Lessons from the Great Biography

In ordinary biographies, a birth is the beginning. It was in the year 1483 that the mind to which we owe the Reformation commenced its existence; for it was then that Martin Luther was born. It was in London that the career began to which England is indebted for its great epic poem, and that other from which science received its mightiest modern impulse; for it was there that Milton and Bacon first saw the light of life. Having told us this, the biographer feels that ne has begun at the beginning; and with this statement coincides the consciousness of the individual himself. For, whatever the old philosophy may have dreamed about the pre-existence of spirit and the transmigration of souls, no man could ever seriously say that he had led another life before he was born. No man could ever tell incidents and experiences which had occurred to him in a state of existence anterior to the present. With us, to all intents, our birth is our beginning.

In the whole history of our species there has been only one exception. That exception occurred in the Holy Land eighteen hundred years ago. There was a Prophet in Galilee remarkable for the profusion and splendour of His miracles, and yet more remarkable for the beautiful innocence and majestic elevation of His entire career; and among the other peculiarities of a character unique and outstanding this was one: He was constantly and familiarly speaking of a life which He had led elsewhere; and though He had been born at Bethlehem in the reign of Augustus, it was evident that He never regarded that birth as His beginning. Speaking always of God as His father, on the eve of His expected martyrdom He concluded a solemn address to His chosen friends in these unusual words — “The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came from the Father and am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go to the Father.” And so far back ‘did that existence extend which He had spent elsewhere, that His words once leading the Jews to think that He claimed an age anterior to ancient Abraham, He not only allowed it, but in words of deep significance answered, u Before Abraham was, I AM.” Nay, so remote was that anterior existence of His, that He speaks of it as oldpr than creation itself; and in the freest and most unreserved forth-pouring of His soul which the record has preserved — in that prayer which wound up the work given Him to do, and amidst whose closing accents He passed to the final conflict — in the explicitness of a high conjuncture, and in the fervour of filial confidence, His language is all a-glow with recollections of that blissful association with ilis Divine Father which He had enjoyed in the dens of a dateless eternity. “And now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. Unto the men whom thou gavest me I have given the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.” “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.”

In harmony with which consciousness of His own is the style of His inspired biographers. True, they relate His birth; but with them His birth is not His beginning. It is His arrival from another sphere; it is His inauguration in human nature. It is an advent, an incarnation; it is not a new being called forth from the regions of nonentity. It is our world receiving a pre-existent visitor; it is our humanity iirining a celestial occupant; and when they chronicle the fact, Evangelists use language which at once lifts our eyes from the cradle, and sends our imaginations backwards far beyond the reign of the Caesars. In the prophetic description of His birthplace, Matthew quotes the words of Micah, of which the full context is, “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.” And he does not scruple to apply to the infant born there the words of Isaiah, “Behold, a virgin shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel; which being interpreted, is, God with us.” And in his allusion to the same great incident, John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God; and the Word was made flesh.”

As we purpose to review some of the incidents in the earthly life of Jesus Christ, it is right at the ouf set to avow our belief that His life on earth was a mere incident in an existence which had no beginning. We deeply feel that “great is the mystery of godliness;” at the same time we feel that revelation leaves us no alternative. If we accept the New Testament as a truthful record, we must receive the Lord Jesus as “God manifest in the flesh.” The proofs of this lie scattered over all the Scriptures, and they have fre quently been collected and arranged with admirablJB distinctness and irresistible cogency. At present, we must be content to indicate a few of those considerations which, we apprehend, will be deemed by candid minds conclusive.

1. And our first appeal is to Christ’s own language. There are some subjects to which He seldom adverted, apparently reserving it for another teacher to unfold them. For example, He seldom spoke of His office. Scarcely ever do we find Him in words express avowing His Messiahship; and it is only now and then, when the avowal was to answer some important purpose, or when to withhold it would have been disingenuous and misleading, that “He confessed and denied not,” “I am the Christ.” For instance, when the inquirer at Jacob’3 Well, impressed with His prophetic insight, and just as they were about to be interrupted by the return of the disciples from the village, — when she said, “When Messias cometh, he will tell us all things,” at such a moment, and after such a hint, to remain silent would have been to leave a soul in darkness; and so Jesus answered, “I that speak unto thee am he.” In the same way, when Peter made his memorable acknowledgment — “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God;” and when the high priest, in his judicial capacity, demanded, “I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell U3 whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God,” to have kept silence would have been to perplex His disciples and bewilder the world; and accordingly He gave an answer which left no doubt as to His Messianic character.

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