vast system of worlds of which we had not dreamed. Such is the contribution which the spirit of the age, through the very antagonism of which I spoke, makes to the miracles which constitute so much of the external form in which Christ meets it.
On the other hand, miracle brings a no less important contribution to the spirit of the age. This spirit tends, not only to look upon law as absolute, but to look upon the system of laws which it has discovered as final. These laws tend continually to become narrow and hard. They tend to become merely a system of physical forces. There is danger that the spirit may become shut up within these physical laws as in a prison-house. The miracle demonstrates to the senses that these physical laws are not absolute, even in their own realm; that these physical forces are encompassed and interpenetrated by spiritual forces; that matter is at the last subordinate to spirit. It may not reveal the nature of these spiritual forces; but it does reveal their presence. All do not need this demonstration. The same truth may be reached in other ways. The laws of thought reveal it. The spiritual consciousness may be sufficient unto itself. Christ himself regarded his miracles as of comparatively small account. He wrought them because he was moved to use whatever power he had to bless mankind. If he healed the sick, it was because he loved to heal them. He sympathized with sorrow and suffering, and, so far as he could, would remove their cause. But the miracles carry, as we have seen, their own revelation with them; and they have their place, however lowly, in regard even to the spiritual consciousness. The albatross, we are told, with all its magnificent sweep of wing, cannot lift itself from the flat surface of the deck on which it may be lying. Just because its wings are so strong and large, it needs to be lifted a little, that they may have space to move, that they may have freedom to smite the air. When this freedom has been given it, then it mounts upward, sustained by its own inherent strength. So is it, sometimes, with the spirit. It has strength of its own. It has a self-sustaining power. But it sometimes needs to be lifted a little way above the dead level of its daily life, above the plane of physical relations, before its wings find strength and freedom to beat the air. Then, leaving its temporary support behind it, it mounts in glad flight heavenward. Such help many have found, and may yet find, in the miracles of Jesus. The miracle may lift the level surface of life as if into a wave, from the crest of which the spirit may start upon its flight.
From the external manifestation of the history of Christ, and the external relations in which through this he stands to the present age, we pass to the inner power of this life. Within these external manifestations we find his teachings. We have, then, next to consider the relation in which Christ stands to the present age as a teacher. We shall find here the same twofold relation which we have found before; and the external may thus stand as a type and illustration of the internal. We will first consider, under this aspect, the basis and form of the teaching of Christ, and next its substance.