Jesus Christ Proved Himself God by His Personal Character

a) The Public Appearance of Christ

Out of Nazareth, a poor and backward village of Galilee, there came a Man who stood suddenly before the world and spoke as never man had spoken before. Thirty years earlier He was born at Bethlehem, and the Jewish world was startled by wild tales of shepherds about singing angels and the birth of the Savior. Strange figures appeared in the streets of Jerusalem, and royal trains moved forward to find a new-born King beneath His star. And then the land was filled with wild and passionate mourning for little children slaughtered in His name. Silence came then, and forgetfulness. Once, twelve years after the stirring events of His first coming, the Boy was seen in the Capital, where He confronted the solemn doctors and savants in the Temple and filled their minds with a strange wonder and their hearts with a new humility. Again came mysterious silence until, at the age of thirty, Christ appeared publicly among men. From being the most obscure of private personages He became at once the most notable of public figures, the most admired, the most beloved, the most sought after, the most hated, the most shunned, the most feared. About this Christ, new come before the people’s eyes, strange rumors were abroad from the first: that He claimed to be the Messias foretold of the prophets; that He spoke familiarly of God as His Father in a way in which no other man dared speak; that He called Himself the Son of man, as the Scriptures had called the Messias; that He claimed to be older than Abraham, long centuries silent in his grave; that He claimed to be one with God; that He declared He was God Himself. The people cried, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” And yet, following an impulse of their hearts which they were too earnest and eager to analyze or question, they followed Him and hung upon His words. Homes, money, work, food, comfort—all were for- gotten if only they might be with Christ and hear Him speak. Their acknowledgment of Christ’s marvellous eloquence, power, and attractiveness was a submission, even though unwilling, of their hearts and wills to the claims of the Messias. Christ appeared among men; people wondered, were resentful, were ready to scoff, but, in spite of themselves, they became His followers. The proud citizens of the larger cities, looking (with the scorn that we all recognize as a weakness of residents of big communities) upon the upstart leader from the rural districts, sneered and said, “Doth the Christ come out of Galilee?” And yet the townspeople flocked to hear Him, to wonder at His works, to implore His help. Countryfolk and townspeople alike were forced to admit that “never did man speak like this man.” And they returned home from His presence, murmuring in an almost half-witted amazement, “We have seen wonderful things today.” In spite of themselves, men acknowledged Jesus Christ as the Messias sent of God. His appearance among men marked the beginning of His sway over human hearts and wills, and is itself a proof of the fact that Christ is more than man. The Pharisees railed against Jesus; they planned and they plotted. Forgetting their pride, they were moved at the last to match their trained wits with this untaught Villager. They left the encounter humbled and confounded. Their wisest schemes went for nothing; their craftiest plots were made to look silly; their deep scheming was turned against them for their own confusion. Soon they learned that it was a dangerous business to meddle with Him, and they dared not “ask Him any more questions.” The Pharisees and the Scribes and the Ancients of the people hated Christ, but they could not ignore Him; they despised Him, but they could not forget Him. The very appearance of Christ among men marks Him as the centre of things. Love and hatred were thenceforth to swirl about Him; but nevermore was He to be the object of a general indifference. Again, His very appearance marked Christ as more than a mere man. Stories of the meekness of Christ were told: of His doctrine of turning the other cheek, and forgiving an enemy seventy times seven offences. Jewish hearts were saddened to think upon the ancient military glory of their people, of the warlike manliness of the great Machabeus, and the long line of fighting men that foreshadowed the Messias, back to the towering Saul, whose mighty spear was sung in legend, and the arm of David that alone was strong enough to wield the sword of the fallen giant of the Philistines. And the new Leader was meek and mild! Swarthy faces were alight with unholy laughter; and yet the laughter had scarcely died upon their lips, when news was brought of the meek Christ turning with overpowering anger upon the traffickers in the holy place and sweeping them all before Him down the Temple steps. Tales were told of the gentleness of Christ, and sinewy giants smiled scornfully in their beards; but the smile was frozen in astonishment as word was brought of how Christ had confronted the exalted leaders of the people in the public streets, and told them they were hypocrites and serpents, and asked them with a kind of quiet fury how they hoped to escape damnation. The appearance of Christ among men was as no other appearance had ever been. What strange new contradiction was this that combined meekness with power, and gentleness with masterful authority? As startling and as unmistakable as the new star that came with His birth was the coming of Christ, the Savior, among men. In a word, never did a more astounding, a more seemingly contradictory fact confront the world than the fact of Jesus Christ. Never did a more commanding figure meet the eyes of men than the Figure that appeared so suddenly out of Galilee to make a claim upon minds and hearts that was as stupendous as it was irrefutable. Christ appeared; never since that moment has He disappeared. The world loves or hates Him, but in all the long ages and all the races of men, wherever His name has been named and His claim made known, He has remained forever. Other men have made large claims upon the love and loyalty of men or upon their hatred. They have made their claims, and their claims have all been forgotten. Apollonius of Tyana claimed a sort of limited divinity, and he backed up his claim with some first-rate trickery; but not one man in ten knows to-day who Apollonius of Tyana was, or when or where he lived. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle share among them the high honor that is vaguely paid to what is still more vaguely known as “the learning of the ancient Greeks.” But comparatively few among modern men know what these learned philosophers taught, and fewer care. They are revered for their intellect wherever weak men worship intellect, but they are not loved or hated as Christ is loved or hated. Mohammed appeared among men, much later than Christ, and claimed an intimacy with God that was both startling and engaging. He built up a following that endures to this day. But the most ardent Mohammedan does not regard the “Prophet” as God, nor does he love him with anything like the passion and personal directness with which he hates Jesus Christ. The very hatred of the Mohammedan is a confession that Christ is a nearer presence, a truer reality, than the sole high-exalted prophet of Allah: nay, Christ is to him a reality more intimate than Allah himself. Confucius taught a philosophy which modern stupidity persists in regarding as a religion; but the world to-day looks upon Confucius with the mere detached and unenthusiastic approval with which it regards Seneca or Marcus Aurelius. Christ alone of all men that ever walked the earth is at the very centre of human life. Around Him alone rises the deathless cry of battle, the cry of attack and of defence, which marks Him as the one personage in whom all men have ever a passionate interest. Around Christ, and around Christ alone, surge the tides of human love and loyalty and the tides of human bitterness and hatred: He stands at the centre forever, immovable, unforgettable. And so it has been since His strange and sudden appearance among men when He came, emaciated and weak from His long fasting, to bring to mankind the “good news” for which the patriarchs had sighed. The appearance of Christ among men, and the facts that came with that appearance—facts that have remained in the expanse of human history like fixed stars in the wide sweep of the sky—mark Christ as unique among men, as the one and only Man of his kind, as more than man. The appearance of Christ, and the facts that came with that appearance, are proof enough for any mind that ever functioned in the simplest thought, that Jesus Christ is very God. It is not the Crucifixion and its wonders that is needed, it is not even the glorious and all-sufficing Resurrection that is required, to convince sound and honest reason of the fact that “indeed this is the Son of God.” The appearance of Christ is the appearance of a fact that has never been destroyed, although a thousand times contradicted and denied. That appearance is itself a proof, positive and irrefutable, that God has indeed “become flesh and pitched his tent among us.” b) THE VIRTUES OF CHRIST In perfect innocence or sinlessness, as well as in positive virtues, Christ is the crowning glory of the human race. The world has not lacked its giants of heroic virtue, nor has it been without its ideals of perfection. But Christ not only rises superior to all the heroes and the saints; He surpasses all their ideals as well. He not only surpasses the achievements of other men; He surpasses their finest thoughts of what is achievable. The friends of Christ declare that He is “unspotted,” “undefiled,” “the just,” “the one in whom there is no sin.” The enemies of Christ bear the selfsame testimony to His stainless glory. Judas, who betrayed Him, said He was innocent; Pilate, who condemned Him, could find “no cause” in Him, and said He was a just man! the Pharisees, who watched His every movement and gesture and listened eagerly for a careless word that might serve them “to entrap Him in His speech,” could bring but one true charge against Him when He stood at trial, and that was that He claimed to be God—which was only the claim to be recognized for what He really is. Nor was Christ merely without sin; He possessed the fulness of positive virtue. His charity (love) was perfect, and He summed up the whole duty of man in the twofold commandment of love of God and neighbor. His zeal for the honor of God was boundless, and, while He rebuked those that gave mere outward observance to the law of the Sabbath, He furiously drove before Him the men that desecrated the holy place. His eagerness for the fulfilment of God’s will extended even to the dark hour of agony. His anxiety for the welfare of souls made Him preach and threaten and pray, and brought tears to His eyes when He looked upon the unresponsive city. His quickness to forgive sin was evident wherever the smallest spark of repentance showed itself. His obedience to His Mother and to his Guardian, His mercy to the poor and sinful, His kindness to the sick and the bereaved and those possessed of devils, His unswerving justice, His hatred of sin combined with love for the sinner—these and a hundred more detailed virtues marked Christ as immeasurably the greatest moral character that the world has ever known. We need no confirmation of this fact in human words: we need only look at the impression Christ has left upon human minds through two thousand years. Yet if we needed words, they are not wanting; nor shall we take them from the lips of Christians. Rousseau declares that no hero of history is comparable with Christ, and he says of those who venerate the character of Socrates as the ideal of human achievement, “How blind must one be that dares compare the son of Sophroniscus with the Son of Mary!” Lecky, a rationalist, says: “It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character, which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments, and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind, than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.” (Quoted from History of European Morals, Vol. II, p. 8, by Most Rev. M. Sheehan in Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Part I, p. 59.) Harnack, who denies the divinity of Christ, finds Him a figure of incomparable virtue and holiness and a teacher of fathomless wisdom. Now, the fact that Christ was a model of innocence and virtue is not in itself a proof that He is God. But it is a proof that He is not a deceiver; it is a proof that Christ could not have lied when He claimed that He was God. Thus, indirectly, Christ’s superhuman virtue and innocence prove Him to be God. Indeed, the rationalists who deny the divinity of Christ have no reason to admire His virtues at all. For if Christ is not divine, then He has made a false claim, and has deceived millions of souls for hun- dreds of years. Surely, if we do not admit that Christ is God, we cannot admit that Christ is good. Nay, we are justified in declaring with G. K. Chesterton, “Really, if Jesus of Nazareth was not Christ (i.e., the Christ, the Messias, God), He must have been Antichrist.” One who makes claim to be God must be doing one of three things. He must be following a single mad idea as a maniac; or he must be making a stupendous effort to deceive all men; or he must be simply telling the truth. Now, no one has ever seriously contended that Christ was mad; the balance of His life, the balance of His profound reasoning, the moderation and justice of His words and deeds, destroy that assumption as with a blast of annihilation. Nor could such a man as Christ have been a mere deceiver; the marvellous virtues admitted on all hands as His, and His alone, make the thought impossible. It remains that Christ, claiming to be God, was simply telling the truth. Thus does the perfection of the character of Christ, thus do His innocence and virtues, show Him unmistakably to be very God.

The personal character of Christ as the most perfect teacher the world has ever known, or, before His coming, even believed possible, is a further proof of His more than human character. Even though Our

Lord came first and foremost to die, He came also to teach. He left the task of teaching largely to His Apostles and His Church, commissioning and instructing these agencies through His own word and the Holy Ghost, whom He sent upon them. But Christ certainly taught, and as a teacher of religion He stands unequaled among all the great teachers of men. Now, the characteristics of a great teacher are these: he must have great knowledge and he must impart it with power and effect. The sublimity of the doctrine taught by Christ, the perfection of the knowledge He displayed, and the tremendous force and influence of His teaching mark Him as the greatest teacher of all times. The body of doctrine taught by Our Lord needs no detailed mention here. It will be sufficient for the purpose of Apologetics to mention a few of the important items of that teaching. I. Christ instructed men in the truths that concern God and His perfection, and this in no abstruse style, as one might expect from the greatness of the subject, but in a direct and simple fashion illuminated with striking parables. The least gifted of His hearers could not have failed to understand Christ’s teaching, nor could the most learned and gifted of philosophers exhaust the rich content of His doctrine. Time after time Christ began His instruction about God with the words, “The kingdom of heaven is like to … ,” and then continued with an exposition of the justice, the mercy, and the providence of God, of His concern for poor mankind, of His requirements in the way of mutual love and justice among men. God was thus brought near to the people. The great Jehovah (or Yahweh) had been truly worshipped in the manner established by Moses, who was divinely instructed; but He had been far off, even in the Holy of Holies, and, in spite of His countless favors to the Jewish people, He had not been known with that intimate love and trust with which Christ taught people to know Him. 2. Christ taught men the value of their souls, showing them the flowers of the field and the birds of the air, and telling them how valuable they were in comparison with these frail and beautiful things. He showed men that the soul has a value beyond all worldly riches; He pointed to the wealthy Dives and Lazarus, the beggar; He asked men with piercing directness what good it would do to possess the world and then lose their souls. 3. Christ taught men the necessity of reposing trust in God; He taught them to have faith and sincerity in their hearts and souls. He taught, as an essential thing, the love of the poor, and detachment from the slavish pursuit of riches. He taught men to forgive “their brother from their hearts,” to preserve themselves clean of heart, to keep themselves pure not only of foul deeds, but of lustful desires, and

20Z declared that the horrible sin of adultery was committed in thought as in deed. In His teaching Christ spoke, as the people testified, in a manner wholly new to men: “Never did man speak like this man.” And not only was His doctrine so complete and perfect as to shame the best efforts of merely human teachers, philosophers, and moralists; it carried a power that men had never experienced before: “He was teaching them as one having power, and not as the Scribes”; “And they were astonished at His doctrine, for His speech was with power.” The power of Christ’s teaching appears in the fact that men listened to him, “felt their hearts glow within them,” followed His teaching, found happiness in following it as nowhere else, and literally transformed’ the face of the earth, as the great army of Christians began their march through history. The fact that Christ is the greatest teacher men have known is not, in itself, a proof that He is God. But it is a proof that His teaching was most notable and worth while: and the core and centre of that teaching is that He Himself is God! If Christ is acknowledged as a great teacher—and all men do acknowledge Him so—then He must be a true teacher, for a teacher of lies is not great. Christ is a great teacher precisely because He is a true and powerful teacher, precisely because He teaches truths; and the greatest truth He teaches is that He is God. Thus does the teaching of Christ proclaim Him to be true God. Suppose for one instant that Christ was merely vainglorious, that He liked to hold sway over human minds, that He made claim to be God and taught as God from motives of human weakness and vanity. Consider: Could He be desirous of the mere praise of a people that He knew, and accurately foretold, to be His persecutors and murderers ? What had He to expect from teaching vanities and deceptions? The whole notion is absurd and impossible. Those who admire Christ as a teacher, and yet deny His divinity, are utterly unreasonable. For he is not worthy of admiration who perpetrates a stupendous fraud, no matter how superb is his presentation of his false claim. To sane minds the teaching of Christ must bring belief with admiration, for it is folly to profess admiration for Christ’s teaching, and yet to consider it false and futile.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have seen that the personal character of Christ as a public figure, as a being of matchless virtue, and as a teacher, gives infallible evidence that His claim to be God is a true claim. We have made no appeal to sentiment; we have dealt with the whole matter in a coldly scientific and rational way. Our conclusion is inevitable, and the mind that refuses assent to such evidence as we have here produced can hardly be an honest mind.