in at the strait gate, _for_ many," etc.; his using in defence of
partiality Isaiah's awful prophecy, "that seeing they may see and not
perceive," etc.; his using Scripture at one time as binding, while he,
at another, depreciates it; his fondness for silencing an opponent by an
ingenious retort: all these things are blameworthy to those who regard
him as man, while they are shielded from criticism by his divinity to
those who worship him as God. There morality is a question of opinion,
and it is wasted time to dwell on them when arguing with Christians,
whose moral sense is for the time held in check by their mental
prostration at his feet. But the truth of the quoted prophecies, and
the historical fact of the parentage of Zachariah, can be tested, and on
these Jesus made palpable mistakes. The obvious corollary is, that being
mistaken--as he was--his knowledge was limited, and was therefore human,
not divine.
* See Appendix, page 12.
In turning to the teaching of Jesus (I still confine myself to the three
gospels), we find no support of the Christian theory. If we take his
didactic teaching, we can discover no trace of his offering himself as
an object of either faith or worship. His life's work, as teacher, was
to speak of the Father. In the sermon on the Mount he is always striking
the keynote, "your heavenly Father;" in teaching his disciples to
pray, it is to "Our Father," and the Christian idea of ending a prayer
"through Jesus Christ" is quite foreign to the simple filial spirit
of their master. Indeed, when we think of the position Jesus holds in
Christian theology, it seems strange to notice the utter absence of any
suggestion of duty to himself throughout this whole code of so-called
Christian morality. In strict accordance with his more formal teaching
is his treatment of inquirers: when a young man comes kneeling, and,
addressing him as "Good Master," asks what he shall do to inherit
eternal life, the loyal heart of Jesus first rejects the homage, before
he proceeds to answer the all-important question: "Why callest thou _me_
good: there is none good but one, that is, God." He then directs the
youth on the way to eternal life, and _he sends that young man home
without one word of the doctrine on which, according to Christians,
his salvation rested_. If the "Gospel" came to that man later, he would
reject it on the authority of Jesus, who had told him a different "way
of salvation;" and if Christianity is true, the perdition of that young
man's soul is owing to the defective teaching of Jesus himself. Another
time, he tells a Scribe that the first commandment is that God is
one, and that all a man's love is due to Him; then adding the duty of
neighbourly love, he says: "There is _none other_ commandment greater
than these:" so that "belief in Jesus," if incumbent at all, must come
after love to God and man, and is not necessary, by his own testimony,
to "entering into life." On Jesus himself then rests the primary
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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