Jesus had the consciousness of a unique relation to the Father, which made him the mediator of a new understanding of God and of life (v. 27). This new insight was making a new intellectual alignment, leaving the philosophers and scholars as they were, and fertilizing the minds of simple people (v. 25). It is an historical fact that the brilliant body of intellectuals of the first and second centuries was blind to what proved to be the most fruitful and influential movement of all times, and it was left to slaves and working men to transmit it and save it from suppression at the cost of their lives.
Then Jesus turns to the toiling and heavy laden people about him with the offer of a new kind of leadership—none of the brutal self-assertion of the Cæsars and of all conquerors here, but a gentle and humble spirit, and an obedience which was pleasure and brought release to the soul.
These words express his consciousness of being different, and of bearing within him the beginnings of a new spiritual constitution of humanity.
When individuals have really come under the new law of Christ, does Jesus make good?
Would he also make good if humanity based its collective life on the social principles which we have studied?
If the choice is between Cæsar and Christ, which shall it be?
Third Day: The Kingdom of Truth
Pilate therefore entered again into the Prætorium, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, Sayest thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief priests, delivered thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find no crime in him.—John 18:33-38.
All kingdoms rest on force; formerly on swords and bayonets, now on big guns. To overthrow them you must prepare more force, bigger guns. Jesus was accused before Pilate of being leader of a force revolution aiming to make him king. He claimed the kingship, but repudiated the force. To his mind the absence of force resistance was characteristic of his whole undertaking. Instead, his power was based on the appeal and attractiveness of truth. When Pilate heard about “truth” he thought he had a sophist before him, one more builder of metaphysical systems, and expressed the skepticism of the man on the street: “What is [pg 187] truth?” But Jesus was not a teacher of abstract doctrine, whatever his expounders have made of him. His mind was bent on realities. If we substitute “reality” for “truth” in his saying here, we shall get near his thought.