Nicodemus the Instructed

I am glad that among the figures of the New Testament Gallery there is a place assigned to the student. Great as is our satisfaction to see an acknowledgment of life’s practical callings, there would, I think, have been an omission if there had been no portrayal of the intellectual struggles of the soul. There is such a portrayal. It appears in the portrait of Nicodemus. He is distinctively the man of study — the man of the night-lamp. I do not mean that he represents exclusively the life of the university. The student is limited to no calling. He may be a fisherman like Peter or a tax-gatherer like Matthew or a tentmaker like Paul. Student life is not a profession; it is a state of mind. There are very few of us who have not moments

of the night-lamp — times when we sit down and X09 no THE REPRESENTATIVE MEN

ponder on the mysteries by which we are surrounded. Even the foolish virgins have their lamps — seasons when the seriousness of life breaks through the crust of frivolity and makes them ask the questions which are habitual to the wise. The satisfactory thing about the portraying of Nicodemus is not that it recognises a particular profession, but that it recognises a secret moment of every human heart. It lifts the veil from the innermost life of all men and women, and gives us a glimpse into that sacred shrine which, after all, is the noblest part of man.

In this picture of Nicodemus there are exhibited three phases of the student mind; one of them is good, the other two need correction. We glance at each of these. We begin with that which I have called good. It is the tendency expressed in the saying that Nicodemus ’ came to Jesus by night. ‘I am aware this is commonly recorded to his blame; it is attributed to cowardice. I do not think this is the idea. I think the idea is, he was so eager that he could not wait till the morning.

And I feel sure that the Fourth Evangelist has made the historical fact a grand symbol both of the man Nicodemus and of the student life in general. Nicodemus waits not for light to illumine his way. He comes in a thick fog — groping, stumbling. The portrait, in evident support of the metaphor, introduces him in an attitude of deplorable ignorance; he has come to Christ, lighted by a single star. And in this the picture symbolises the initial stage of all inquiry. To every form of truth the student must come by night; he must accept evidence which is less than demonstration. People talk as if Christianity were in this an exceptional thing; they see in its demand for faith an ignoring of the claims of science. But every scientific theory makes the same demand. When Darwin ventilated the doctrine of Evolution, he did not say it had been proved. What he did say in effect was this: * I have found a key which can unlock many of the doors of this universe. It is perhaps the key which is meant to unlock all the doors. I will try. Encouraged by the cases I have established, I shall start by an act of faith. I shall assume that this is the one key to the kingdom of Nature. I shall apply it to the many locks as I have applied it to the few. It may become Aladdin’s lamp to me — may open the secrets of creation and unbar the gates of mystery. I shall not wait to exhaust the facts before I form the theory; I shall begin with the theory and try if it will fit the facts. I shall be content to approach the Temple of Nature with only a night-lamp in my hand; I shall not linger for the dawn. ’

And this is the true source of all discovery in every department of life. Take life itself. With what a very small amount of light we set out to face the world! We come to it with certain theories in our mind — some gathered from stray testimonies, some derived from the reading of romances. And yet with this slender equipment we go forth into the dark, not only without trembling, but full of the most ardent hope — hope which in the large majority of cases becomes the very key which opens to us the door. But it is in the sphere of knowledge that the principle is most conspicuously, most trenchantly true, and specially in that sphere which we call the knowledge of God. To a mind encompassed with doubts of a Divine Presence in the world I would say: ‘Follow the method which originated the doctrine of Evolution. Start with God as a working hypothesis. Do not search for Him in the universe, but search the universe through Him. Begin by assuming Him, Say, I have found in Him a key which fits several locks; I want to try it on the other locks. Let your coming be by night — the night of faith. Do not wait till the shadows have cleared away and the unclouded Divine glory is revealed. Approach the universe with a theory — the theory that there is a God. Try the doors with that theory and see if they will open. You will be surprised at your success. You will have as many trophies as the doctrine of Evolution — nay, this theory will explain Evolution itself and make it intelligible to all men. ‘There is no attitude of mind so seemly in the student, there is no search for knowledge at once so scientific and so reverent, as that which permits faith to precede full enlightenment — which allows man to come by night.

This brings me to the second phase to which the mind of the student is subject. I mean the tendency to sink his own individuality in the life of the race, or what he calls the spirit of the age. This appears very prominently in the case of Nicodemus. Other men when they come into the presence of Jesus address Him as individual suppliants; they say, * Have mercy upon me!’ But this man enters into Christ’s presence with quite a unique mode of address. He accosts Him as if he were speaking in the name of a corporation, as if he had been deputed to carry a request from a public body — ‘Master, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God.’ Here again the popular view is that he is influenced by fear — the wish not to commit himself to a personal opinion regarding Christ. My own view is that he is influenced purely by pride — the pride characteristic of the inquirer. One of the deepest desires of every student is to be thought a child of his age — up to date, as the phrase goes. It is a great mistake to think that the tendency of intellectual youth is personal independence. Its tendency is the opposite — the identifying of personal opinion with the view current among the highest minds. To obtain the reputation of this identity, to be called a true son of the time, the inquirer is content to sacrifice originality. He delights to repeat the opinions of the scientific, to quote their names, to air their views; he begins all things with the formula, * We know. ’

Now, this is the position in which I would place Nicodemus. However ignorant he himself was, he belonged to a guild which was regarded as the repository of Jewish learning. With the opinions of that guild he was eager to identify himself. He did not wish to be thought peculiar, eccentric. He had no desire that his coming to Christ should be interpreted as a mental aberration. He was eager to make it clear that he was saying nothing which the Pharisaic party might not thoroughly endorse. His address is virtually a proposal of ii6 THE REPRESENTATIVE MEN

terms — a statement of the conditions on which he and his countrymen would be willing to accept Jesus.

You will observe, Jesus resents this corporate mode of address on the part of Nicodemus. I used to wonder why, midway in His speech. He addresses Nicodemus as if he were, not one man, but a whole company of men — says * ye ’ instead of ’ thou. ‘But the reason has become clear. Nicodemus has spoken to Jesus as if he were a collective body of men; Jesus answers him as if he were a collective body of men. More striking still is the fact that in His answer Jesus also assumes a collective capacity: * Verily, verily, I say unto thee. We speak what we do know and testify what we have seen, and ye receive not o?ir witness. ‘It is the only instance I know in the whole New Testament in which our Lord speaks of Himself in the plural number. He says on one occasion, * If a man love Me, My Father will love him, and We shall come and take up our abode with him’; but He is there speaking of two — Himself and His Father. Here He speaks in His own person, but He uses the editorial * we. ‘Can any man fail to see why! It is a fine piece of repartee. Nicodemus has identified himself with his comrades; Christ identifies Himself with His followers. Nicodemus has appealed to the spirit of an earthly age; Christ appeals to the spirit of the ages in heaven, to the mode of thinking which prevails in the upper sanctuary, to the fashion of a world which will not pass away.

And let us remember that Christ has here put His hand upon a real weakness of Nicodemus and those whom he represents. For this original tendency of student life is one which needs to be corrected. Specially does it need to be corrected in the religious sphere — the sphere of Nicodemus. The man engaged in a study of God must beware, above all things, of losing himself in the crowd. To him at that moment there is opening a stage of tremendous solemnity — the sense of individual responsibility. In the presence of that thought he should see the whole multitude go out and leave him, alone. The spirit of the age should count for ii8 THE REPRESENTATIVE MEN

nothing, except so far as it corroborates his own. At that moment, and for that moment, he should feel himself the only man in the world, standing before the most august of all problems, and bound to give an answer from the depths of his own soul. Nicodemus was confronting one who had come to reveal this fact of individual responsibility. Nicodemus himself had belonged to another regime. The adherents of the Jewish faith had uniformly merged the individual in the race. The man only existed for the sake of the nation. It was to her that the promises were addressed; it was to her that the warnings were offered. The motto of every son of Israel was, ‘My life is my country. ‘In the interest of that country he was to lose himself, in the fate of that country he was to sink himself. The personal life was to be absorbed in the patriotic; the individual being was to be blended with the existence of the commonwealth. Judaism was essentially a national religion — the man worshipped as a part of the nation. There was some excuse for Nicodemus saying, ‘We know. ‘But Jesus was to introduce a new regime. He was to tell the world that in matters of faith every man was to God a kingdom. He was to proclaim that the individual and not the nation was now to bulk largest in his sight. He was to proclaim that the Jewish nation would pass away, but that the man would endure foi ever. He was to proclaim that the individual in his hour of religious contemplation ought to separate himself sharply from his environment. He was to bid him enter into his silent room and shut the door and pray to his Father in secret — as if in all the universe there were none other than they two. The spirit of the age was to be forgotten. His fellow-men were to be remembered in his sympathy, but were to have no influence on his example. He was to feel himself alone — alone with the great problem of eternity, alone with the presence of God.

Nicodemus learned in this interview with Jesus the value of an individual soul, the necessity that it should be lifted into a higher life and born into a world which was independent of Jewish heredity. How do we know that he learned it? Because we have a record on the subject. This man appears before us at a later date and reveals himself in a new attitude. In the interval the atmosphere has changed. Jesus is no longer the object of a kindly and somewhat contemptuous patronage on the part of the Sanhedrin. That august body has been stirred with fear. The movement which at first seemed capable of being incorporated within its own boundaries has flashed out in deadly and irreconcilable antagonism; and the Jewish Assembly, which yesterday was ready to propose terms of union, is to-day animated by only one desire — to crush and annihilate the rising system. The Sanhedrin is eager to arrest Jesus. It had the penetration to perceive what many professing Christians have not perceived — that Christianity is Christ, and that to strike at Christianity you must strike at Christ. It knew well that, the whole force of the movement centred in one man, and that to slay the one man was to destroy the entire army. Accordingly, this supreme court resolves to lay hands on Jesus. But there is one dissenting voice — the voice of Nicodemus. It is the last voice we should have expected. We are disposed to say, * Is this the man who a little while ago was eager to sink himself in the spirit of the age! ‘He now stands forth opposed to the age — stands out as a solitary individual breasting the waves of a crowd, and cries with fearless love of justice, * Does our law judge any man before it hears him!’ We marvel at the spectacle. It is not that we see a growing stature — we expect time to bring that. It is that we witness a transformation. Nicodemus has changed his weakness into a strength. He has become strong in the very point in which he was defective. On the night in which he stood before Jesus he was unwilling to be alone; on the day in which he stands before the Sanhedrin he is unwilling to be in company. He asserts the right of his own individual soul. He is a fine example of the difference between what is called nature and what is called grace. Nature can improve a man; grace transforms him.

I come now to the third tendency in the life of the inquirer. It is the pride of reason. As applied to Christianity it takes the form of trying to prove Christ from the outside — by something not connected with His nature. We see this with Nicodemus. He says, ‘We know that Thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest except God be with him. ‘The answer of Christ is striking and graphic — ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee. Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. ‘The words, as I take it, are strongly antithetical. Our Lord says: ‘Nicodemus, you claim to have arrived at knowledge. A man makes a great profession when he says, I know. There is something which must come before knowledge, and that is sight. Unless a man is born with a special faculty, he cannot even see my kingdom — much less understand it. You cannot reach the sense of my power by a ladder of demonstration — though you should mount for ages and ages. But you may reach it in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, if only you can find the wings of my spirit. If it come to you at all it must come in a flash, in a thrill of intuition, in a glance of the soul. It must be see7t, not proved; and the man who sees it gives evidence that he has been born into a world with larger powers than are at the command of earth. ’

We may illustrate the position of Nicodemus by one coming to an artist and saying, * I know that the city of Edinburgh is beautiful, because, if otherwise, every one would not have agreed to call it so. ‘What would the artist reply y Would he not say: ‘My friend, your testimony is absolutely valueless. It adds nothing to the weight of Edinburgh’s prestige. To have any value, your testimony must be founded on sight. It must be independent of any other witness. You must be convinced by your own vision — convinced with equal strength though all other witnesses were contrary. You must be able to feel that the beauty of Edinburgh to you needs, no vindication, that you would deem it as fair if all the world contemned it, that it shines to you by its own light and holds the evidence of its own glory. ’

The words of our Lord to Nicodemus have often been deemed mystical. I see in them neither mysticism nor mystery. Christianity is no exception when it says, * He who would know me must be born into my spirit’ There is not a study in the world which would not say that. Have you ever asked yourself what is the first requirement for any study.-* A knowledge of facts.? That is very essential, but it is not the earliest thing. A power of acute reasoning? That is also very essential, but it comes into use still later than the facts. There is something behind these, earlier than these, and that is the spirit of the study itself. Before a man can even begin to inquire, he must ask himself. Am I in sympathy with the subject? — that question must precede all investigation of facts and all lines of reasoning. It matters not what the kingdom be, our first step must be made here. Take the kingdom of art. A man might buy all the pictures in a gallery, might commit to memory their various subjects, might learn their date and authorship, might study the lives of their different painters.

might even combine the scattered threads of his information into a connected narrative embodying the rational sequence of the artistic history; but all this would be only the outside. One touch of inward sympathy would make him independent of all these things. He could dispense with historical knowledge. He could dispense with financial expenditure. He could dispense with efforts of memory. He could feed upon a single picture — though he knew not its name, though he knew not its author, though he could not identify any one of its figures. A very small amount of influence from without is sufficient to stimulate the spirit.

Now, the error of Nicodemus was that he sought Christ for something on the outside. He came to Him for what He wore — that was the sting of the position. He was attracted to Christ by His miracles. This was to Christ quite equivalent to saying, ‘I love you for the dress you wear. ‘There lies the reason for the sternness with which He speaks to Nicodemus. If Nicodemus had come and said, ‘Master, I cannot believe in your miracles unless I have seen them, but I am already convinced of your Divine beauty,’ Jesus would have received him very differently; for the only power He valued was the power of the spirit, and He felt that the power of His spirit was something which flesh and blood could not reveal.

But here again Nicodemus has a magnificent counterpart. We have seen how grandly the previous tendency was reversed, transformed. We have seen how the man who clung to the fashion of his age became the man who could stand to his opinion unbefriended and alone. We are now to see a greater transformation still. This man who at the beginning accepted Christ’s miracles and ignored His Divine beauty was able in the end to ignore His miracles and accept His beauty! In the latest recorded scene in which he appears before us he comes in a deeper and darker night than that in which he first sought the Lord. Jesus is dead. All the Messianic hopes seem faded in the dust. The hosannahs are hushed, the palm-leaves are withered, the friends of summer days have made their flight in the winter. It was a time when, if the first view of Nicodemus had been right, God must have deserted Jesus. All power had vanished from Him — even the power to live. There He lay — shorn of His outward beams, denuded of His visible glory, stripped of the robe of earthly royalty! And it was at this moment that Nicodemus came. He came to do homage to the dead, to embalm the body of the prostrate Lord. He brought myrrh and aloes of a hundred-pound weight — far more than could possibly be used for the purpose. It was like the woman’s alabaster box — the prodigality of love. And, like the pouring out of that ointment, it was an anointing for burial. He recognised Christ’s majesty in death — this man who had begun with the love of the external! He saw His glory in the night; he beheld His chariot in a cloud; he discerned His kingdom under the trappings of the grave! It was a grand act, worthy to constitute our last glimpse of the man. It was an act, moreover, which lends to the picture of Christ’s life a strange poetic consistency. Twice in that picture do we see the myrrh laid at the unconscious feet of Jesus; and both tributes are given by inquiring minds. The first offering was laid before the infant by the Persian Magi; the second was made to the dead Christ by the Jewish Nicodemus. To me there is something beautiful in the thought that, amid all the selfish approaches to Jesus, amid all the crowds that sought Him only for what He could bestow, there were some who recognised Him in the days of His weakness, and paid their tribute to a sense of inward beauty. The myrrh presented in the manger and the myrrh lavished on Calvary are the truest embalming of the greatness of our Lord.

IT is Thy death that has embalmed Thee, O * Christ. Many things have glonfied^ThQt but death has embalmed Thee. The myrrh and the aloes have remained in Thy sepulchre. Nowhere dost Thou live in memory so bright as in the valley of the shadow. In a deeper sense than Nicodemus, we come to Thee * by night. ‘Not in Thy miracles art Thou embalmed, but where Thy miracles have ceased. We have seen

Thy beauty where the world saw only Thy weakness; Thou hast survived where men thought Thee most unfit. We have brought our crown to Thy discrowned brow; we have put our trust in Thine unsceptred hand. We have kept our spices for Thy grave. We have not scattered them on Hermon where mighty words were spoken; we have not spread them in the wilderness where wondrous bread was broken; we have not left them on the Transfiguration Mount which gave Thee heaven’s token. We have passed these by. We have laid the myrrh and aloes upon the altar of Thy sacrifice. We have brought our faith to Thy seeming feebleness, our prayer to Thine apparent powerlessness. We have drawn courage from Thy crucifixion, strength from Thy stripes, wealth from Thy wounds, boldness from Thy blood. We have seen Thy kingdom in the cloud, Thine empire in the embers, Thy power in the unbeating pulse, Thy glory in the grave-clothes. Thy victory in the hour of vanquishment. Thy destiny coming from the dust. We pay our tribute to Thy cross. We lay our myrrh and aloes where the old world laid its scorn — upon Thy broken heart; but one who once belonged to that world meets us at the garden gate and cries, ‘You have done well. ‘It is the voice of Nicodemus.