02. Introductory
MANIFESTATION OF THE SON OF GOD. THE CHOSEN WITNESSES. WHAT THEY HAD IN COMMON. THEIR INDIVIDUALITY. BREADTH OF FITNESS.
THE central fact of History is the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh. Even those who deny His higher nature must admit that His appearing is the new-beginning of the ages, and has been fruitful of the richest consequences to mankind. His brief sojourn on earth, as narrated in the four Gospels, exhibits a perfect love, combined with perfect truth and righteousness, which men had not even imaged to themselves as possible.
In His presence sin becomes exceeding sinful, and holiness exceeding lovely. He is the faultless Type of humanity; the "Express Image," in our nature, of the invisible God; the Revealer of heavenly things; the Redeemer from evil; the Founder and King of a new creation; the Dispenser of the Holy Spirit; the Life from
CHRIST'S CHOSEN WITNESSES.
whom all life flows, and by whom it is sustained. The Secret of nature, providence, and grace, is unlocked in Him, "for whom are all things." It is a mighty step taken when I exchange my barren abstraction of "Deity" for the I AM of the Old Testament; it is a still mightier when I see the I AM livingly in Jesus Christ, the blessed Saviour.
During His brief and lowly transit through mortal life, glorifying the Father and bearing the burden of our salvation, comparatively few eyes were drawn to Him; and even of these few, many "seeing, saw not:" the place He occupied was that of a Stranger, whom the world did not know (John i. 10; xii. 37; xvi. 3; 1 John iii. 1). That all the ends of the earth, and all ages, might receive tidings of Him, He chose certain followers, and received them into the inner circle of communion, men who should hear His words, see His works, witness the disclosures of His glory, become penetrated with His light, receive the impress of His personality; and who in turn should declare, with human lips, what they had seen and heard, and show, in human life, the Eternal Life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto them: an infinitely more gracious thing for us in these after-ages, more suited to the needs both of our intellect and heart, than if He had merely left behind Him some stereotyped book setting forth in naked abstractness what we must believe and do.
Because He Himself was so truly and deeply *the Wonderful*, it was necessary that His witnesses, who were also to be the future organs of His Spirit, should be men of broadly varied nature; not copies of one another, like images of clay cast in kindred mould—God's moulds are numberless—but differing in mental constitution, experience, spiritual affinities, and faculty of vision. No single man could take in His full image, or apprehend, in its completeness and unity and infinite reaches of application, the truth revealed
THEIR FITNESS.
in Him ; and therefore the “chosen witnesses” were many and many-natured. And farther, as no single flower, receiving from the sun and giving back in brightness and beauty what it receives, can show forth, by its dyes, all that is in the sunlight—as it takes the whole bloom of the year to do so, from the first snowdrop that pierces the dark earth to the latest flower of autumn—so He needed them all for the adequate forth telling of His holy personality. The fact of inspiration does not render their testimony one whit the less accurate expression of their personal knowledge and experience.
We naturally look for what may be called *spiritual congruity* between the truths which God reveals and the instrument through which the revelation is made. The messenger is not a mere speaking-trumpet, filled with the breath of God. Rather, a man of like passions with ourselves, with his individual mental endowments, his moral susceptibilities, his special experience and faculties of utterance, is made the living, throbbing vehicle of revelation.*
Taking the band that followed Jesus as a whole, we find in them (speaking reverently) great breadth of fitness for the Lord’s purposes. He who chooseth the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, ever chooseth in wisdom that is heavenly and perfect. Certain elements of fitness they had in common. With one exception, they were Galileans, marked by native robustness and a certain “*ingenium perfervidum*.” They were all drawn from the ranks of practical life, or (to use an Old Testament phrase) were “chosen out of the people”—as so many of the “worthies” of Israel had been before them. They were
* *R.g.*, to use a very homely illustration, for Balaam’s ass to have uttered some spiritual truth would have been out of keeping with God’s whole way of communicating with man, and would have discredited the narrative.
WHAT THEY HAD IN COMMON.
no dreamers or visionaries, but men accustomed to the use of their senses and reason in every-day affairs. They stood at as great a remove as can easily be conceived from the enthusiasm of the flesh and the subtleties of the schools. They were men of singular sobriety of mind. If they were "unlearned and ignorant," it was not in the sense of being uneducated—particularly in spiritual things—but merely in the sense of being untrained in rabbinic discipline and lore—unversed in the artificial culture of the time. As witnesses of the Divine manifestation in Christ Jesus, this was no loss to them, but rather gain; for there is a wisdom that blinds and causes to stumble. Their want of "learning" left them more free and unsophisticated; in a healthier condition mentally; with no ingenious theories to which facts must adapt themselves; with simpler and purer eyesight.
The very nature of the employment which most of them had pursued—that of fishermen tended to make them at once observant, cautious, hardy, and patient. They were also removed to a considerable extent, both by place and manner of life, from Pharisaic and Sadducean influences; and to that extent were better prepared to welcome the Consolation of Israel. Humanly speaking, no class in the land could have furnished men with larger fitness for being the companions and witnesses of the Son of God.
Besides what they had in common, there were also among them the strongest and most distinctly-marked peculiarities, fitting them to discern different aspects and elements of the Lord's manifestation of Himself, and to fulfil different forms of service; just as in the Church to-day we see various graces which together present a fuller collective image of the Lord than is found in any single saint, or as we hear various notes in her song which together make up a full chord.
THEIR INDIVIDUALITY.
I need but name Peter—rapid, sanguine, practical, penetrated with the flame of zeal and love; James and John, the sons of thunder; the other James, surnamed “the Just,” to whom the helm of the Church in Jerusalem was first committed, with his bold ethical nature, judicial intellect, and faculty of government; Thomas, cautious and scrutinizing, slow to take things on trust, demanding the full satisfaction of his reason, the very last man to be imposed upon by his likings; Matthew the publican, the writer of the Gospel that bears his name, sublimely content to be hidden behind his Lord; Simon the zealot, bearing his publican-brother pleasant company; Nathanael, the Israelite indeed, in whom was no guile; Judas, the brother of James, whose Epistle startles like an alarm-bell rung at midnight; and even Judas Iscariot, with his plausible face, and keen, calculating eye, ready to detect fault in Jesus, had fault existed—the devil’s representative beside the Holy One—haunting Him like a black shadow, and finally bearing testimony of supremest value to the “Innocent Blood,” albeit the testimony of despair.*
Some of the twelve indeed are names to us, and nothing more; but judging from those of them whom
* In reference to the apostleship of Judas, certain questions are eagerly pressed. If Jesus knew all men, was He deceived in Judas? If not deceived, why did He call him? When He discovered his true character, why did He not dismiss him? In view of such questions, it is to be noted (1) that he attached himself to Jesus as a disciple before he was made an apostle; and for his profession of discipleship he is himself responsible; (2) that, being a professed disciple, Jesus appointed him to be one of the twelve; (3) that Jesus, on whom no mock-faith could impose, knew what manner of man he was; and (4) that his testimony in favour of Jesus, in its own place, and within its own limits, is as valuable as that of any. Had there been fault in Jesus, he was the man to find it out and tell it; indeed there was the strongest possible reason why he should have told it, to quiet his own conscience and justify his conduct. Not one of the twelve has borne more distinct testimony to the truth—vital to the Christian system—that Jesus is the Sinless One.
THE APOSTOLIC BAND.
we know, we are justified in regarding the apostolic band as embracing a wide variety (even to antithesis) of constitutional character, each man from his peculiar standing-point, sympathies, faculties of mind, and spiritual affinities, finding in Jesus something different from what the others found, and expressing it in his testimony and life.
In the Lord Himself, as has been often pointed out, all was comprehended in a holy unity; but as the ray of light divides itself into its colours, so that one light which beamed forth from Him fell in variously modified splendour into the hearts of the Apostles. Thus it became possible that not only a few men, but all, according to their wants and capacities, should be partakers of the knowledge of Christ; the very diversities among the twelve giving breadth and comprehensiveness to their testimony.
II.