Глава пятая. Учение и дела Христа

If I had not come and told them, if I had not done deeds among them, that no one else has done, then they would have no sin; and now we have seen and they hated both Me and My Father. § 20. Spirituality, truth and universality of the teachings of Christ and its historical significance Having returned in the strength of the spirit (Luke 4:14) from the desert, Jesus Christ began to teach and do: He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every disease among the people (Matthew 4:23; 9:35 cf. Acts 1:1). Actually, Christ’s calling was to give believers the eternal life that He had in Himself. His teaching and deeds were not phenomena separate from this calling of His, from this unique work of His life. In essence, His teaching and works were nothing more than a revelation of the divine life, and in historical significance they were a means, a device, a way of fulfilling His calling. In particular, the teaching of Jesus Christ was essentially the reason for the spiritual life that He gave to people. Spiritual life in a person cannot be unconscious, unreasonable: unlike the dark elemental life, it is life-light. The content of this human consciousness of spiritual life, its intelligence, is given in the teaching of Jesus Christ. He was a teacher, but His task was not to answer the religious requests of our mind, to convey to us the secrets of the superstellar world, to teach a system of religious philosophy or theology - no, the only subject of His teaching was the spiritual divine life in man: it was exclusively the mind of it. He taught nothing else. The spiritual divine life in man is the kingdom of God, or heaven, on earth: Christ preached the gospel of the kingdom. Since the teaching of Jesus Christ was the reason for the divine spiritual life He gave to man, the properties of the divine spiritual life at the same time characterize His teaching. It was spiritual, true and universal 55. As a spiritual teaching, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ demanded from a person complete renunciation of material wealth, from attachment to earthly and temporary things, demanded from him hatred of his very life; it predicted persecution from the world for the follower of Christ (Matthew 5:2-12; 6:19-34; 10:22. 38-39; 16:24-25 and par.; Luke 14:26; John 15:19; 16:33 and many others). As a spiritual teaching, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ required, further, from a person true service to God instead of the Old Testament symbolic: the Old Testament worship of God was visible, it gave a person bodily purity, but not spiritual, and since “the visible is temporary”, illusory, the Old Testament bodily worship was symbolic; on the contrary, serving God with the spirit, since the spirit is a genuine, eternal reality, serving God with the spirit is true, it really gives a person participation in the divine life, it truly glorifies God (John 4:23-24). According to the teachings of Christ, service to God is not made up of a set of special actions, but it should be the whole life of a person; it coincides with what constitutes the internal basis of spiritual life: the essence of spiritual life is love and, since it is a life of love, it represents continuous service to God. Regarding external purity, Christ taught that what defiles a person is not what comes into the mouth, but what comes from the heart, that alms make everything pure, that it is more important than sacrifice, that mercy, love and faith are the most important things in the law, that, in particular, the Sabbath rest can and should be broken for the sake of a good deed, that, finally, one verbal invocation of the Lord, without good deeds, does not give a person participation in the kingdom of God (Matt. 7:16-27; 12:10; 17:20; 23:23-28; As spiritual and true, the teaching of Jesus Christ is universal in its subject matter: He preached the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, which does not come in a noticeable way, is not connected with any worldly external national forms, but is located within a person and is accessible to every person and for all people, which is governed by laws opposite to the laws of worldly kingdoms, so that whoever wants to be great in the kingdom of God must be a servant of all (Luke 17:20-21; Matthew 20, 26; 23:11 John 18:36). Thus, the teachings of Jesus Christ were essentially contrary to the religious expectations of the Jews, their attachment to material wealth and to theocratic symbolism and their hopes for worldly dominion. Being spiritual in its essence, the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ brought judgment to the world - a test for every person and condemnation for the Jews with their national passions. As spiritual, true and universal, it was such that only those who wanted to do the will of the Father could accept it (John 7:17; 6:37.44), and not accepting it meant not wanting to have true life, not loving God, not seeking glory from God, valuing human glory (John 5:40.42.44). The teaching of Christ was such that just hearing it (John 12:47-48) necessarily revealed the true meaning of the religious life of every person, whether he, while visibly worshiping God, loves God, or whether he loves only himself; Listening to the teachings of Christ, every person had to, with all the clarity of consciousness and certainty, either love God or hate Him. In relation to the Jews, the court of Christ's teaching discovered that the basis of their religious expectations was pride, sensuality and love of fame. “If you,” Christ said to the Jews, “had believed Moses, you would have believed Me; because he wrote about Me (John 5:46). If God were your father, then you would love Me, because I came from God and came; for I did not come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My words. Your father is the devil” (John 8: 42 – 44). Christ Himself clarified the historical significance of His teaching as judgment of the world as follows: “The judgment consists in the fact that light has come into the world; but people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed, because they are evil. But he who does righteousness comes to the light, so that his deeds may be made clear, because they were done in God” (John 3:19-21). And due to the fact that the Jews were the keepers of the Old Testament law, they boasted of their knowledge and considered themselves guides of the blind (cf. Rom. 2:17 ff.), being self-deceived, while the teaching of Christ, contrary to human self-righteousness and self-confidence, required spiritual simplicity for its perception and, hidden from those who considered themselves wise and reasonable, was open to infants (Matt. 11:25 par.), - because of this, the judgment that was carried out by the teaching of Christ is more closely defined by Christ Himself as follows: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see would see, and those who see would become blind. If you - He added to the Pharisees - if you were blind (considered yourself blind), you would not have sin (on yourself); but just as you say what you see, the sin remains on you” (John 9:39‒41). § 21. The external humiliation of Christ and His actions, in which the spirituality of His teaching was revealed However, if the divine life of Christ had been revealed in one teaching and had not been revealed in works, then the Jews, having not accepted His teaching, would have sinned only by unbelief, they would have sinned only against the Son of Man, and therefore, at most, they would not have had an excuse for their sin, but not without hope of forgiveness (John 15:22; Matt. 12:32). The judgment of Christ would not have been a terrible rejection for the Jews. But the Jews not only did not believe in Christ, but also hated Him; having hated Him, they also hated His Father (John 15:23), and therefore were rejected by the Lord: this was done by His teaching in connection with His deeds. “If,” He said about His teaching, “I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. If,” He added about His works, “I had not done among them works that no one else did, they would not have had sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father” (John 15:24). Not believing the works of Christ, which He created by the Spirit, the Jews sinned the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. This is the connection between the works of Jesus Christ and His teaching according to their historical significance 56. By the works of Jesus Christ we mean, in part, the external image of His life and some external actions that accompanied His teaching, in which His teaching was revealed unintentionally in relation to each particular action, only in their general agreement with the teaching as a principle, and mainly His miracles are called works. Let's talk about the first ones first. The outward humiliation of the Lord Jesus Christ did not correspond to the ideas that the Jews had about the face and life of the Messiah. He was a great miracle worker, but His own life was not in the least made easier by His miraculous power. True, in some cases this power was revealed in His personal life: thus He miraculously withdrew from the Nazarenes, repeatedly hid from the Jews (for example, John 8:59), and was miraculously transformed before the apostles. But these phenomena in His life either really delivered Him from death, but only “because His hour had not yet come,” which at its time, predetermined by the Father, did not pass Him by, or they had a symbolic meaning; In either case, they did not free the ordinary course of His life from universal human weakness and limitation and from voluntary humiliation. At the beginning of His public ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ chose disciples from among His listeners to constantly accompany Him, from whom, over time, twelve closest disciples emerged. They were His trusted collaborators and apostles, He explained everything to them in private, and He honored them with the name of His friends. Who were these students? These were, almost all, Galileans, whose origin was already revealed by their contemptible reprimand; their occupation was predominantly fishermen, in general simple people, unlearned, ignorant; among them was one, Matthew, of the tax collectors, who were considered despicable and rejected by the Jews, along with sinners; one of the twelve even betrayed his Teacher to the Jews. According to the meaning of Christ’s teaching, neither He Himself nor His disciples could observe the Jewish rules about external cleansing, regarding fasting, regarding Sabbath rest. This gave the Jews a reason to murmur against Him and reproach His disciples. So it was when one day the Pharisees and some of the scribes saw some of His disciples eating unclean bread, i.e. with unwashed hands (Matthew 15:1-20 par.); they grumbled about the non-observance by Him and His disciples of the rules about fasting (Matthew 9:14-17 par.; 11:16-19); They grumbled when His disciples, walking with Him through the sown fields, became hungry, plucked ears of corn and ate, breaking, according to Jewish concepts, the Sabbath rest (Matthew 12:1 - 8 par.). Violation of the Sabbath rest among the Jews was considered the greatest sin. The great indignation of the Jews against Jesus Christ was caused by the fact that He, having one former publican among His disciples, did not shun at all and even sought the company of tax collectors and sinners, since He came to call them to repentance, ate and drank with them, they all approached Him as a friend (Matthew 9:10-13; 11:19 par. Luke 15:1ff.). Simon the Pharisee, who invited Jesus to eat food, was tempted when he saw how He allowed Himself to be touched by a sinful wife, who kissed His feet and anointed them with ointment (Luke 7:37ff.). By all these actions, although they were not intentional in each individual case, in general Jesus Christ deliberately provoked the indignation of the Jews. Attachment to the petty traditions of the elders regarding Sabbath rest, fasting, external cleansing, a contemptuous attitude towards publicans and sinners - all this expressed the moral dullness of the Jews, and it was necessary to reveal their self-righteousness and pride that underlay these traditions and customs. From a historical point of view, it is not at all important that these traditions and customs were a distortion of the Old Testament law and that Christ, breaking the first, did not thereby violate the second 57; What was important was that in the minds of the Jews, traditions and customs merged with the law, and therefore Christ’s struggle with them had a deeper meaning than the struggle with simple error - it was a struggle with legalistic self-righteousness, with legalistic slavery (Mark 2:27). However, Christ Himself, when He was accused of violating the Sabbath rest, defended itself not by denying that He violated the Sabbath, but by pointing out that one should do good on the Sabbath (Matthew 12:12), and that the Jews themselves violate the Sabbath for the sake of physical and legalistic necessity. So every Jew on Saturday leads an ox and a donkey to water (Luke 13:15), pulls out a sheep that has fallen into a pit (Matt. 12:11; Luke 14:6); so even David, being hungry himself and those who were with him, entered the house of God and ate the showbread, which could only be eaten by the priests (Matthew 12:3-4; Mark 2:25-26); so the priests in the church break the Sabbath without being guilty (Matthew 12:5); This is how all Jews circumcise a person on the Sabbath (John 7:22). Christ, accused of breaking the Sabbath, defended himself by pointing out the breaking of the Sabbath by the Jews for the sake of necessity and the necessity of breaking the Sabbath for the sake of good works. Be that as it may, Jesus Christ, according to the Jews, violated the law and in particular the law on the Sabbath. How important this was in the work and life of Christ is clear from the fact that, on the one hand, in the faithfulness of the Jews to the traditions of the elders, in their ritual obscurity, the essence of their religious symbolism was expressed and the roots of their self-righteousness lay, in particular the Sabbath, in the apt expression of one scientist, “was both the banner of their exceptional advantages and the center of their soulless formalism,” and that, on the other hand, the enmity and hatred aroused by Jesus Christ in Jews were mainly directed towards this side of His activity: “This man is not from God,” the Jews said about Him, “because he does not keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16). The connection between these works of the Lord Jesus Christ and His teaching in terms of their historical significance was that they attracted the attention of the Jews to His teaching. The Jews might not listen to His teachings; but when He did such things, they could not help but listen to Him; for the sake of these works they had to determine their attitude towards Him. But in this meaning, the named works of the Lord Jesus Christ were only a transitional step to His miracles. If these deeds, and especially the violation of the Sabbath, attracted the attention of the Jews and determined their attitude to His teaching, then these deeds themselves attracted the full attention of the Jews and finally determined their attitude towards Christ in combination with miracles: in this connection, the center of the works of Christ was the miracle that violated the Sabbath rest. This was noticed by St. John Chrysostom. On the occasion of the plucking of the ears of grain by the apostles, he writes, the Pharisees were “not very cruel, although they could (were) to be so, but they are not very irritated, but simply accuse. When the Lord ordered him to stretch out his withered hand and healed it, then they became so furious that they intended to slaughter and kill Him.”58 This reasoning applies to other works and relationships of Jesus Christ. So we move on to the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ. § 22. Miracles - their historical characteristics The “spiritual” basis of the miracles of Jesus Christ, their essence, has already been briefly discussed above. We consider it both unnecessary for our purposes and generally fruitless to enter into a more detailed study of their essence and especially explain them from the point of view of possibility. Our task is to explain the miracles of Jesus Christ in their mutual connection and in relation to the ministry of Christ, to reveal the meaning of their history. This will form the subject of the following chapters. Now we would like to say a few words regarding the general historical appearance of the miracles of Christ, the presentation of which is necessary for understanding their history. What were the miracles of Christ in their historical reality? What were they to those who saw them? For the Jews, Christ's miracles were not “signs from heaven,” but were only “signs on the earth below.” By a sign from heaven, the Jews, in all likelihood, meant the direct action of God in the world and precisely for the benefit of man, in this case, the Messiah, for His prosperity and glory. This is God’s work according to human reason: “to raise up children for Abraham from stones.” A sign from heaven for the Messiah would be to “make stones into bread,” to be carried in the arms of angels, to have them from the Father to twelve legions. Christ did not perform such miracles. When the Jews asked Him for a sign from heaven, He, rejecting primarily their hope that a miracle should serve as a visible sign of God’s material protection of the Messiah and the Jewish people, refused them a sign other than the sign of the prophet Jonah. “For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so also the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:38-40; 16:1-4 par.). For the Jews, Christ's miracles were not a sign from heaven; in miracles that were not a sign from heaven, they saw the action of God through the hidden forces of nature 59 . Prophets could perform such miracles, and the Jews saw the miracle worker from Nazareth as nothing more than a prophet. Seeing the miracles of Jesus Christ, the people marveled and glorified “God, who gave such power to men” (Matthew 9:8), and said: “A great prophet has arisen among us” (Luke 7:16; John 6:14). To understand the soul of the Jews, it is enough to remember that after the miraculous feeding of five thousand with five loaves, they said to Jesus Christ: “What sign will You give so that we will see and believe You? What are you doing? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness” (John 6:30‒31). The miracle of Christ, in itself, for the Jews was no greater than the work of Moses. They could especially reason this way regarding the expulsion of unclean spirits, which was performed even by some of them, and in general healings, which mainly consisted of the miracles of Jesus Christ. This does not mean that the Jews were purely rationalistic about miracles; no, they believed in miracles, but their faith was different from the faith that is understood by the usual dogmatic view of the miracles of Christ and their meaning. They looked at miracles as a means of divine providence for man, and specifically for the Jews, as an instrument of God’s special favor towards them. Their faith in the miracles of the Messiah consisted in the fact that they expected from the time of the Messiah extraordinary miraculous benefits of God to their people. Their attention in relation to the miracles of Jesus Christ was drawn not to the dogmatic meaning of each of them, but to whether they were good deeds for the Jewish people (Mark 7:37) and whether they were numerous (John 7:31). Their faith in the miracles of the Messiah was not faith in His “spiritual” being, but faith in “His time”; from the miracles of Christ they concluded not to who this miracle worker is, but to the fact that he is the one “who should come into the world” (John 6:14); by miracles they guessed exclusively about “when Christ will come” (John 7:31). And in order to be confident in the face of the Messiah, they needed signs from heaven. Christ did not give them a sign from heaven, but His miracles were truly blessings for them and blessings amazing in their number. So, in an amazing way, the significant significance of the miracles of Jesus Christ, as a real victory of the kingdom of God over the world, coincided with the national expectations of the Jews, but in an even more amazing way, the miracles of Christ repelled the Jews from Him: this is the secret of the history of the Gospel miracles. This historical feature of the miracles of Jesus Christ will turn out to be even more characteristic if we compare it with the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ performed miracles not to arouse faith, but out of faith. “Do you believe that I can do this?” - He usually addressed this question to those who asked Him for healing; “According to your faith, be it done to you” - with such words He usually performed healings; - “if you can believe a little, all things are possible to him who believes”; “as you believed, so be it for you”; “Your faith has saved you.” The significance of faith in the miracles of Jesus Christ was so great that healings were performed on the sick from one touch of them to Him (Mark 5:24-34 par. cf. 3:10) “without His knowledge and permission.” On the contrary, without faith He could not perform miracles. Thus, in Nazareth, due to the unbelief of the inhabitants, He could not perform any miracle, only laying His hands on a few sick people and healing them (Matthew 13:58; Mark 6:5-6). Of course, the miracles of Jesus Christ aroused faith in the Jews. But demanding faith to perform miracles, Christ did not attach importance to the faith of the Jews in Him for the sake of miracles. Seeing the miracles that He performed, many believed in His name, but He Himself did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew what was in man (John 2:23-25 ​​cf. 4:48). Only in this regard can one explain the highly significant feature of the Gospel story that the Lord Jesus Christ forbade those healed and, in general, witnesses of miracles to divulge about them 60 . So, having healed the leper, the Lord, looking at him sternly, immediately sent him away and said to him: “See that you don’t tell anyone anything” (Mark 1:43-44). He strictly ordered those who saw the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter that no one should know about it (Mark 5:43; also 7:36; 8:26). In the same way, He strictly forbade those possessed by demons, so that they would not make Him known (Mark 1:23-25.34; 3:11-12; 5:6-7; 9:20). Only to the Gadarene demoniac did He say: “Go home to your people and tell them what the Lord has done to you and how He has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19), which was due to the fact that the Gadarenes asked the Lord to leave their borders. We will return below to explain this feature of the history of gospel miracles; Now let us only note that just as much as Christ’s prohibition corresponded to His reluctance for the Jewish faith in Him to spread for the sake of miracles, just as much was characteristic of the Jews’ disobedience to Christ’s prohibition. Thus, the leper healed by Him, contrary to the prohibition, came out and began to proclaim and talk about what had happened to him (Mark 1:45); in general, no matter how much He forbade the healed, they spread it even more (Mark 7:36), so that He could no longer openly enter the city, but went into deserted places and prayed (Mark 1:45; Luke 5:16). This disobedience expressed the Jews' extreme attachment to miracles. However, the miracles of Jesus Christ, according to the divine will about them, should have and, as history shows, could give rise to true faith in Him. So faith in His miracles could be twofold. This fully corresponds to the fact that every rational truth, every psychological reality has two sides 61. The complete authenticity of the Gospel story is especially demonstrated by the fact that, unlike fiction, which is inevitably one-sided, it allows us to see two sides of it in every respect. To truly explain it means to indicate in each relationship the two poles in complete reconciliation. The Jews believed in the miracles of Christ, and the disciples also believed. Thus, when Jesus began miracles in Cana of Galilee and revealed His glory, His disciples believed in Him (John 2:11). Christ Himself reproachfully said to the Jews who were looking for Him after the miracle of feeding five thousand with five loaves: “You are not looking for Me because you have seen miracles” (John 6:26). The Evangelist speaks with sorrow about them: Christ performed so many miracles before them, and they did not believe in Him (John 12:37). The true faith in the miracles of Jesus Christ of His disciples in some part coincided with the Jewish faith in miracles, but differed from it in its direction, just as two intersecting straight lines coincide at one point and differ in direction: The true faith in Christ of His disciples had two starting points: His miracles and His teaching about spiritual life, accompanied by His personal self-abasement and demanding complete self-denial from the disciples. Based on two points, the two currents of faith in the disciples merged into one, forming a single faith in the Son of Man - the Son of God, who has “the words of eternal life,” for which they were ready for complete self-denial. With this merger, faith in miracles itself was transformed in such a way that Christ’s disciples saw in them a symbol of spiritual blessings. Meanwhile, the Jews saw an enduring reality in the miracles of Christ (John 6:34) and did not look for their spiritual meaning in the teachings of Christ. Their faith in the miracles of Christ was directed to a thirst for signs from heaven, and their demand from Christ for such signs exposed their unbelief, causing the Lord to sigh deeply (Mark 8:12). Their error was that, while demanding signs from heaven, they did not know how to discern the “signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3), which were given to them in the miracles of Christ. True faith in the Lord could be without miracles, and the Jews believed only for the sake of signs and wonders. In Christ's disciples, His miracles gave rise to hope in God, which gave them strength for complete self-denial, and among the Jews, Christ's miracles only fueled hope for earthly prosperity. Therefore, one must recognize the opinion of Harnack as strange, who, while correctly defining the relationship of Christ’s teaching to His “holy” life, at the same time claims that Christ did not bring any new teaching (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, B. 1 Freib. 1896, S. 37‒54), as if the spiritual life of Christ was not “new” in the world. Since Christ did not teach without works, then in the gospels, even when only His teaching is spoken of, His works are usually also understood. Actually about the violation of the law below in § 28. A. Wunsche, N. Beitrage zur Erlauterung der Εv. aus. Talmud und Midrasch, 1878, S. 502, For the usual dogmatic view of the meaning of miracles, this feature of the Gospel history is completely inexplicable, and from here the rationalists (for example, D. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimniss in den Evangelien. Gott. 1901) conclude that Christ did not pretend to be the Messiah, and that die Idee des Messiasgeheimnisses ist eine theologische Vorstellung (S. 66) - a later tendentious insertion into the Gospel history. Eg. Matt. 5:16 and 6:1 ff; also Luke. 9:50 and 11:23. You might be interested in: