The Master Teacher and Life's
Problems
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son....
Hebrews 1:1, 2
A sentence from an editorial in "Life" magazine of several years ago has remained with me. The article calls attention to the growing pessimism of current thought, the result, no doubt, of two disastrous world wars caused by the failure of modern science to solve the basic problems of life. It said, "People have become weary of the words of man. They have lost their confidence in man's ideas, man's programs, man's plans. They are hungry and eager to hear a voice from the other side — a voice of truth, a voice of authority whose ways will work in the lives of men. They are listening for a word from God." That word has been spoken. "God...hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, Jesus Christ" (Hebrews 1:2). It is in Christ that we find God's light for our lives. It is in Him that we discover the answer to our basic and fundamental needs, and it is in Him that we receive salvation.
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Jesus Christ is the Master Teacher. His words bear Him witness. Critics set to catch Him for accusation are compelled to confess, "Never man spake like this man." The learned doctor, contrary to all his background, admits, "...Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God" (John 3:2). His Disciples who heard Him daily and knew Him well, are convinced. They cry, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:68, 69).
Moreover, the words of Christ are contemporary facts. Whatever we may think about the origin of the gospels and their transmission, we have on the pages of the New Testament certain words attributed to Jesus. They bear witness to something unique and demand the attention of every self-respecting individual. That is to say, we must be honest enough to expose our minds to what Jesus is saying about life and about God. Before we dismiss the claims of Christ, we must listen to Him who claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If He is the truest and highest we know, then we must not only sit at His feet and listen, but we must rise up and follow Him in the way.
It is the firm belief of the Christian that Jesus Christ is the revelation of God and that His teaching is eternal truth. He is more than an ordinary man, and He speaks with more than ordinary authority. You may have heard of the man who complained to his friends about his domestic difficulties. After listening to him for a while, the friends said, "Why do you let a mere woman push you around?" "Sir, replied the man, "I will have you know that there is nothing 'mere' about my wife!" There is nothing "mere" about Jesus Christ. He is not
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an ordinary man. His words will bear witness that He is absolutely unique.
His words are unequaled in their timelessness and universal appeal. Two thousand years have passed since He taught beside the Sea of Galilee. Civilizations have come and gone. Empires have risen and fallen. Customs and traditions have known their ebb and flow. But the sayings of Jesus remain as pertinent, as applicable, as relevant as the latest book off the press. Other teachers have had their say and then stepped off the platform of history. No sooner has the echo of their voices died away than their teachings have become outmoded, outdated, and irrelevant. Not so with Jesus Christ. He is the Great Contemporary. We listen to the words that He spoke two thousand years ago, and we realize they are for us today. They have undying vitality. The only system of thought in the world which apparently has the power to meet and master dialectic materialism, to overcome and expose the falsehoods and pretensions of communism, is the truth which came from Jesus two millennia ago.
He speaks to all classes, all countries, all races, and all conditions of people. His words are treasured by those dwelling in the thatched huts of the African jungle or those living in the igloos of the Arctic, or in the apartments of American cities. His teaching enters into the homes of the poor and shares with them eternal riches. It breaks into the mansions of the wealthy and exposes spiritual poverty. Christ speaks a universal tongue, and everywhere, in every culture, men hear in Him the voice of the Great Contemporary.
The teachings of Christ combine profundity with simplicity, depth with clarity. The full scope of His truth always seems beyond us, and yet the heart of His thought is so simply
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expressed that a child can grasp it. With all the increase of knowledge in the world, no one has surpassed Him as the Great Teacher of life.
His parables, for example, are incomparable. Where in the pages of literature do we find jewels like "The Sower," or "The Good Samaritan," or "The Prodigal" and the father with open arms? Consider such words as these:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. (Mat. 5:3-12).
Or again:
Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are
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ye not much better than they?... And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, ...seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mat. 6:25-30, 33).
Or again:
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen" (Mat 6:9-13).
His teaching is also unique in its authority. Without pretention or display, He calmly asserts that His words are final, His truth ultimate. "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not from myself but the Father abiding in me doeth his works." To the loyal Jew of Jesus' day, the words of the Mosaic law were the very words of God. There was no higher authority for them. Yet listen to the Master. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill... but I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.... Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adul-
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tery: but I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Mat. 5:21- 22, 27, 28). I say unto you. Jesus is the final authority. He does not labor His point. He does not argue His position. He does not buttress His authority. He simply states it. "And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (Mat. 27:28, 29). His teaching is self-authenticating; it is the truth, the solid stuff of reality. It confronts us with God.
The teaching of Christ is unique in its content as well. Some have ventured to say that there is nothing new in the teaching of Jesus; He simply said what others had said before Him. This is far from being established as a categorical fact. However, in the older ideas and concepts that He did restate, He poured into them such new light and gave them such new meaning and significance that He transformed them. What He has to say definitely sets Him off from merely human teachers.
Consider His teaching concerning God. He taught us things that the world did not know and had not been able to discover. As a matter of fact, almost the whole content of our knowledge of God in the Western world stems from what Jesus Christ taught concerning Him. He spoke of God as the living God, speaking, acting, living in His world. Christ pulled aside the veil of speculation, enabling us to see our Heavenly Father — good and righteous, loving and forgiving, caring for all men, desiring that all should know Him and dwell together as brethren, children of the same Father.
Christ was absolutely sure about God. He was absolutely
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certain about His character. He did not argue the existence of God, just as one does not argue the existence of the sun on a beautiful morning. Rather, we take skeptic into the sunlight and say, "Here it is, streaming in glory all about you." So Christ leads us into the sunlight of the living God. In love and compassion He endeavors to open the eyes of those who will not see, to the most glorious and real fact of existence.
Moreover, Jesus speaks to us as One who knows all about God from the inside — as One standing on earth, yet speaking from the vantage of heaven. I am amazed as I study the gospels and read His words in this light. Jesus is not a scholar studying and pursuing truth. He is not a pilgrim on a quest to ascertain the nature of God. He is not seeking to know more about the Father or His will. He knows already. The eternal realities of God are already apprehended. Therefore, everything He says has about it a quality and viewpoint that is different. Horace Bushnell wrote long ago, "Jesus makes the world illumined with His words, fills it with an immediate and new sense of God which no one has been able to dispel."
What Christ said about Himself and about God, poses a problem. If you ask a man why he cannot believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, he will answer, "Well, my concept of God is so immense, so exalted, so spiritual that I cannot conceive of Him becoming incarnate and dwelling with man, being born in a manger, and dying on a cross." Who gave us this concept of God? Jesus, primarily.
Or another asserts, "I cannot believe in God, nor can I believe in Christ. There is too much pain and wickedness and suffering in this world. Can there be a God, much less a loving God, in a world like this?" We might ask, "Where did you get this idea of a good and loving God?" Primarily from Jesus.
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Christ Himself raises the difficulty of belief in Himself. The greatest problem of faith in the deity of Christ is the deity of Christ. It is because of what He has told us about the nature of the Father that we have difficulty in accepting what He says about the nature of Himself. Suffice it to say, the profoundest, the purest, the most satisfying concept of God which we have comes from Jesus.
The Master Teacher has told us things about man which we never knew before and find nowhere else. He shows us the potential good in every man, the high and holy standard of God. He reveals to us the great gulf between what we are and what we ought to be and the grace of God which bridges that gulf and unites us to Himself. Only Christ has drawn near to man with the offer of personal fellowship with the Heavenly Father, calling him to brotherhood with his fellows in the family of God. Only Christ has given us moral absolutes for life. He said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He did not say, "Be approximately truthful, approximately loving, approximately pure." He said, "Be ye therefore perfect..." — an absolute standard of righteousness.
It is important to note this standard in the present day of relativism when morals are believed by many to be simply the product of the culture or the civilization. In certain tribes of Africa a man can have as many wives as he has cows with which to purchase them. In America, a man can have as many wives as he has money with which to divorce them. In one case it takes money to get them, and, in the other, it takes money to get rid of them — just a matter of the culture in which we are living.
Jesus says, "Be ye therefore perfect ..." and He gives us a
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standard which is for all men everywhere and never changes. His words are a continuing challenge. "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven..." (Mat. 5:44, 45). Beyond that we cannot go. Whatever the ethical variation of culture and experience, this call to love remains unshaken. Care for your enemy. Labor for his highest good and, if necessary, suffer for him, for this is God's way with man. One would think, as the centuries roll on, the words of the poet would be true. "Ancient good becomes uncouth," but not so! Christ's teaching is as far ahead of us in the twentieth century as it was ahead of those in the first century.
Jesus Christ is unique also in what He says about Himself. "...I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). "...I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst" (John 6:35). "...I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die..." (John 11:25, 26). What stupendous promises! What amazing claims!
"I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Mat. 11:28). "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32). "He that hath seen me hath seen
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the Father..." (John 14:9). What does one do with claims like these? Is Christ out of His mind? Is He deceiving us, or is He the Teacher of eternal truth?
Jesus Christ is unique also in that He embodied fully everything He taught. What He said by word, He lived out in deed. What He gave us in concept, He demonstrated in character. Of all the religious teachers who have walked among men, Jesus alone lived what He taught. Socrates and Plato held up their philosophies and said, "Consider these." Buddha and Mohammed enunciated their religious teachings and said "Follow these." Jesus simply said, "Follow me."
Other men have claimed to be divine. Abbe Effendi of Syria made claims to deity, but he did not live out the role. Men became disillusioned with him. But the life of Jesus fits the picture in all of its relationships — not only in His conscious, but in His unconscious attitudes.
When Dr. Norman Taylor of Mexico was working with a group soldiers in an isolated post, he once gave a New Testament to an officer who knew nothing of Christ. He encouraged the officer to read the gospels and tell him when he returned in a few weeks just what he thought of Jesus Christ. Upon his return, the officer said to Dr. Taylor, "If there is a God in the universe, and if He came to earth and dwelt among men in order to save them, He would be like this man Jesus." Christ lives out the part. He is the Word become flesh. In this He is absolutely unique.
The Master Teacher is unique in that He empowers His pupils to obey His precepts. He does what no other teacher can do. He imparts the moral energy to fulfill the moral standard. He not only gives us the way we ought to go, but the will to walk in it. He not only gives us the truth, but He shares the
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life. He teaches us not only outwardly by words, but He teaches us inwardly by His own Holy Spirit. He gives us a new life inside, a new purpose, His own living presence. In this, of course, He is unrivaled.
