The most casual reader of Christ's discourses would observe that their style is singularly clear and easy to understand. And yet their matter is by no means trivial or superficial. Did ever man speak like this Man, Christ Jesus, for simplicity? Little children gathered around Him, for much of what He said was interesting, even to them. If there was ever a difficult word in any of Christ's discourses, it is because it must be there owing to the faultiness of human language. But there is never a hard word inserted for its own sake, where an easier word could have been employed.
You never find Him, for the sake of display, speeding upon the wings of rhetoric. He never gives forth dark sayings that His hearers may discover that His learning is vast and His thinking profound. He is profound, and in that respect, "never man spoke like this Man." He unveils the mysteries of God. He brings to light the treasures of darkness of the ages past which Prophets and kings desired to see, but into which they could not pry.
There is, in His teaching, a depth so vast that the greatest human intellect cannot fathom it. And all the while He speaks like the "holy child Jesus"—in short sentences, with plain words. He speaks in parables with many illustrations of the most homely kind—about eggs, and fish, and candles, and bushels, and sweeping houses, and losing pieces of money, and finding sheep. He never paraded the stale and mildewed metaphors of your mere rhetoricians—"rippling rills, verdant meads, star-bespangled heavens," and I know not what besides.
The hackneyed properties of theatrical orations are not for Him—His speech abounds in the true and most natural of images, and is ever constructed not to display Himself, but to make clear the Truth which He was sent to reveal. "Never man spoke like this Man!" The common people with their common sense heard Him gladly, for even if they could not always grasp the full compass of His teaching, yet upon the surface of His plain speech there glittered lumps of golden ore well worthy to be treasured up.
For this quality our Savior, then, remains unrivalled, easily understood, yet profound. His speech had this also about it—He spoke with unusual authority. He was a master dog matist. It was not, "it may be so," or, "it can be proven," or, "it is highly probable." No, it was, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." And yet, side by side with this was an extraordinary degree of humility. The Master spoke dogmatically, but never with proud self-sufficiency, after the manner of the children of conceit. He never pestered you with assumptions of superiority, and claims to official dignity. He borrowed no assistance from a priestly robe, or from an imposing title. Meek He was as Moses, but like Moses He spoke the Words of the Lord with absolute authority. Lowly and gentle of heart, never extolling Himself, nor bearing witness of Himself, for then, as He says, His witness would not be true. He was nevertheless the unhesitating minister of righteousness, speaking with power, because the Lord's Spirit had anointed Him.
Coming out of the ivory palaces, fresh from the bosom of His Father—having looked into the unseen and heard the infallible oracle—He spoke not with bated breath, with hesit ancy and debate as the scribes and lawyers. He spoke not with arguments and reasonings as the priests and Pharisees, creating perplexity and pouring darkness upon human minds. "Verily, verily, I say unto you," were His favorite Words. He spoke that He did know, and testified what He had seen, and demanded to be accepted as sent forth from the Father.
He did not debate, but declare. His sermons were not guesses, but testimonies. Yet He never magnifies Himself, He lets His works and His Father bear witness of Him. He asserts Truth from His own positive knowledge, and because He has a commission from the Father to do so—but never as mere dogmatists do with an extolling of their own selves, as though they were to be glorified and not the God who sent the Truth and the Spirit by whom it is applied.
Further, in our Lord's preaching there was a wonderful combination of faithfulness with tenderness. He was, indeed, the Prince of faithful preachers. Not even Nathan, when He stood before King David, and said, "You are the man," could be more true to human con science than Christ was. How those cutting words of His must have told, like rifle bullets when they were first hurled against the respectability of the age, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" "Woe unto you, lawyers," and so forth.
There was no mincing matters, no winking at wickedness because it happened to be associated with greatness, no excusing sin because it put on the sanctimoniousness of religion. He neither fawned on the great, nor pandered to the populace. Jesus reproved all classes to their faces concerning their sins. It never occurred to Him to seek to please men. He looked to the doing of His Father's business, and since that business often involved the laying of righteousness to the line, of judgment to the plummet, He spared not to do it.
Perhaps no preacher ever used more terrible words with regard to the fate of the ungodly than our Lord has done. You shall ransack even medieval records to find more fearfully suggestive descriptions of the torments of Hell. Those awful sentences which fell from the lips of the Friend of Sinners prove that He was too much their Friend to flatter them. Too much their Friend to let them perish without a full warning of their doom. And yet, though He thundered like His own chosen Boanerges, what a Barnabas the Savior was!
What a Son of Consolation! How gentle were His Words! He did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. For the woman taken in adultery He had no word of curse. For the mothers of Jerusalem bringing their babes He had not a syllable of reprehen sion. Kind, gentle, tender, loving—the speech which at one time sounded as the voice of Jehovah which breaks the cedars of Lebanon, and makes the hinds to calve—was at other seasons modulated to music, softened to a whisper, and used to cheer the disconsolate and bind up broken hearts. "Never man spoke like this Man," so faithful and yet so tenderly af fectionate, so mindful of the least good which He could see in man, and yet so determined to smite hypocrisy wherever His holy eyes could discover it.
You will observe in the Savior's preaching a remarkable mingling of zeal with prudence. He is full of ardor, the zeal of God's House has eaten Him up. He never preached a cold, dull sermon in all His life. He was a pillar of light and fire. When He spoke, His Words burned their way into men's minds by reason of the Sacred enthusiasm with which He de livered them! And yet His fervor never degenerated into wildfire like the zeal of ignorant and over-balanced minds. We know some whose zeal, if tempered with knowledge, might be of use to the Church—but being altogether without knowledge—it is dangerous both to themselves and to their cause.
Fanaticism may spring out of a real desire for God's Glory. There is, however, no need that earnestness should degenerate into rant. It never did so in the Savior's case. His zeal was red hot, but His prudence was calm and cool. He was not afraid of the Herodians, but yet how quietly did He answer them in that trap concerning tribute-money! They would never forget the penny and the question, "Whose image and superscription is this?" He was ready to meet the Sadducees at any time, but He was on His guard, so that they could not entangle Him in His speech. He was quite sure to escape their nets, and take them in their own craftiness.
If a question is asked, which for the moment He does not care to answer, He knows how to ask them another question which they, also, cannot answer—and send them about their business covered with shame. It is a grand thing when a man can be warm and wise—when he can carry about him an unexcitable temperament, and yet the force which excites others—unmoved himself, the man of prudence becomes the power by which others are moved. Such was the Savior.
But I must not let that sentence of mine pass unchallenged—in the higher sense He was always more moved than the people—but I mean as to temper and spirit He was not readily disturbed. He was self-possessed, prudent, wise, and yet when He spoke He flashed, and burned, and blazed with a sacred vehemence which showed that His whole soul was on fire with love to the souls of men. Zeal and prudence in remarkable proportions met in Jesus, and, "Never man spoke like this Man."
So, too, everyone who has read our Lord's discourses and marked His character will have perceived that love was among the leading characteristics of His style as a Preacher. He was full of tenderness, brimming with sympathy, overflowing with affection. That weeping over Jerusalem, whose children He would have gathered, was but one instance of what happened many a time in His life. His heart sympathized with sorrow whenever His eyes beheld it. He could not bear that the people should be like sheep without a shepherd, and He worked many deeds of kindness, and said many words of instruction, because He loved them.
But our Savior's speech was never affected and canting. He used no stale honey, there was nothing of that—I do not know the word to use—that insincere sweetness, which in some people is disgustingly perceptible. He was far removed from the effeminacy which, in too many cases, passes for Christian love. I loathe in my very soul the talk of those who call everybody, "dear" this, or "dear" that, endearing those whom, perhaps, they never knew, and to whom they would not give a sixpence if they wanted it. I hate this sugar of lead, this spiritual billing and cooing.
Where there is the least of the meat of true charity, we find most of the parsley or the fennel which are used for garnishing. The bottle is empty and so they label it to make it pass for full. No, give me a man, give me a man! Let me hear outspoken speech, not effeminate canting, whining, and pretended ecstasies of affection. In nine cases out of ten the biggest bigot in the world is the man who preaches up liberality—and the man who can hate you worst is he who addresses you in softest phrases.
No, let a man love me, but let it be with the love of a man. Let no man cast aside that which is masculine, forcible, and dignified under the notion that he is making himself better by becoming soft and babyish. It was never so with the Savior. He condemned this or that evil in no measured terms. There was in Him no apologizing, no guarding of expressions, no fawning, no using of soft words. They who are shaken with the wind and affect flattering phrases stand in kings' palaces. But He, the people's Preacher, One chosen out of the people, dwelt among the many, a Man among men.
He was manly all through. Love in Him abounded, love unsurpassed, but also manliness of the noble sort. Far above the petty arts of professional orators, and the shallow arguments of thinkers, His teaching dealt out Truth with courageous fidelity and generous affection. He held His own position, but trampled on none. He committed Himself to no man, but He was willing to bless every man. His love was no imitation, but a solid ingot of the gold of Ophir. No one else in this matter has so exactly struck the balance, and therefore, "Never man spoke like this Man."
One memorable Characteristic of our Lord's preaching was His remarkable commingling of the excellences which are found separately in His servants. You know, perhaps, a preacher who is admirable when he addresses the mind. He can explain and expound very logically and clearly—and you feel that you have been instructed whenever you have sat under him. But the light, though clear, is cold like moonlight—and when you retire, you feel that you know more—but yet are none the better for what you know.
It were well if those who can enlighten the head so well would remember that man has also a heart. On the other hand we know others whose whole ministry is addressed to the passions and the emotions. During a sermon you shed any quantity of tears, you pass through a furnace of sensation—but as to what is left which is calculated permanently to benefit you—it is difficult to discover. When the sermon is over, the shower and the sunshine have both departed, the fair rainbow has disappeared from sight, and what remains? It were well if those who always talk to the heart remembered that men have heads as well.
Now the Savior was a Preacher whose head was in His heart, and whose heart was in His head. He never addressed the emotions except by motives which commended themselves to the reason. Nor did He instruct the mind without at the same time influencing the heart and conscience. Our Savior's power as a speaker was comprehensive. He aroused the con science—who more than He? With but a single sentence He convicted those who came to tempt Him, so that beginning with the eldest, and ending with the youngest, they all went out ashamed. But He was not a mere render open of wounds—a cutter and a killer. He was equally great in the art of holy consolation. With intonations of matchless music He could say, "Go your way. Your sins, which are many, are forgiven you." He knew how to console a weeping friend as well as to confront a boisterous enemy. His superiority was felt by all sorts of men. His artillery struck at all ranges—His mind was equal to all emergencies. It was for good, like the sword of the cherubim at the gates of Eden for evil. It turned every way to keep the gates of Life open for those who would gladly enter there.
My Brethren, I have entered upon a theme which is boundless. I merely touch some of the outer skirts of my Master's robes. As for Himself, if you would know how He spoke you must hear Him. One of the ancients was likely to say that he could have wished to have seen Rome in all its splendor, to have been with Paul in all his labors, and to have heard Christ when preaching. Surely it were worth worlds but once to have caught the round of that serene, soul-stirring voice—to have beheld for once the glance of those matchless eyes as they looked through the heart—and that heavenly Countenance as it glowed with love!
His eloquence had, however, this, for its main aspect—that it concerned the greatest truths that were ever made manifest to man. He brought light and immortality to light. He cleared up what had been doubtful. He resolved that which had been mysterious. He declared that which is gracious, that which saves the soul and glorifies God. No preacher was ever laden with so Divine a message as Christ. We who bring the same glad tidings bring the news as second hand, and but in part. He came forth from the Father's bosom with the whole Truth, and, therefore, "Never man spoke like this Man."