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08 - Jesus of History by Terrot R. Glover · Jesus of History

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Speaker 1: Chapter seven of The Jesus of History by T. R. Glover.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter seven
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Speaker 1: Jesus' Teaching upon Sin for clear thinking ethical natures, writes
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Speaker 1: modern scholar for natures such as those of Jesus and
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Speaker 1: Saint Paul, it is a downright necessity to separate heaven
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Speaker 1: and Hell as distinctly as possible. It is only ethically
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Speaker 1: worthless speculations that have always tried to minimize this distinction.
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Speaker 1: Carlyle is an instance in our times of how men
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Speaker 1: even today once more enthusiastically welcome the conception of hell
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Speaker 1: as soon as the distinction between good and bad becomes
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Speaker 1: all important to them. Here, in strong terms, a challenge
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Speaker 1: is put to many of our current ideas. Is not
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Speaker 1: this to revert to an outworn view of the Christian
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Speaker 1: religion to reassert its dark side better forgotten all the
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Speaker 1: horrible emphasis on sin and its consequences introduced into the
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Speaker 1: sunny teaching of Jesus by Paul of Tarsus and alien
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Speaker 1: to it. Before we answer this question in any direct way,
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Speaker 1: it is worthwhile to realize for how many of the
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Speaker 1: real thinkers and the great teachers of mankind. This distinction
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Speaker 1: between good and evil has been fundamental. They have not
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Speaker 1: invented it as a theory on which to base religion,
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Speaker 1: but they have found it in human life, one and
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Speaker 1: all of them. If Walt Whitman or Swami Vivecnanda overlook
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Speaker 1: the difference between virtue and vice and do honor to
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Speaker 1: the courtesan, it simply means that they are bad thinkers,
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Speaker 1: bad observers. The deeper minds see more clearly and escape
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Speaker 1: the confusion into which the slight and quick the sentimental
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Speaker 1: hurl themselves. Above all, when God in any degree grows
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Speaker 1: real to a man, When a man seriously gives himself
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Speaker 1: not to some mere, vague contemplation of God, but to
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Speaker 1: the earnest study of God's ways in human affairs, and
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Speaker 1: of God's laws and their working, the great contrast in
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Speaker 1: men's responses to God's rule become luminous. When God matters
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Speaker 1: to a man, all life shows the result. Good and bad,
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Speaker 1: right and wrong stand out clear as the contrast between
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Speaker 1: light and darkness. They cannot be mistaken, and they matter
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Speaker 1: and matter forever. They are no concern of a moment.
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Speaker 1: Action makes character, and until the action is undone again,
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Speaker 1: the effect on character is not undone. Right and wrong
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Speaker 1: are of eternal significance. Now in the virtue of the
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Speaker 1: reality of God. Gautarba Buddha, for instance, and the greater
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Speaker 1: Hindu thinkers, in their doctrine of Karma, have taught a
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Speaker 1: significance inherent in good and evil which we can only
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Speaker 1: not call boundless. Buddha did this without any great consciousness
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Speaker 1: of God, and many Indian thinkers have so emphasized the
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Speaker 1: doctrine that it has taken all the stress laid on
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Speaker 1: Bakhti by Ramanusha and others to restore to life a
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Speaker 1: perspective or rebalance, however it should be described, that will
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Speaker 1: save men from utter despair. Nor is it Eastern thinkers
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Speaker 1: only who have taught men the reality of heaven and hell.
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Speaker 1: The poetry of Eschylus is full of his great realization
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Speaker 1: of the nexus between act and outcome. With all the
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Speaker 1: humor and charm there is in Plato, we cannot escape
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Speaker 1: his tremendous teaching on the age long consequences of good
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Speaker 1: and evil in a cosmos ordered by God. Carlyle in
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Speaker 1: our own days, realized the same thing he learned It
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Speaker 1: no doubt from his mother, and learned it again in
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Speaker 1: London in Missus Austin's drawing room, with Sidney Smith, Gefoying
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Speaker 1: and other people prating, jargoning to me through those thin cobwebs,
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Speaker 1: death and eternity safe glaring. How will this look in
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Speaker 1: the universe? He asks, and before the creator of man.
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Speaker 1: When someone in his old age challenged him with the
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Speaker 1: question who will be judge? It is curious how every
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Speaker 1: sapient inanity strikes has on an original idea, on the
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Speaker 1: notion that opinions differ, and therefore, apparently, if their thought
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Speaker 1: has any consequence, are as good as one another. Who
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Speaker 1: will be judge? How far will be judge? Said Carlyle,
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Speaker 1: God Almighty will be the judge. Now and always. There
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Speaker 1: is a gulf between good and evil, and each is
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Speaker 1: inexorably fertile of consequence. There is no escaping the issue
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Speaker 1: of moral choice, that is the inclusion of men who
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Speaker 1: have handled human experience in a serious spirit. As physical
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Speaker 1: laws are deducible from the reactions of matter and force,
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Speaker 1: and are found to be uniform and inevitable, fundamental in
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Speaker 1: the nature of matter and force, so clear thinking men
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Speaker 1: in the cause of ages have deduced moral laws from
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Speaker 1: their observation of human nature. Laws as uniform, inevitable, and fundamental.
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Speaker 1: In neither case has it been that men invented or
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Speaker 1: imagined the laws. In both cases it has been genuine
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Speaker 1: discovery of what was already existent and operative, and often
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Speaker 1: the discovery has involved surprise. If Jesus had failed to
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Speaker 1: see laws so fundamental which other teachers of mankind have recognized,
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Speaker 1: it is hardly likely that his teaching would have survived
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Speaker 1: or influenced men as it has done. Mankind can dispense
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Speaker 1: with the teacher whom misses patent facts, whatever his charm.
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Speaker 1: But there was never any doubt that Jesus was alive
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Speaker 1: to the difference between right and wrong. His critics saw this,
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Speaker 1: but they held that he confused moral issues, and that
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Speaker 1: his distinctions in the ethical sphere were badly drawn. Jesus
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Speaker 1: could not have ignored the problem of sin forgiveness, even
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Speaker 1: if he had wished to ignore it. To this, the
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Speaker 1: thought of mankind had been gravitating, and in Jewish and
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Speaker 1: in Greek thought, conduct was more and more the center
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Speaker 1: of everything. For the Stoics, morals were the dominant part
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Speaker 1: of philosophy. But for our present purpose. We need not
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Speaker 1: go outside the literature of the New Testament. Sin was
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Speaker 1: the keynote of the preaching of John the Baptist. It
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Speaker 1: is customary to connect the mission of Jesus with that
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Speaker 1: of John, and to find in the Baptist's preaching either
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Speaker 1: the announcement of his successor, as is said with most
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Speaker 1: emphasis in the Fourth Gospel, or as some now say,
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Speaker 1: the impulse which drove Jesus of Nazareth into his public ministry.
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Speaker 1: Whatever may be the historical connection between them, it is
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Speaker 1: as important for us to at least realize the broad
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Speaker 1: gulf that separates them they meet. It is true both
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Speaker 1: use the phrase Kingdom of God, both preach repentance in
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Speaker 1: view of the coming of the kingdom, and we are
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Speaker 1: apt to assume they mean the same thing. But Jesus
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Speaker 1: took some pains to make it clear, though in the
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Speaker 1: gentlest and most sympathetic way, that they did not. On
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Speaker 1: the famous occasion when John the Baptist sent two of
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Speaker 1: his disciples to Jesus with his striking message, Art thou
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Speaker 1: he that should come or should we look for another? Jesus,
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Speaker 1: when the messengers were gone, spoke to the people about
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Speaker 1: the Baptist. What went he out into the wilderness to
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Speaker 1: see a reed shaken with the wind, A man clothed
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Speaker 1: in soft raiment. A prophet, yea, I say unto you,
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Speaker 1: and much more than a prophet among those that are
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Speaker 1: born of women. There is not a greater profit than
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Speaker 1: John the Baptist. But he that is least in the
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Speaker 1: Kingdom of God is greater than he. I am not
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Speaker 1: sure which is the right translation, whether it is he
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Speaker 1: that is less least or little, and I do not
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Speaker 1: propose to discuss it. The judgment is remarkable enough in
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Speaker 1: any case, and the words of Jesus, as we have seen,
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Speaker 1: have a close relation to real fact as he saw it.
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Speaker 1: Why does he speak in this way? Our answer to
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Speaker 1: this question, if we can answer it, will help us
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Speaker 1: forward to the larger problem before us. But for this
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Speaker 1: we shall have to study John with some care. There
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Speaker 1: is a growing agreement among scholars that there is some
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Speaker 1: confusion in our data as to John the Baptist. There
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Speaker 1: are gaps in the record. For instance, how and why
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Speaker 1: did the school of John survivors it did? And again
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Speaker 1: there are in the judgment of some developments of the
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Speaker 1: story the Gospel, with various degrees of explicitness, and Saint
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Speaker 1: Poor by inference tell us that John pointed to him
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Speaker 1: which should come after him. Christians, at any rate after
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Speaker 1: the Resurrection had no doubt that this was Jesus. Whether
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Speaker 1: John was as definite as the narratives now represent him
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Speaker 1: to have been has been doubted in view of his
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Speaker 1: message to Jesus, But that is not our present subject.
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Speaker 1: We are concerned less with John's precursor than his teacher
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Speaker 1: and thinker. Even if our data are defective, still enough
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Speaker 1: is given us to let us see a very striking
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Speaker 1: and commanding figure. We have a picture of him, his dress,
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Speaker 1: his diet, his style of speech, his method of action.
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Speaker 1: In every way he is a signal and arresting man,
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Speaker 1: the son of a priest. He is an aesthetic who
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Speaker 1: lives in the wilderness, dresses like a peasant, and eats
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Speaker 1: the meanest and most meager of food, a man of
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Speaker 1: the desert and of solitude. And the whole life reacts
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Speaker 1: on him, and we can see him lean and worn,
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Speaker 1: though still a young man, a keen, rather excitable spirit,
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Speaker 1: in every feature the marks of a revolt against a
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Speaker 1: civilization which he views as an apostasy. Luke using a
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Speaker 1: phrase from the Old Testament, says, the word of God
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Speaker 1: came upon John in the wilderness. Luke leans to Old
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Speaker 1: Testament phrase, and here is one that hits off the
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Speaker 1: man to the very life. Jesus himself confirms Luke's judgment.
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Speaker 1: The word of the Lord has come upon this ascetic figure.
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Speaker 1: And he goes to the people with the message. He
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Speaker 1: draws their attention, and they crowd out to see him.
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Speaker 1: He makes a great sensation. He is not like other men.
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Speaker 1: For Jesus quote their remark that he had a devil,
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Speaker 1: a rough and ready way of explaining unlikeness to the
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Speaker 1: average man. When he sees his congregation, his word not conciliatory.
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Speaker 1: He addresses them as a generation of vipers, and his
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Speaker 1: text is the Wrath to Come. Jesus asks whether they
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Speaker 1: went out to see a reed shaken by the wind,
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Speaker 1: or someone dressed like a courtier, the last things to
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Speaker 1: which anyone would compare John. There was nothing supple about him,
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Speaker 1: as herod found and herodious. He was not shaken by
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Speaker 1: the wind. There was no trimming of his sails. The
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Speaker 1: austerity of his life and the austerity of his spirit
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Speaker 1: go together, and he preached in a tone and a
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Speaker 1: language that scorched. He preached righteousness, social righteousness, and he
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Speaker 1: did it in a great way. He brought back the
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Speaker 1: minds of his people, like Amos and others, to God's
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Speaker 1: conceptions and away from their own. Crowds of people went
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Speaker 1: out to hear him, and he made a deep impression
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Speaker 1: on many whose lives need an amendment. We have the
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Speaker 1: substance of what he said in the third chapter of
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Speaker 1: Saint Luke, how he told the tax collectors to be
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Speaker 1: honest and not make things worse than they need be,
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Speaker 1: the soldiers to do violence to no man and accuse
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Speaker 1: no man falsely, and to be content with their wages.
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Speaker 1: And to ordinary people he preached humanity. He that hath
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Speaker 1: two coats, let him impart to him that hath none,
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Speaker 1: and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. It
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Speaker 1: may be remarked of John, and it is true also
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Speaker 1: of Jesus, that neither attack the absent, nor inveaged against
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Speaker 1: economic situations, as some modern preachers do with let us say,
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Speaker 1: capitalists and the morality of other nations. Neither says a
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Speaker 1: word against the Roman Empire. Slavery is not condemned explicitly,
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Speaker 1: even by Jesus, though he gave the dynamic that abolished it.
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Speaker 1: The practical guidance that John gave he gave in response
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Speaker 1: to men's inquiries, Like an Old Testament prophet. John taught
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Speaker 1: to tatters any plea that could be offered that his
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Speaker 1: listeners were God's chosen people, the children of Abraham. Does
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Speaker 1: God want children of Abraham? John pointed to the stones
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Speaker 1: on the ground and said, if God wanted, he could
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Speaker 1: make children of Abraham out of them a word, and
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Speaker 1: he could make as many children of Abraham as he wished.
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Speaker 1: It was something else that God sought. John, writes the
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Speaker 1: historian Josephus a generation later, was a good man and
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Speaker 1: commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both in justice toward
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Speaker 1: one another and piety towards God, and so to come
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Speaker 1: to baptism. For so baptism would be acceptable to God
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Speaker 1: if they made use of it, not to excuse certain sins,
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Speaker 1: but for the purification of the body, provided that the
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Speaker 1: soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. This interpretation of
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Speaker 1: John's baptism makes it look very like the baptisms and
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Speaker 1: other purificatory rites of the Heathen. The Gospels attribute to
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Speaker 1: John a message richer and more powerful, but essentially the same,
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Speaker 1: and the criticism of Jesus confirms the account. The great
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Speaker 1: note in his preaching is judgment. The Kingdom of God
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Speaker 1: is coming, and it begins with judgment. Again. It is archaemos,
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Speaker 1: the axes at the root of the tree. His fan
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Speaker 1: is in his hand. And as men listened to the
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Speaker 1: man and looked at him, his intense belief in his message,
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Speaker 1: backed up by a stern self discipline, a whole life
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Speaker 1: inspired infused by conviction. They believed this message of the acts,
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Speaker 1: the fan and the fire. They asked, and as we
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Speaker 1: have seen, received his guidance on the conduct of life.
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Speaker 1: They accepted his baptism and set about the amending of character.
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Speaker 1: Jesus makes it quite clear that he held John to
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Speaker 1: be an entirely exceptional man, and that he had no
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Speaker 1: doubt that John's teaching us from God. It was all
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Speaker 1: in the line of the great prophets, and the Fourth
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Speaker 1: Gospel shows us it once more in the work of
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Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit. When he is come, he will reprove
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Speaker 1: convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.
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Speaker 1: And yet as Jesus says, there is all the difference
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Speaker 1: in the world between his own gospel and the teaching
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Speaker 1: of the Baptist. In Mark's narrative, a very significant episode
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Speaker 1: is recorded. John inculcated fasting and his disciples fast is
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Speaker 1: a great deal. And once Mark tells us when they
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Speaker 1: were actually fasting, they asked Jesus why his disciples did
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Speaker 1: not do the same thing. Jesus's answer is a little
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Speaker 1: cryptic at first sight. Can the children of the bride
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Speaker 1: chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? Who fast
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Speaker 1: at the wedding feast in the hour of gladness? And
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Speaker 1: then he passes on to speak about the new patch
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Speaker 1: of the old garment, the new wine in the old
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Speaker 1: wine skins. And it looks as if it were not
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Speaker 1: merely a criticism of John's disciples, but of John himself.
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Speaker 1: John indeed brings home, with terrific force and conviction, that
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Speaker 1: truth of God which the prophets had preached before, but
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Speaker 1: he leaves it there. He emphasizes once more the old
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Speaker 1: laws of God, the judgments of God, but he brings
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Speaker 1: no transforming power into men's lives. The old character, the
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Speaker 1: old motives more or less are to be patched by
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Speaker 1: a new fear, repent repent. John cries, the judgment is coming,
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Speaker 1: and men do repent, and John baptizes them as a
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Speaker 1: symbol that God has forgiven them. But how are they
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Speaker 1: to go on? What is the power that is to
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Speaker 1: carry John's disciples through the rest of their lives. We
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Speaker 1: are not in possession of everything that John says. But
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Speaker 1: there is no indication that John had very much to
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Speaker 1: say about any force or power that should keep men
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Speaker 1: on the plane of repentance. It is our experience that
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Speaker 1: we repent and fall again. What else was the experience
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Speaker 1: of the people whom John baptized? What was to keep
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Speaker 1: them on the new level, not only in the isolation
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Speaker 1: of the desert, but in the ordinary routine of town
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Speaker 1: and village. In John's teaching, there is not a word
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Speaker 1: about that. And this is a weakness of double import Four.
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Speaker 1: As Jesus puts it, the new patch on the old
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Speaker 1: garment makes the rent worse. It does not leave it
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Speaker 1: merely as it was. If the unclean spirit regain its
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Speaker 1: footing in a man, it does not come alone. The
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Speaker 1: last state of that man is worse than the first.
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Speaker 1: Jesus is very familiar with the type that welcomes new
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Speaker 1: ideas and new impulses in religion, and yet does nothing,
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Speaker 1: grows tired or afraid, and relapses again. In John's teaching,
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Speaker 1: as far as we have it, there is a striking
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Speaker 1: absence of any clear word about any relation to God
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Speaker 1: beyond that of debtor and creditor, judge and prisoner on trial,
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Speaker 1: king and subject. God may forgive and God will judge.
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Speaker 1: But so far as our knowledge of John's teaching goes,
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Speaker 1: these are the only two points at which man and
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Speaker 1: God will touch each other. And these are not intimate relations.
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Speaker 1: There is no promise and no gladness in them, no
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Speaker 1: good news. John taught prayer. All sorts of people teach prayer,
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Speaker 1: but what sort of prayer. It has often been remarked
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Speaker 1: to the Greek poet Apollonius Rhodius that his heroes used prayers,
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Speaker 1: but their prayers were like official documents. Of What character
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Speaker 1: were the prayers that John taught his disciples. None of
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Speaker 1: them survive, but there is perhaps a tacit criticism of them.
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Speaker 1: In the request made to the new teacher teachers to
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Speaker 1: pray as John taught his disciples, one feels that the
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Speaker 1: men wanted something different from John's prayers. Great and strenuous
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Speaker 1: prayers they may have been, but in marked contrast to
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Speaker 1: the prayers of Jesus and his followers, because of the
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Speaker 1: absence in John's message of any strong note of the
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Speaker 1: love and tenderness of God. Finally, the very righteousness that
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Speaker 1: John preaches with such fire and energy is open to criticism.
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Speaker 1: Far more serious than the righteousness of the pharisee, stronger
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Speaker 1: in insights, and more generous in its scope, it fails
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Speaker 1: in the same way. It is self directed. It aims
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Speaker 1: at a man's own salvation, and is to be achieved
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Speaker 1: by a man's own strength and self discipline, with what
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Speaker 1: little help John's system of prayer and fasting may win
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Speaker 1: for a man from God. John fails precisely where his
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Speaker 1: strength is greatest and most conspicuous. His theme is sin.
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Speaker 1: His emphasis all falls on sin, but his psychology of
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Speaker 1: sin is insufficient. It is not deep enough. The simple,
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Speaker 1: strenuous aesthetic did not realize the seriousness of sin after all,
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Speaker 1: its deep roots, its haunting power, its insidious charm. Saint
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Speaker 1: Paul saw far deeper into it. I am cardinal sould
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Speaker 1: under sin. What I hate that? Do I the good
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Speaker 1: that I would I do not, but the evil which
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Speaker 1: I would not, that I do. I see a law
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Speaker 1: in my members, bringing me into captivity to the law
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Speaker 1: of sin. O wretched man that I am, who should
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Speaker 1: deliver me from the body of this death. Sin, in
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Speaker 1: John's thought, is contumacy or rebellion against the law of God.
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Speaker 1: He does not look at it in relation to the
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Speaker 1: love of God, a view of it which gives another
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Speaker 1: character altogether, nor has drawn any great conception of forgiveness
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Speaker 1: a man he thinks may win it by fruits worthy
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Speaker 1: of repentance. Here again, Paul is the pioneer in the
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Speaker 1: universal Christian experience that fruits of repentance can never by
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Speaker 1: God's forgiveness, that is God's gift. That forgiveness may cost
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Speaker 1: a man much an amended life the practices of prayer
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Speaker 1: and fasting and almsgiving John conceives, but we are not
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Speaker 1: let to think that he thought of what it might
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Speaker 1: cost God. John has no evangel no really good news
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Speaker 1: with gladness and singing in it. When we return to
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Speaker 1: the teaching of Jesus, we find that he draws a
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Speaker 1: clear and sharp line between right and wrong. He indicates
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Speaker 1: that right is right to the end of all creation,
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Speaker 1: and wrong is wrong up to the very judgment throne
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Speaker 1: of God. He views these things, as the old phrase
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Speaker 1: puts it, sub specie eternitatis. From the outlook of eternity.
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Speaker 1: Right and wrong do not meet at infinity. There is
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Speaker 1: no higher synthesis that can make them one and the
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Speaker 1: same thing. Everything with Jesus is theocentric, and until God changes,
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Speaker 1: there will be no very great change in right and wrong.
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Speaker 1: Partly because he uses the language of his day, partly
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Speaker 1: because he thinks as are rude in pictures. His language
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Speaker 1: is apt to be misconstrued by moderns, but the central
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Speaker 1: ideas are clear enough. How are you to escape the
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Speaker 1: judgment of Gehenna? He asked the Pharisees. It is not
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Speaker 1: a threat but a question. There yawns the chasm with
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Speaker 1: your driving. How do you think you can avoid disaster?
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Speaker 1: He warns men of a doom where the worm dies
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Speaker 1: not and the fire is not quenched. A man will
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Speaker 1: do well to sacrifice hand, foot, or eye to save
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Speaker 1: the rest of himself from that. But a more striking picture,
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Speaker 1: though commonly less noticed. He draws or suggests and talk
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Speaker 1: at the Last Supper Simon. Simon, behold, Satan asked for
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Speaker 1: you to sift as you were weat, But I prayed
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Speaker 1: for THEE that thy faith shall fail not, and thou,
24:08
Speaker 1: when thou comest back, strengthen thy brethren. The scene suggested
24:14
Speaker 1: is not unlike that at the beginning of the Book
24:16
Speaker 1: of Job, or that in the book of Zechariah. There
24:20
Speaker 1: is the throne of God, and into that presence pushes
24:23
Speaker 1: Satan with a demand. The verb in the Greek is
24:26
Speaker 1: a strong one, though not as strong as the revised
24:29
Speaker 1: version suggests. Satan made a push to have you, but
24:33
Speaker 1: I prayed for THEE. To any reader who has any
24:38
Speaker 1: feeling or imagination, what do these short sentences mean? What
24:43
Speaker 1: can they mean from the lips of a thinker so
24:46
Speaker 1: clear and so serious, and a friend so tender, what
24:51
Speaker 1: but unspeakable peril? The language has for us a certain strangeness,
24:58
Speaker 1: But it shows plainly enough that to Jesus's mind, the
25:02
Speaker 1: disciples and Peter in particular, stood in danger, a danger
25:07
Speaker 1: so urgent that it called for the Saviour's prayer so
25:11
Speaker 1: much it meant to him, And he himself tells Peter
25:14
Speaker 1: what he had realized, what he had done. In language
25:18
Speaker 1: that could not be mistaken or forgotten. To the nature
25:21
Speaker 1: of the danger that sin involves, we shall return. Meanwhile,
25:26
Speaker 1: we may consider what Jesus means by sin, before we
25:28
Speaker 1: discuss its consequences. The Son of Man, says Jesus, in
25:35
Speaker 1: a sentence that is famous but still insufficiently studied, is
25:39
Speaker 1: come to seek and save that which is lost? How
25:43
Speaker 1: a rule has been to endeavor to give the terms
25:45
Speaker 1: of Jesus the connotation that he meant them to carry.
25:49
Speaker 1: The scholar will linger over the Son of Man a
25:52
Speaker 1: difficult phrase with a literary and linguistic history that is
25:56
Speaker 1: very complicated. For the present purpose. The significant words are
26:01
Speaker 1: at the other end of the sentence. What does Jesus
26:04
Speaker 1: mean by lost? It is a strong word, the value
26:09
Speaker 1: of which we have in some degree lost through familiarity.
26:13
Speaker 1: And whom would he describe as lost? We have once
26:17
Speaker 1: more to recall his criticism of Peter, that Peter thought
26:21
Speaker 1: like a man and not like God. And to be
26:23
Speaker 1: on our guard lest we think too quickly and too slightly.
26:28
Speaker 1: We may remark too that for Jesus, sin is not,
26:32
Speaker 1: as for poor and theologians in general, primarily an intellectual problem.
26:37
Speaker 1: He does not use the abstraction sin as Paul does,
26:42
Speaker 1: but the clear, steady gaze turned on men and women
26:45
Speaker 1: missus little. There are four outstanding classes whom he warns
26:51
Speaker 1: of the danger of hell, in one form or another.
26:56
Speaker 1: To begin, there is the famous description of the last Judgment,
27:00
Speaker 1: a description in itself not altogether knew. Plenty of writers
27:04
Speaker 1: and thinkers had described the scene, and the broad outlines
27:07
Speaker 1: of the picture were naturally common property. Yet it is
27:11
Speaker 1: to these more or less conventional traits that attention has
27:14
Speaker 1: often been too exclusively devoted. Jesus, however, altered the whole
27:20
Speaker 1: character of the judgment day scene by his account of
27:22
Speaker 1: the principles on which the judge decides. The cases brought
27:25
Speaker 1: before him. On the right hand of the judge are
27:29
Speaker 1: not the Jews confronted the gentiles on the left, nor
27:32
Speaker 1: exactly the well conducted and well balanced people who get
27:35
Speaker 1: there in Greek allegories, but a group of men and
27:38
Speaker 1: women who realize where they are with a gasp of surprise.
27:43
Speaker 1: How has it come about? The judge tells them, I
27:47
Speaker 1: was unhungered, and he gave me meat and the rest
27:51
Speaker 1: of the familiar words. But this does not quite settle
27:54
Speaker 1: the question embarrassment rises on their faces. Is it a mistake?
28:01
Speaker 1: One of them speaks for the rest lord. When saw
28:04
Speaker 1: we thee an hungered and fed thee they do not
28:08
Speaker 1: remember it. There is something characteristic there of the whole
28:13
Speaker 1: school of Jesus. These people are children of fact, honest
28:17
Speaker 1: as their master, and they will not accept heaven in
28:20
Speaker 1: virtue of a possible mistake. And it appears from the
28:24
Speaker 1: judge's answer that such instinctive deeds go further than men think,
28:29
Speaker 1: even if they are forgotten. Wordsworth speaks of the little,
28:34
Speaker 1: nameless or unremembered acts of kindness and of love that
28:38
Speaker 1: are the best portion of a good man's life. The
28:42
Speaker 1: acts of kindness were forgotten just because they were instinctive,
28:46
Speaker 1: but Jesus emphasizes the point they are decisive. They come,
28:52
Speaker 1: as another of his telling phrases suggests, from the overflow
28:56
Speaker 1: of the heart, and they reveal it with the people
29:00
Speaker 1: on the left hand, it was the other way. They
29:02
Speaker 1: were fairly well in possession of their good records, but
29:05
Speaker 1: they had missed the decisive fact. They were instinctively hard.
29:11
Speaker 1: Such people, Jesus warns, so familiar are his words, that
29:15
Speaker 1: there is a danger of our limiting them to their
29:17
Speaker 1: first obvious meaning. Eighty years ago, Thomas Carlyle looked out
29:22
Speaker 1: of the England he knew, and remarked that it was
29:25
Speaker 1: strained that the great battle of civilized man should be
29:28
Speaker 1: stole the battle of the savage against famine. And with
29:32
Speaker 1: that he observed that the people were needier than ever
29:35
Speaker 1: of inward sustenance. Is there a warning in this picture
29:39
Speaker 1: of the people on the left hand that applies to
29:42
Speaker 1: deeper things than physical hunger? A warning to those who
29:46
Speaker 1: do not heed another's need of inward sustenance of spiritual
29:49
Speaker 1: life of God? It looks likely otherwise there is a
29:56
Speaker 1: risk of our declining upon a social righteousness that falls
30:00
Speaker 1: long way short of John the Baptists, and does less
30:03
Speaker 1: for any soul, our own or another's. The second class
30:09
Speaker 1: borned by Jesus consists of several groups dealt with in
30:12
Speaker 1: the Sermon on the Mount, people whose sin is not
30:15
Speaker 1: murder or adultery, but merely anger and the unclean thought.
30:21
Speaker 1: Not the people who actually give themselves away, like the
30:23
Speaker 1: publicans and the harlots, but those who would not be
30:26
Speaker 1: sorry to have that ring of guideges which later described
30:30
Speaker 1: who would like to do certain things if they could,
30:32
Speaker 1: who at all events not unwilling to picture what they
30:35
Speaker 1: would wish to do if it were available, and meanwhile
30:38
Speaker 1: enjoy the thought. Here Saint Paul can supply commentary with
30:42
Speaker 1: his suggestion that one form of God's condemnation is where
30:45
Speaker 1: he gives up a man to his own reprobate mind.
30:50
Speaker 1: The mind, in Paul's phrases, becomes darkened, stained, and chuterized,
30:57
Speaker 1: invalidated for the discharge of its proper fununctions, as a
31:01
Speaker 1: burnt hand loses the sense of touch, or a stained
31:04
Speaker 1: glass gives the man a blue or red world instead
31:07
Speaker 1: of the real one. Blindness and mutilation are better, Jesus said,
31:13
Speaker 1: than the eye of lust, how different from the moralists,
31:17
Speaker 1: for whom sin lies in action and all actions are physical.
31:21
Speaker 1: The idle word is to condemn a man, not because
31:24
Speaker 1: it is idle, but because, being unstudied, it speaks of
31:29
Speaker 1: his heart and reveals unconsciously but plainly, what he is
31:33
Speaker 1: in reality. Thus it is that what comes out of
31:37
Speaker 1: the mouth defiles a man with a curious suggestion, whether
31:40
Speaker 1: intended or not, that the formulation of a floating thought
31:44
Speaker 1: gives it new power to injure or to help, that
31:48
Speaker 1: is true impression, loose as it were in the mind.
31:52
Speaker 1: Mere thought. Stuff is one thing formulated, brought to phrase
31:58
Speaker 1: and form. It takes on new life and force, and
32:02
Speaker 1: when it is evil, it does defile, and in a
32:05
Speaker 1: permanent way. Marcus Aurelius has a very similar warning. Whatever
32:11
Speaker 1: the color of the thoughts often before thy mind, that
32:15
Speaker 1: color will thy mind take, for the mind is died
32:19
Speaker 1: or stained by its thoughts. Fantas thi and phantasi are
32:24
Speaker 1: the words, and they suggest something between thoughts and imaginations.
32:29
Speaker 1: Mental pictures would be very nearer it. The third group,
32:34
Speaker 1: when Jesus warned, the most notorious of all was the
32:38
Speaker 1: Pharisee class. They played at religion tythed mint and aniee
32:43
Speaker 1: and cumin and forgot judgment and mercy in faith. Jesus
32:48
Speaker 1: said that the Pharisee was never quite sure whether the
32:50
Speaker 1: creature he was looking at was a camel or a mosquito.
32:53
Speaker 1: He got the mixed. Once we realize what this tremendous
32:57
Speaker 1: irony means, we are better able to grasp his thought.
33:02
Speaker 1: The Pharisee was living in a world that was not
33:04
Speaker 1: the real one. It was a highly artificial one, picturesque
33:08
Speaker 1: and charming no doubt, but dangerous, For after all, we
33:13
Speaker 1: do live in the real world. There is only one world,
33:16
Speaker 1: however many we may invent, and to live in any
33:19
Speaker 1: other is danger. Blindness that is partial and an even
33:24
Speaker 1: lands a man in peril. Whenever he tries to come
33:26
Speaker 1: downstairs or to cross the street, he steps on the
33:30
Speaker 1: doorstep that is not there and misses the real one.
33:33
Speaker 1: He is involved in false appearances at every turn. And
33:37
Speaker 1: so it is in the moral world. There is one real,
33:41
Speaker 1: however many unrels there are, and to trust to the
33:44
Speaker 1: unreal is to come to grief on the real. The
33:47
Speaker 1: beginning of a man's doom, wrote Carlyle, is that vision
33:51
Speaker 1: be withdrawn from him, thou blind, Pharisee. The cup is
33:56
Speaker 1: clean enough without it is septic and poisonous within. And
34:00
Speaker 1: from which side of it do you drink? Outside or inside?
34:05
Speaker 1: As we study the teaching of Jesus, here we see
34:08
Speaker 1: aknew the profundity of the saying attributed to him in
34:10
Speaker 1: the Fourth Gospel. The truth shall make you free. The
34:15
Speaker 1: man with astigmatism or myopia, or whatever else it is,
34:19
Speaker 1: must get the glasses that will show him the real world,
34:22
Speaker 1: and he is safe and free to go and come
34:25
Speaker 1: as he pleases see the real in the moral sphere,
34:28
Speaker 1: and the first great peril is gone. Nothing need be
34:31
Speaker 1: said at this point of the Pharisee, who used righteousness
34:34
Speaker 1: and long prayers as a screen for villainy, probably his
34:38
Speaker 1: doom was that in the end he came to think
34:40
Speaker 1: his righteousness and his prayers real, and to reckon them
34:45
Speaker 1: as credit with the gods, who did not see through
34:47
Speaker 1: them any more than he did himself. It is a
34:50
Speaker 1: mistake to overemphasize here the devouring of widow's houses by
34:54
Speaker 1: the Pharisee, for it was no particular weakness of his publicans,
34:59
Speaker 1: and unjust judges did the same. Only the publican and
35:02
Speaker 1: the unjust judge told themselves no lies about it. The
35:06
Speaker 1: Pharisee lied lying to unself or lying to another, Which
35:11
Speaker 1: is the worse. The more dangerous is probably lying to oneself,
35:15
Speaker 1: though the two practices generally will go together in the
35:17
Speaker 1: long run. The worst forms of lying, then are lying
35:21
Speaker 1: to unself and lying about God. And the Pharisee combined
35:26
Speaker 1: them and told himself that once God's proper dues of
35:30
Speaker 1: prayer and tithe were paid, his treatment of the widow
35:33
Speaker 1: and her house was correct. Hence, says Jesus, he receives
35:39
Speaker 1: greater damnation or judgment on a higher scale. The Pharisees
35:45
Speaker 1: were men who believed in God only that with his
35:48
Speaker 1: world they recreated Him, as we are all apt to do,
35:52
Speaker 1: for want of vision or by choice. But what is atheism?
35:56
Speaker 1: What can it be but indifference to God's facts and
35:59
Speaker 1: to God's nature. If religion is union with God in
36:03
Speaker 1: the phrase we borrow so slightly from the mystics, how
36:06
Speaker 1: can a man be in union with God when the
36:08
Speaker 1: God he sees is not there is a figment of
36:11
Speaker 1: his own mind, something different altogether from God. Or, if
36:17
Speaker 1: we use the phrase of the Old Testament prophet and
36:19
Speaker 1: of Jesus himself, if religion is vision of God, what
36:23
Speaker 1: is our religion? If, after all, we are not seeing
36:25
Speaker 1: God at all, but something else, a dummy God like
36:29
Speaker 1: that of the Pharisees, some trifling martinet who can be humbugged,
36:35
Speaker 1: or to come to ourselves, a majestic bundle of abstract
36:39
Speaker 1: nouns loosely tied up in impersonality. For all such Jesus
36:45
Speaker 1: has a caution. Indifference to God's facts leads to one end.
36:50
Speaker 1: Only we admitted ourselves. There are those who scold Bunyan
36:55
Speaker 1: for sending ignorance to hell, But we omit to ask
36:58
Speaker 1: where else ignorance could go, whether Bunyan sent him or not.
37:03
Speaker 1: Ignorance as to germs, or precipices or what not, leads
37:06
Speaker 1: to destruction in parimateia in the moral sphere. Can it
37:10
Speaker 1: be otherwise? This serves in some measure to explain why
37:14
Speaker 1: Jesus is so tender to gross and flagrance in us.
37:18
Speaker 1: Fact which some have noted with surprise. Surely it is
37:22
Speaker 1: because Publican and Harlot have fewer illusions. They were left
37:27
Speaker 1: little chance of imagining their lives to be right before God.
37:31
Speaker 1: What Jesus thought of their hardness and impurity we have
37:34
Speaker 1: seen already, but heedless as they were of God's requirements
37:38
Speaker 1: of them, they were not guilty of the intricate atheism
37:41
Speaker 1: of the Pharisees. Further, whether it was in his mind
37:45
Speaker 1: or not, it is also true that the frankly gross
37:47
Speaker 1: temptations do bring a man face to face with his
37:50
Speaker 1: own need of God, as the subtler do not, and
37:54
Speaker 1: so far they make for reality. The fourth group of
37:59
Speaker 1: those who cannot make up their minds no man, having
38:04
Speaker 1: put his hand to the plow and looking back, is
38:06
Speaker 1: fit for the Kingdom of God. The word is an
38:09
Speaker 1: interesting one. It means handy or easy to place. The
38:15
Speaker 1: word is used of the salt, not fit for land
38:17
Speaker 1: or dunghill, and the negative of the inconvenient harbor. This
38:22
Speaker 1: man is not adapted for the Kingdom of God. He
38:25
Speaker 1: is not easy to place there, like the man who
38:29
Speaker 1: saved his talent but did not use it. He is
38:32
Speaker 1: not exactly bad, but he is no good. As we say,
38:36
Speaker 1: Jesus conceives of the Kingdom of God as dynamic, not
38:39
Speaker 1: static state or place conditional relation. It implies work, as
38:45
Speaker 1: God himself implies work. He holds that truth is not
38:49
Speaker 1: a curiosity for the cabinet, but a tool in the hand.
38:53
Speaker 1: That God's earnest world is no place for a nondescript
38:57
Speaker 1: and that there is only one region left to which
39:00
Speaker 1: they can drift, what part or place they can be
39:03
Speaker 1: in the Kingdom of Heaven, in a kingdom one on calvary.
39:07
Speaker 1: For people who cannot be relied on, who cannot decide
39:10
Speaker 1: whether to plow or not to plow, nor when they
39:14
Speaker 1: have made up their mind, stick to it. Jesus cannot
39:17
Speaker 1: see what a revelation of the force and power of
39:21
Speaker 1: his own character. These, then, are the four classes whom
39:26
Speaker 1: Jesus warns, and it is clear from the consideration of
39:29
Speaker 1: them that his view of sin is very different from
39:32
Speaker 1: those current in that day. Men set sin down as
39:35
Speaker 1: an external thing that drifted onto one like a floating burr,
39:39
Speaker 1: or like paint. Perhaps it could be picked off or
39:43
Speaker 1: burnt off. It was the eating of pork or hair,
39:47
Speaker 1: something technical or accidental, or it was many thought the
39:51
Speaker 1: work of a demon from without, who could be driven
39:54
Speaker 1: out to whence he came love and drunkenness illustrated the
39:58
Speaker 1: thing for them of personality induced by an exterior force
40:03
Speaker 1: or object, as if the human spirit were a glass
40:06
Speaker 1: or a cup into which anything might be poured, and
40:09
Speaker 1: from which it could be emptied, and the vessel itself
40:12
Speaker 1: remain unaffected. Jesus has a deeper view of sin, a
40:17
Speaker 1: stronger psychology than these. Nor does he, like some quick
40:21
Speaker 1: thinkers of to day, put sin down to a man's environment,
40:25
Speaker 1: as if certain surroundings inevitably meant sin. Jesus is quite
40:30
Speaker 1: definite that sin is nothing accidental. It is involved in
40:34
Speaker 1: a man's own nature. In his choice. It comes from
40:38
Speaker 1: the heart, and it speaks of a heart that is wrong.
40:43
Speaker 1: When we survey the four groups, it comes to one's
40:46
Speaker 1: central question. At last, has a man been in earnest
40:50
Speaker 1: with himself about God's dealings with him? Hardness and lust
40:55
Speaker 1: make a man play the fool with human souls, whom
40:57
Speaker 1: God loves and cares for a declaration of war on
41:01
Speaker 1: God himself. Willful self deception about God needs no comment
41:07
Speaker 1: to shilly shally and let decisions slide where God is concerned.
41:11
Speaker 1: Is atheism too? In a word, what is a man's
41:15
Speaker 1: fundamental attitude to God and God's facts? That is Jesus question.
41:22
Speaker 1: Sin is tracked home to the innermost and most essential
41:25
Speaker 1: part of the man, his will. It is no outward thing,
41:30
Speaker 1: It is inward. It is not that evil befalls us,
41:34
Speaker 1: but that we are evil. In the words of Edward Cared,
41:39
Speaker 1: the passion that misleads us is a manifestation of the
41:42
Speaker 1: same ego, the same self conscious reason which is misled
41:47
Speaker 1: by it. And thus, as Burns puts it, it is
41:51
Speaker 1: the very light from Heaven that leads us astray. The
41:55
Speaker 1: man uses his highest God given faculties and uses them
42:00
Speaker 1: against God. But this is not all. Many people will
42:06
Speaker 1: agree with the estimate of Jesus when they understand it
42:10
Speaker 1: in regard to most of these classes. Perhaps they would
42:13
Speaker 1: urge that in the main it is substantially the same
42:16
Speaker 1: teaching as John the Baptists, though it implies as we
42:19
Speaker 1: shall see a more difficult problem in getting rid of sin.
42:23
Speaker 1: Jesus goes further. He holds up to men standards of
42:27
Speaker 1: conduct which transcend anything yet put before mankind. Be he
42:33
Speaker 1: therefore perfect, he says, even as your Father, which is
42:37
Speaker 1: in Heaven, is perfect. When we recall what Jesus teaches
42:42
Speaker 1: of God, when we begin to try and give to
42:45
Speaker 1: God the content he intended, we realize with amazement what
42:49
Speaker 1: he is saying. He is holding up to men for
42:52
Speaker 1: their ideal of conduct, the standard of God's holiness, of
42:57
Speaker 1: God's love and tenderness. Everything that Jesus tells us of God,
43:02
Speaker 1: all that he has to say of the wonderful and
43:05
Speaker 1: incredible love of God, and of God's activity on behalf
43:07
Speaker 1: of his children, he now incorporates into the ideal of
43:11
Speaker 1: conduct to which men are called. John's conceptions of righteousness
43:15
Speaker 1: grow beggarly. Here is a royal magnificence of active love,
43:21
Speaker 1: of energetic sympathy, tenderness and self giving, asked of us,
43:26
Speaker 1: who find it hard enough to keep even the simplest commands.
43:30
Speaker 1: Why youth up, We are to love our enemies, to
43:33
Speaker 1: win them, to make peace, to be pure and all
43:38
Speaker 1: on the scale of God. And that this may seem
43:41
Speaker 1: not mere talk in the air. There is the character
43:44
Speaker 1: and personality of Jesus embodying all that he asks of us,
43:49
Speaker 1: bringing out new wonders of God's goodness, the ugliness and
43:52
Speaker 1: evil of sin, and the positive and redemptive beauty of righteousness.
43:59
Speaker 1: The problem of in and forgiveness become more difficult as
44:02
Speaker 1: we think of the positive ideals which we have not
44:05
Speaker 1: begun to try and reach. Let us sum up what
44:08
Speaker 1: it involves. Jesus brings out the utter bankruptcy to which
44:13
Speaker 1: sin reduces men. They become full of hypocrisy and lawlessness,
44:18
Speaker 1: so depraved that they are like bad trees, unproductive of
44:22
Speaker 1: any but bad fruit. The very light in them is darkness,
44:26
Speaker 1: and how great darkness. They are cut off from the
44:30
Speaker 1: real world as we saw, and lose the faculties they
44:33
Speaker 1: have abused. The talent is taken away from him that
44:37
Speaker 1: hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath.
44:41
Speaker 1: The nature has changed. As memory is changed, and the
44:44
Speaker 1: overflow of the heart in speech and act bears witness
44:48
Speaker 1: to it. The faculty of choice is weakened. The interval
44:53
Speaker 1: in which inhibition, to use our modern term is possible,
44:57
Speaker 1: grows shorter, the instinct averted, and the whole being is disorganized.
45:04
Speaker 1: In a word, all that Jesus cannote by the Kingdom
45:07
Speaker 1: of God is taken from them, and nothing left but
45:10
Speaker 1: outer darkness. The vision of God is not for the impure. Meanwhile,
45:17
Speaker 1: sin is not a sterile thing. It is eleven if
45:20
Speaker 1: our modern language may be applied, and Jesus used the
45:23
Speaker 1: analogy of medicine. In this very case, sin is septic.
45:29
Speaker 1: In the first place, all sin is antisocial, an invasion
45:33
Speaker 1: ipso facto of the rights of others. The man who
45:37
Speaker 1: sins either takes away what is another's a man's goods,
45:41
Speaker 1: a widow's house, or a woman's purity, or he failed
45:44
Speaker 1: to give to others what is their due. Be it
45:47
Speaker 1: in the obvious field, the aide the good Samaritan rendered
45:50
Speaker 1: to the wounded and robbed man by the roadside, or
45:54
Speaker 1: in the higher sphere. Truth, sympathy help in the maintenance
45:58
Speaker 1: of principle or in the achieved movement of progress and development.
46:02
Speaker 1: Sin is the repudiation of the concepts of law, duty,
46:06
Speaker 1: and service in a word of the love on God's
46:10
Speaker 1: scale which God calls men to exercise, and its fruits
46:14
Speaker 1: are above all. Its dissemination in justice, a historian has said,
46:21
Speaker 1: always repays itself with frightful compound interest. If a man
46:26
Speaker 1: starts to debauch society, his example is quickly followed, and
46:30
Speaker 1: it comes to hatred. What we asked did Jesus mean
46:35
Speaker 1: by lost this? Above all? That sin cuts a man
46:39
Speaker 1: adrift from God. In the parable of the prodigal son,
46:44
Speaker 1: this is brought out there. The youth took from his
46:47
Speaker 1: father all he could get, and then deliberately turned his
46:50
Speaker 1: back on him forever. He went into a far country,
46:54
Speaker 1: out of his reach, outside his influence, and beyond the
46:58
Speaker 1: range of his ideas, And he devoted his father's gift
47:01
Speaker 1: to precisely what would sadden and trouble his father most.
47:06
Speaker 1: And then came bankruptcy, final and hopeless. There was no
47:11
Speaker 1: farther available in the far country. He had to live
47:14
Speaker 1: without him, and it came to a life that was
47:17
Speaker 1: not even human, a life of solitude, a life of beasts.
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Speaker 1: Jesus draws it as he does most things, in picture form,
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Speaker 1: using parable Paul puts the same in director language. Sin
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Speaker 1: reduces men to a position where they are alienated from
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Speaker 1: the life of God without God, and the world enemies
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Speaker 1: of God. But he does not say more than Jesus
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Speaker 1: implies Paul's final expression, God gave them up answers to
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Speaker 1: the judge's word in Jesus picture to part from me
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Speaker 1: o wedding guest, This soul hath been alone on a wide,
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Speaker 1: wide sea, so lonely twas that God himself scarce seems
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Speaker 1: there to be. So Jesus handles the problem of sin,
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Speaker 1: But that is only half the story, for the remains
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Speaker 1: the problem of redemption. The treatment of sin is far
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Speaker 1: profounder and truer than John the Baptist or any other
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Speaker 1: teacher has achieved, and it implies that Jesus will handle
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Speaker 1: redemption in a way no less profound and effective. If
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Speaker 1: he does not, then he had better not have preached
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Speaker 1: a gospel. If in dealing with sin he touches reality
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Speaker 1: at every point, we may expect him in the matter
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Speaker 1: of redemption, to reach the very center of life. How
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Speaker 1: else can he, with his serious view of sin, say
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Speaker 1: to a man, thy sins have forgiven thee. But it
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Speaker 1: is quite clear from our records that while Jesus laid
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Speaker 1: bare in this relentless way, the ugliness and hopelessness of sin,
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Speaker 1: he did not despair. His tone is always one of
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Speaker 1: hope and confidence. Young man armed may find a stronger
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Speaker 1: man come upon him and take from him the panoply
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Speaker 1: in which he trusted. There is a great gulf that
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Speaker 1: cannot be crossed. Yes, but if the experience of Christendom
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Speaker 1: tells us anything, it tells us that Jesus crossed it
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Speaker 1: himself and did the impossible. The great matter is that
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Speaker 1: Jesus believed God was willing to take the human soul
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Speaker 1: and make it new and young and clean again. But
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Speaker 1: the human soul did not believe it till Jesus convinced
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Speaker 1: it and won it by action of his own. The
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Speaker 1: son of Man came to seek and to save that
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Speaker 1: which was lost, and she did not come in vain.
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Speaker 1: End of Chapter seven