By Joseph Parker
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When Christ said he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, there must have been a strong ironical tone in his pronunciation of the word “righteous.” Most truly we cannot infer from his reported words who the righteous were, if there were such. Not the Pharisees certainly, as was most impressively shown upon one memorable occasion. A Pharisee had invited Christ to dinner, and when the guests were ranged in order, Christ openly said, “Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness; ye fools, did not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also?” This sentence excludes the Pharisees from the category of “the righteous.” And the Scribes were associated with them; for on the same occasion, addressing them jointly, he said, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” This denunciation, which in modern days and Western lands, would be deemed an unpardonable abuse of hospitality, could not fail to make a deep impression upon the minds of the guests; this was clear from a singular incident. One of the lawyers brought the matter to an issue: “Master,” said he, “thus speaking thou reproaches us also.” The answer was probably much clearer and fuller than the lawyer expected; the spirit of judgement asserted itself in the boldest manner in Jesus Christ: “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them . . . Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.” This exasperating talk produced a most singular effect upon the guests. Probably they had never come so decidedly in contact with this new spirit of judgment before, and as they were all together at the time they felt the stimulus of association, and being stung by the rebukes of an uncourteous stranger, “they began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.” There is a good deal underlying all this. They might think that they had caught Christ at a disadvantage. Was he inflamed with wine? How could he who came to call men to himself encounter some of the leading classes of society with language so repulsive? They could not comprehend this new spirit of judgment which had come to hold its trial by jury among men, and in their ignorance they sought to drive judgment into indiscrimination, and thus deprive it of the moral element. They found nothing on the side of his love, so the hungry wolves ran round to the side of his anger, and waited savagely for prey.
Where, then, were “the righteous”? The fact is, that a man was truly, not notionally or repeatedly, righteous, just in proportion as he felt himself to be a sinner. There is many a paradox in Christ’s teaching, and this is one of the number. He set forth this doctrine most graphically by telling of two men who went up to the same temple, at the same hour, for the same purpose. One was a conceited self-idolater, appraising himself very highly, the other was a self-abased and earnest suppliant, who could find no better term for himself than “sinner”—no other term so deeply probed his consciousness or expressed the tone and spirit of his life. The sequel showed that in God’s view the “righteous” man was the “sinner” and the “sinner” the “righteous” man. Such sinners were the only men who could really hear Christ; the others were so impenetrably fortressed in their own conceit that no call could be loud enough to be audible above the thunder of their self-applause. Their sin was self-involution and self-satisfaction. They were their own Alpha and Omega. There was no way of moving them but by calling other men away from them. They must be isolated, until they felt their position and raised the signal of distress. Christianity thus became indirectly a most powerful appeal to the very men whom it had apparently left in all the paltry splendor of an artificial righteousness. By calling other men from them, and leaving them utterly alone, their very selfishness became intolerable, and through the mere stress of circumstances they were driven to inquiry and considerations. Extremes are their own cure.
On another occasion Christ took an effectual method of showing who the righteous were. A number of hollow-hearted men, who mistook an interest in criminal statistics for philanthropy, as all hollow-hearted men are prone to do, brought an unhappy woman before him to be judged. They had witnessed many displays of the new spirit of judgment, in various directions, but here was a case which would test the moral quality of that spirit. With infinite delicacy he said, “Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.” This was not only a new spirit of judgment, but a new spirit of administration. The guardians of virtue were henceforth to be virtuous. Judgment was henceforth not to be learned from a statute-book, but from the inspired heart. Penalty was to be an outburst of moral indignation. Without repealing the Mosaic law, or interfering with criminal prosecutions, he threw the inquirers upon a principle which carried its own justification. The answer fell upon them like the fires of judgment, and man by man they slunk from the place, until the sinner and the Savior were left alone. The difference between the woman and the prosecutors was that her sin was known and theirs was hidden, but the new spirit of judgment showed that concealment was henceforth an impossibility. The Savior gave the “sinner” another chance of life; he called her to himself by kindling a new hope in her despairing heart. A new hope is equivalent to a new birth
The “sinners” alone, we have said, could hear the call of Christ. This is true in civilization as well as in religion. Whoever has a new idea to propose will find no disposition to listen to it on the part of those who are satisfied with the old ideas or taken up with their own notions. He must seek prepared man, and deliver his call to them. They are conscious of a want; they are dissatisfied with the past; they look yearningly and wonderingly towards the future. Christ came with the cry of repentance; a cry which by its very nature divided society and developed strong feeling on both sides. The cry “Repent” was a call to change the very springs of life. It implied—indeed it expressed—a heavy charge against society. It simply meant—You are wrong, wrong in heart, wrong in life, and you must change if you would enter the kingdom which is at hand. Such a call of necessity set men thinking as they had never thought before. It put men on the defensive. It did not give them an opportunity of saying guilty or not guilty, but assumed the guilt, and demanded penitence. Instantly the “righteous” set themselves against it. They massed themselves as an army, and obstinately contested the revolutionary idea. Hardly any other cry could have produced such an effect upon them; it was intended to work self-conviction, but failing in this, it necessarily consolidated the moral conservatism of the unbelievers. It was to be expected that a great division would follow the cry, and that henceforth a marked line would show the space occupied by those “which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” The call of Christ was the instrument of election, pointing out those upon whom it could produce the intended effect. All calls to other life, good or bad, have in them of necessity an effective principle, simply because they separate and classify men. Christ acted in this manner precisely as sensible men act under similar conditions; they turn from those who do not want them and work with those who appreciate their purposes. The nature of the call determines the nature of the society that will be summoned by it. Christ uttered a call which plainly said that men needed to change their course, and it was natural that such men alone should draw around him; that they might learn all that he meant with reference to their future. To any man conscious of want, or sin, or ignorance, the call to repentance is the very call most suited to him. Instead of throwing him into despair, it gives him hope; it shows that an opportunity is still left, an that one man at least is willing to point out how that opportunity may be turned to advantage. The call of Jesus Christ means that no man need sit shivering upon the ruin he was wrought, but that he may arise and rebuild and enter into rest.
Imagine the effect of a contrary cry. Instead of “Repent,” say “Be satisfied.” Sides would then have changed. The men who were consciously wrong, or who had dreamed of a brighter day, could not have accepted the words as expressing a right direction, but the righteous would have announced the speaker an “excellent Daniel.” The call to repent brought to the speaker exactly what he wanted—the most susceptible, self-distrustful, and unsophisticated men of the time. When any of the so-called “righteous” did hear his words, and were disposed to inquire the terms of fellowship with him, Christ was invariably severe in stating the conditions. He did not by any means give them a cordial welcome. By any ordinary reformer they would have been considered invaluable acquisitions; having education, money, influence and all those advantages which usually give a new idea a bold and commanding aspect. By Jesus Christ they were regarded in no such light. He knew that they were but so many flattering varieties of a man’s self, and by so much as self was uppermost was a man unfit for the kingdom of heaven. Consequently he was so cautious as to be almost stern, so exacting as to be almost oppressive. So, at least, it must have appeared to the righteous, as they saw the “gate” narrowing as they approached it, and heard his voice in its most incisive tone saying, “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way.” So strait was the gate that no man could take any appendices with him; all decorative matter was to be left outside; only the man, without background or surrounding, could be admitted. One conspicuous example will occur to all who have read the life. A very “righteous” young man came to him with an eager inquiry: the young man made out that he was nothing less than an embodiment of the Decalogue—he had gathered the very elements of his life at Sinai. Surely Christ could not resist this impersonation of the Ten Commandments. They were written on tables of stone, but here was a table of flesh. Christ was actually more exacting with this young man—required more of him than he required of the publican, the adulteress, and the thief. Why not? Tall men can reach higher than short men. Others brought nothing to sin, this man brought the Decalogue without (as he imagined) a wrinkle or stain. What a wonder, then, seeing that strait is the gate and narrow is the way, that Christ should answer, “Go and sell all that thou has, and give it unto the poor, and follow me”? The man had grown prosperous, with all his commandment-keeping, and now he required to be pulled sharply up on the side of his wealth, to see whether the commandments or the money had a greater hold upon him. There was no other method of meeting the case. The fortress of self must be stormed. Every prop must be struck down, every link broken, or he must remain outside the strait gate. The young man knew not that the gates to all great kingdoms are strait, and that the ways are narrow; he had thought much of the kingdom, but nothing of the way. This instance certainly shows that Christ did not care to give merely numerical strength to his cause. With him, as with all true calculators, the question was not one of numbers, but of hearts. One heart under the inspiration of love was of immeasurably greater value than any number governed by the shifting policy of the hour. The I am, not the I have, was Christ’s standard of valuation. How then, could any man who had “great possessions” reconcile himself to settlement in Christ’s society? The thing was impossible. The outside was greater than the inside, so a catastrophe was inevitable. Manifestly the young man could not move through riches to Christ, though many a man has moved through Christ to riches. There is nothing in Christ to prevent a man having “a hundredfold more in the present life,” but much in the present life to hinder a man from having Christ. Today this fact is illustrated on an extended scale; most of the rich men who are now in Christ’s society came to him when they were poor. It is difficult, from so narrow an observation as one individual is able to make, to pronounce definitely upon the subject; but the peril of censoriousness [the tendency to severely criticize someone or something] may be escaped by merely putting a question—How many men having great possessions pass the strait gate set before the kingdom of heaven? Does the spiritual or the material exercise the keener influence upon such men? Is the expression, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,” with or without application to the men of today? There is nothing in the constitution of of the Christian kingdom to prevent a man becoming rich, but there is much in wealth to prevent a man from thinking seriously about the Christian kingdom. It alters a man’s whole relation to wealth, taking away the idea of mastery, and substituting the idea of stewardship, displacing the notion of carnal security by the spirit of Christ-like bounty. This kingdom necessarily casts out all other masteries, declaring to all men as they seek admission, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
In Christ’s day, too, expensive organizations within the church were unknown. Christ viewed all human necessity in the light of God’s immediate fatherly goodness, so that every want became as a holy place where the Father met the dependent child. Money as a regulative power in Christ’s society was not known. Christ had no institution to support. In his day men gave themselves, not a guinea, when an appeal was made. Love had not then found out that it could buy itself off for an annual subscription; it was mad enough to toil and suffer in the very heat of the day. Only spiritual insolvents think of compounding with God for a guinea, when they owe him their whole life. When Echepolus bought himself off from the war by giving Agamemnon a mare, probably Agamemnon made a good bargain, for a mare might be more useful at Troy than a rich and heartless coward; but proxies should not be allowed in the spiritual war. In the “brave days” of the first disciples, things did not shape themselves as they do now.
“Then none was for a party,
Then all were for the state,
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great.
Then lands were fairly portioned,
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Christians were like brothers,
In the brave days of old.”
In giving the young man this view of money, Christ sent him away “very sorrowful.” This was not without peril to the new government. The young man, in trying to reconcile himself to himself, would have a narrow escape from underrating the zeal of those who had fallen in with such apparently extravagant notions; and as no man in a low moral condition finds it easy to forgive one who has shown him that he is not so good as he supposed himself to be, the young man might seek to exalt Moses at the expense of Christ. It is necessary that Christ should accept all such risks. He could not build with wood, hay, and stubble, as he was erecting a kingdom which was to be tried with fire. Thus a universal call came to have special bearings, according to special circumstances, and out of this rejected men began to weave the grossest doctrinal slanders respecting the partiality of Jesus Christ—slanders from which his name is still suffering.
This was natural. Rejected men felt themselves called upon to set up a theory of rejection, and the last thing which that theory would admit would be error on the part of the individual himself. Take the case of the young rich man: as he retired from Christ he could hardly escape the tortures of the most penetrating and solemn reflection. “I have been partially rejected,” he might say; “what can be the reason? From my youth my conduct has been irreproachable; I have kept the law, and today I can defy public criticism; yet this man refuses me admission into his society, except upon extreme and impractical conditions: he must be mad or insincere; the fault is with him, not with me.” The man’s mind was started on a course of speculation, and all the probabilities are that his speculation could take no very favorable turn in regard to Christ. He would have his own way of representing the case to his friends and companions, so that, while Christ was calling men to himself in one direction, the young man would be at the head of a counter-movement in another. His representations would acquire strength from his well-known morality, and from the fact that he had personally sought admission into Christ’s kingdom. In this way, the Christian idea has been impeded by misunderstanding and unworthy men.
Christ had different methods of calling men—always, however, making the gate straiter and straiter as he was approached by the “righteous.” To the young man just spoken of he made the gate very strait on the side of property; to a certain lawyer he made it strait on the side of the two great commandments; and when Nicodemus came to him, he made it almost impassably strait by saying, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He seems to have given three different answers to the same question, when in reality he was but varying the answer according to the circumstances of the inquirer. Take the case of Nicodemus: to have said to him, “Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor,” would not have met the mood of the Rabbi’s soul. Probably he could have accepted this condition of entrance without reducing the amount of self which was in him; his property might be small, or he might hold it with a careless hand, so that its surrender would not have made any drain upon his self-importance. So also to have said to the rich young man, “Ye must be born again,” would have bewildered a youth who knew so little or nothing of such deep expressions; he must be moved from the side of his property. The master in Israel must be met in his own sphere, and talked to in his own language; the worldling must be met in the midst of his estates, and talked to in the language of the marketplace. The conclusion will be the same in both cases. Nicodemus, when born again, will be willing to sell all that he has; and the young man when he has sold all his property; will be born again. This circumstance shows the necessity of discrimination in preaching the Gospel. Christ addressed men in different ways; the Church has a few stereotyped directions for all. How many of the evangelical preachers in England dare tell a rich young man that he must sell and distribute all his property as the condition of his entrance into eternal life? The man who did so would be marked as a legalist, though he would be a most Christ-like preacher. There are some who aspire to be more orthodox than Christ himself; who, by insisting upon one set of technicalities, throw many inquirers into despair, and clothe many a plain truth with mystery.
Take the doctrine of being “born again”: Christ did not use such words to the common multitude, but specially to “a master in Israel.” To a master in Israel they were precisely adapted, yet it does not follow that a direction given to a learned man in a private interview is to be proclaimed without very careful explanation to the common multitude. Nicodemus was accustomed to metaphysical inquiry; his faculties were trained to analysis; and though he might start at this profoundly spiritual answer given by a man whom he had known as a mighty worker, yet he could meditate upon it as in harmony with the genius and bent of his whole intellectual life. That life it immediately assailed—not the man’s character, but the man’s mental habits and moral purposes. His inner life must start from a new point; so radical a change must he undergo, that no figure can so expressively denote it as a new birth.
This reference of regeneration opens the question of original sin. Many inquirers find it difficult to believe themselves innately bad, simply because they have been told that such a belief is required of them. No man taught the doctrine of original sin, commonly so-called, so impressively as Jesus Christ, and yet he never mentioned it! His whole scheme was founded upon the assumption that men were wrong. Every call to a new point, every frown upon sin, every encouragement of well-doing, meant that society needed regeneration. Men may come upon the doctrine of original depravity in one of two different ways; for example, they may come upon it as a dogma in theology. The first thing that some theologians do is to assail human nature, to describe it as being covered with wounds and bruises and putrefying sores, and as deserving nothing but eternal burning. Human nature resists this as a slander: it says, “No, I have good impulses, upward desires, generous emotions towards my fellow-creatures; I resent your theological calumnies [false and defamatory statements].” So much for the first method of approaching the doctrine. The second is totally unlike it. A man, for example, heartily accepts Jesus Christ, studies him with most passionate devotion, and grows daily more like him, in all purity, gentleness and self-oblivion. From this altitude he looks back upon his former self; he compares the human nature with which he started with the human nature he has attained, and involuntarily, by the sheer necessity of the contrast, he says, “I was born in sin, and shaped in iniquity.” This conclusion he comes to, not by dogmatic teaching, but by dogmatic experience; what he never could have understood as an opinion he realizes as a fact.
Suppose a tree to be conscious, and let it illustrate what is meant by growing into a right understanding of this hard doctrine. Tell the tree in April that it is bare and ungainly in appearance; very barren and naked altogether. The tree says, “Nay; I am rooted in the earth; my branches are strong; I live in the light; I drink the dew; and I am beautiful; the winds rock me, and many a bird twitters on my boughs.” This is its April creed. Go to the same tree after it has had a summer’s experience; it has felt the quickening penetration of the solar fire, quenched its thirst in the summer showers, felt the sap circulating through its veins; the leaves have come out on branch and twig, the blossoms have blushed and bloomed through long days of light; fruit has been formed and mellowed into maturity. Now hear the tree: “I am not what I was in April; my very identity seems to have changed; when men called me bare and ragged, I did not believe them a few months ago; now I see what they meant—their verdict was sound; I thought the April light very beautiful, but it is nothing to the blazing splendor of of the later months; I like the twitter of the spring birds, but it is poor compared with the song of those that came in June: I feel as if I had been born again.” The parable is broad enough to cover this bewildering and at times horrifying doctrine of hereditary depravity. Men cannot be in April what they will be in September. Each year says to growing hearts, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.” In old age men may accept the rejected doctrines of their youth. Experience brings us round many a rugged hill, and gives us better views of condemned, because misunderstood, opinions. The point to be observed by all teachers of Jesus Christ’s doctrine is, that it is unnecessary to force recondite theological dogmas upon those who approach the kingdom of heaven. Let them enter the kingdom on the sole ground of their love to the King, and their subsequent life may be devoted to doctrinal study. Jesus Christ was constantly correcting the errors of his immediate followers, yet they were his followers notwithstanding their errors. Where love is ardent, knowledge will be attained by experience.
We have seen Christ calling men and Christ rejecting men. This discrimination gives a hint of the quality of the society which he aims to establish. Can he keep those whom he has called?
