INTRODUCTION.

THE idea of sinlessness being the starting-point of the following treatise, it is of the first necessity to point out that this word is not used in the merely negative sense of an absence of antagonism to the Divine law, but in its essentially positive meaning of actual conformity to the will of God. Sinlessness, according to our view of it, is a state in which man occupies that position with respect to the order of life appointed by God, nay, rather to the holy God Himself, which alone becomes a being endued with personality, and created in the Divine image. Sinlessness, taken in this sense, is the culminating point of human development. It is a perfection both religious and moral, not merely resulting from complete conformity to a Divine type, but itself inherent it is perfect and complete holiness. The very notion of such a quality is highly significant, and is at once both elevating and humbling. Elevating, because it brings before the mind the highest attainment it can possibly conceive. For the moral sense of every one will tell him, that if a man were perfectly sinless, he would be in the state to which, as a human being, he is really destined would need no wealth to be truly rich, no sword to be a hero, no crown to be a king. He would be in possession of that truth which is at the same time the highest wisdom, and of that purity which is of itself both peace and happiness. But not less is. the thought a humbling and depressing one for it is 2ever directly connected with the conviction that we are by no means free from sin, but that rather, if we say we have no sin, we do but deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. There is between the goal set before us by our destination, and the actual attainment of our life, a great gulf, which we are forced to confess we are utterly incapable of passing over by any power of our own.

But we are not about to treat of a mere idea, but of a reality,—of the appearance, in the midst of the history of the sinful human race, of a genuine and actual personality, of whose perfect and spotless holiness we have most incontestable evidence. It is this fact which gives its full importance to our subject. For freedom from sin, perfect righteousness, or whatever other term may be used to express the notion, was by no means utterly unknown, as a general idea, whether to the præ-Christian or the heathen world. Some notion of the kind is seen to hover over the altitudes reached even by Pagan wisdom, while the prophetic writings of the Old Testament refer to it with far greater distinctness. But as a reality, as filled ‘with vital energy, and especially as bringing forth actual results, it is found only in Christianity, nay, even in Christianity only in one solitary instance, in the person of the Author and Finisher of the Christian faith—in Christ Jesus.

It is obvious that a quality thus significant in itself, peculiar to Christianity, and realized therein as an actual phenomenon only in one single Person, must be of the highest importance, if we are rightly to appreciate either the character of that Person Himself, or the entire sphere of life called into existence by Him, viz. Christianity in general. No one can dispute that the tenet of the sinlessness of Christ is deeply rooted in the Christian faith, and has grown up as an intrinsic part of it. It forms, whether as a necessary postulate or a self-evident conclusion, so essential a portion 3of Christian doctrine, and especially of the doctrine of the person and work of the Redeemer, that it is impossible to remove it without the destruction of the entire edifice. Hence the decisive importance of this point of Christian belief has at no time been misconceived, whether in the first ages of the Church, during the medieval era, or in the present days.

Nevertheless it is not—as the reader is requested to observe—from this point of view, viz. the doctrinal, that we propose to treat the subject. It is rather an apologetic aim which we exclusively set before us in our treatment of this matter, and that more expressly and entirely than has as yet been done by other writers.¹¹   As it is my intention to deal more completely with the history and literature of the subject in an appendix, I shall here confine myself to a short statement of its most recent treatment. Among theologians of our own days, it is acknowledged that it was Schleiermacher who first effectually asserted the fundamental importance of the sinfulness or sinlessness of Christ. He did this, however, chiefly in a doctrinal point of view; hence an apologetic use of the subject, which necessarily demanded an entirely different treatment, yet remained to be made. I first attempted to supply this need in the year 1828, in an article on the ‘Sinlessness of Christ,’ in the Theologischen Studien and Kritiken. From this article the present work has, by means of a series of alterations and additions, been elaborated. Since that period, this important question has been frequently discussed by other Protestant theologians from the apologetic point of view; and that not merely in Germany, but in other countries where a lively interest is taken in the development of modern theology. Among the works which have been written on this subject, that of Dorner, On the Sinless Perfection of Christ, Gotha 1828, occupies a high position. I would also direct attention to the following:—The Moral Character of Christ, or the Perfection of Christ’s Humanity a proof of His Divinity, 1861, by Phil. Schaff, Professor of Theology at the Theological Seminary of Mercersburg; The Christ of History: An Argument grounded on the Facts of His Life on Earth, Edinburgh 1856, by John Young, LL.D.; Chaps. x. and xi. of Nature and the Supernatural, etc., New York 1858, by Horace Bushnell; Essai sur la Divinité du Caractère Morale de Jesus Christ, Genève 1850, by E. Dandiran; Le Redempteur, Paris 1854, by E. Pressensé. Fel. Pecaut, a Frenchman, has, on the other hand, come forward as a decided sceptic of the sinlessness of Christ, in his work, Le Christ et le Conscience, Paris 1859. The treatise of Keim, too, On the Human Development of Christ, Zurich 1861, and Gess’s Lehre von der Person Christi, Basel 1856, bear also upon the subject. Compare also in general all the works on the life of Christ which have appeared since Strauss; among which I would call special attention to the Lectures of Riggenbach, Basel 1858, Lect. x. I shall adduce other works as opportunity may offer. The office of Theology is scientifically to arrange and expound, according to their internal connection and perfect organization, those matters of Christian belief which have been previously established and determined. It is that of Apologetics, on the contrary, to maintain the Christian standpoint with regard to what is external thereto, and to justify it in the presence of such objections as may arise, and thus to furnish the means of entrance to those who are without. If this distinction 4between these respective departments be kept in view, our meaning and intentions cannot but be plainly perceived. We would in fact view the sinlessness of Christ, not as a single doctrine, which, in its connection with other doctrines, is one of intrinsic and imperative necessity in the entire organism of the Christian faith; but as a fact, whose authenticity must in the first place be independently established. When this has been done, we may proceed to show that it is one involving the most important and far-reaching inferences with respect to the person and work of Christ,—nay, with respect to the whole system of the Christian faith. That the sinless perfection of Christ is, however, of fundamental importance, especially in our days, may easily be made apparent in a preliminary and more general sketch, by taking a closer survey of the special aim of Apologetics. This aim is a far higher one than merely to prove that Christianity is in its own nature better and truer than other religions, and has contributed far more than they have done to the progress of mankind. For Christianity professes to be not merely a religion endowed with pre-eminent excellences with respect to, and among other religions, but declares itself the religion, the absolutely perfect religion, which 5alone fulfils the conditions, and furnishes the means, by which the whole human race may be saved,—the exclusively divine revelation and plan of salvation. To exhibit and prove it to be such, is the goal which the apologist must ever keep in view.

But a religion is not proved to be the absolutely perfect one, by merely showing that it furnishes true doctrine and a faultless code of morals, and that it has produced many beneficial results. The Greeks might have taught a far deeper philosophy than the Platonic or Aristotelian,—the Jews might have had purer doctrines and precepts than those of even Moses and the Prophets; and yet they would not, therefore, have been in possession of the true religion. Nay, even Christianity itself might have furnished, in the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, and other teachings of Christ and His apostles, the sublimest religious material conceivable, and have even brought mighty things to pass thereby; but if this had been all, it would still have been far from satisfying man’s deepest need, from filling up the chasm existing between human nature and the holy God, and from exhibiting that culminating point of religious development, which cannot possibly be surpassed.

Religion—as no one in the present day will deny—is not merely a system of doctrine or a code of morality. It must indeed have both, and both must be deducible from its inner life; but it cannot be maintained that either one or the other, or even both together, really is true religion. It is not in a summary of ideas, doctrines, and moral postulates, floating, as it were, over our life and influencing it from without, that the special and intrinsic nature of true religion consists, but in being a reality born into life itself,—an effectual all-influencing power therein. True religion is the real bond of union between God and man; it is that position of the personal creature with respect to the personal Creator by which the 6whole life of the former, from its inmost centre, is fashioned and determined, and in which that life has its true purpose and existence. It is this true position of man to God which must more especially be brought about wherever true, perfect religion is said to have appeared. And this cannot be effected by merely teaching or commanding it, but only by living therein in the presence, as it were, of the whole human race, Hence its original form, its mode of revelation, must naturally and necessarily have been a personal one, exhibited in the entire life of a personal Being. There must be a Man who is Himself religious, religion incarnate and impersonate, in whom the true relation between God and man has become an absolute and perceptible reality, and through whom the restoration of this relation is made an actual possibility to the whole fallen and sinful human race.

By what distinctive mark, then, shall we chiefly recognise this personal Being, thus revealing and founding the perfect religion and by what means will such a Being be most certainly authenticated? Clearly our most trustworthy sign will be the utter absence of that which separates man from God, even of sin,—the leading of a perfectly pure and holy life, and a consequent abiding in that vital union with God, by means of which, power to eradicate sin and its consequences, and to create in man a new and holy life, may be attained. For only One thus holy and sinless, entering into all the conditions and conflicts of human life, and when suffering, suffering not for His own guilt, but that of His brethren, could be able to reconcile the discord between the holy God and sinful humanity, and in such wise to purify the latter, as forthwith to implant, in the place of sin, a life of true holiness. But if once the true relation between God and man were brought to pass by such a Being, if once access to God were opened to all, and the power of divine renovation bestowed upon the human race, this cannot be repeated,—it would be 7done once for all; and that culminating point would be attained with regard to religion, to which indeed mankind may, in the process of its development, thenceforth progressively approximate, but which it will be impossible to surpass; in other words, the perfect religion would be for ever existent in living and personal realization.

We say, then, that the perfect revelation and the procuring of salvation can only be effected by means of a Person, and that a Person of sinless holiness. But then, too, on the other hand, we may affirm that if we can find such a Person, one really proved to have been in all respects sinlessly perfect, we have every reason for believing that in Him we actually possess a perfect revelation of the divine means of salvation, and have therefore attained the culminating point of vital religion. Hence all that proceeds from, or is connected with this Person, will bear for us the impress of an authority far surpassing any other.

Now such a Person is presented to us by Christianity in its Founder. It is not this or that doctrine, though of ever so fundamental importance, not this or that special fact, though of ever so decisive a nature, but Himself, the personal Christ, that is the vital centre of Christianity, the pulsating heart from which all proceeds, and to which all returns. There is no other religion in which the person of its founder occupies so central, so all-controlling, so all-pervading a position,—none into which it is so inseparably interwoven. Here, as nowhere besides, the divine revelation is a personal one,—the salvation, one wrought by means of a person. It is, however, obvious, that where the divinity of His work and Person is in question, there is one special point which must in the last instance be a decisive one, and that is the great subject of His sinless perfection.

This question has, under all circumstances, been one of the deepest importance with regard to the stability of the 8Christian faith. For even if the sinless perfection of Christ be not itself the very highest fact or central point of Christianity, it is yet most intimately connected with its highest and most central articles of faith, especially with the divine-human person of Jesus Christ and His work of redemption, and forms a foundation not only indispensable to the entire edifice, but also so constituted as to form a point of special illumination, from which those facts which are above and beyond itself may be inferred, and to which, on the other hand, they may, by reason of a vital connection, be referred.

If there were substantial grounds for rejecting His sinless perfection, the Founder of Christianity must descend from that all-surpassing eminence on which Christian faith has from the very first beheld Him, and mingle in the ranks of other mortals, as one perhaps of prominent moral excellence and superior wisdom, yet still as one yielding homage to the power of sin. He would not then be even, in the full meaning of the term, the Son of man, the realized prototype of mankind, and the spiritual progenitor of a renewed race, well-pleasing to God, still less the only-begotten Son of God of the apostolic faith, and, least of all, the Reconciler of sinful man with the Holy God, and the all-sufficient Redeemer from sin and death for all times and generations. Not only would the Church which is built upon Him be standing upon an insecure foundation, but the Christian faith itself would have lost all solid basis.

If, on the other hand, the sinlessness of Jesus is proved by convincing reasons, He is then beheld as the one perfect man, raised to a moral elevation above the whole sinful race. Then there really is. in Him a perfect and new moral creation, and the foundation for a similar new creation of the entire race. Then we have in this fact a pledge of the certainty of that whole summary of doctrines which has from the very first made Him the object of Christian faith, 9especially for His Divine Sonship and work of redemption according to apostolic testimony. Then, too, the ancient faith still rests upon a good foundation, and the Church which has grown out of it has still such a vitality, that all the powers of darkness and unbelief shall not prevail against it.

Of such critical importance is the question of the sinless holiness of Christ. It is a question of the very existence or non-existence of Christianity itself. If there are no certain grounds for affirming the sinlessness of Jesus, the moral basis of Christianity is itself insecure. If, on the contrary, the faith in His sinless perfection is proved to be well founded, it becomes at the same time a firm foundation-stone for the whole edifice of the Christian faith.

We have now, as it seems to us, sufficiently pointed out the chief features of the aim we propose to ourselves. Perhaps, however, we may be permitted to preface the following pages by a few more remarks, which may contribute to the appreciation of their contents.

In making the sinless perfection of Christ our starting-point for a vindication of the Christian faith, we would by no means be understood to regard it as the only valid mode of proof, or to esteem all others slight in comparison. There is in Christianity so great an exuberance of life, and so many points at which it comes in contact with minds of every kind, that it cannot but offer many ways of access to its inner sanctuary; and every way must be welcomed which does but really lead to a sound and vital faith. At the same time it will be granted that different ages and different individuals have different needs; and our age, whose tendencies are eminently moral, practical, and historical, has its own special claim, which we believe will be best met in the path upon which we are about to enter.

The evidence derived from miracles and prophecy, which has hitherto been that most frequently adduced, must ever maintain its value so long as it occupies its true position, and is surrounded by its fitting adjuncts. It has, moreover, in its favour the example of our Lord Himself and His apostles. But there is an evident difference in this respect between the contemporaries and fellow-countrymen of Christ and us moderns, who are, moreover, the children of an essentially different sphere of culture. The former stood directly and independently upon the platform of faith in the Old Testament, and had either seen miracles themselves, or had received testimony of such occurrences from eye-witnesses. With us, on the contrary, faith in the Old Testament has to be founded upon the appearance and authority of Christ, while, with respect to miracles, the case is, that we are far more likely to accept the miracles of Christ for the sake of His person, than to believe in His person for the sake of His miracles. Miracles and predictions, too, ever refer to the person of Christ, or proceed from it. Hence that which is most essential and decisive is this personality itself, which in the first instance supports, causes, and casts a true light upon, all else. It is to this, in its moral and religious value, that even miracle and prophecy finally refer us and its peculiar, nay, its utterly unique nature, must, after all, ever remain the firmest support of the Christian faith; for here we have within the sphere of Christianity that which least needs extraneous testimony to its indwelling truth and excellence,—that which is, on the contrary, in the highest degree self-evidencing, and cannot fail of making an impression upon such an age as ours, more powerfully influenced, as it ever is in such cases, by moral views and motives than by any other.

To this must be added the specially practical advantage involved in, and connected with, the anode of proof which we 11are thus adducing for the production of faith, or at least of a disposition and inclination to faith; namely, that it bases belief directly upon the object of faith itself, upon the person of Christ, and that chiefly in its moral aspect.

Christianity, as is universally acknowledged, is of a more thoroughly ethical character than any other religion. It addresses chiefly the heart, the conscience, the will of man. It would beget in him, not merely a correct knowledge of Divine things, but a new life; it would make the whole man, from the very deepest centre of his moral life to the whole circumference of his practice, other than he is by nature. Hence, even the entrance of the individual into the sphere of Christianity is not brought about by a process of reasoning, but by a change of life. There is, as one has well said, indeed an up-breaking, but it is an up-breaking not of the head, but of the heart. The first step in this process is a man’s felt conviction of his sinfulness, and of his inability to effect his own salvation; the second, his believing acceptance of the salvation graciously offered him in Christ, and his attainment thereby of the power of leading a new life. Thus the old apostolic way of repentance and faith is the only one in which the eternal salvation given in Christianity can be really acquired. The evidences of Christianity are incapable of making any man truly a Christian; for this, after all, is a work to be effected not by men, but by God. Yet evidences may contribute to it, by clearing away opposing obstacles, by increasing the mind’s inclination to accept the grace of God; and they will do this the more effectually, the more they are of such a nature as to make a near approach to that which constitutes the pole upon which the actual entrance into Christianity turns. Of such a nature is especially that kind of evidence of which we here propose to treat.

If we are to be assured of the sinless perfection of the 12Lord Jesus, it must be made evident to us that He was faultless during the whole course of His life. Hence, in affirming His sinlessness, we shall needs first of all, to exhibit such a portraiture of the life of Christ, as may present us with a true and lively representation of the chief features of His character. This very portraiture, moreover, bears within it a power quite peculiar of convincing a man of his sinfulness, as well as of leading him to Christ as his Saviour. The image of the pure and holy One touches, as nothing else can do, our moral consciousness. It presents before us a conscience which actually existed uninvolved in intricacies, uncorrupted by temptations and nothing in the whole world has equal power with this image, when it becomes a living reality in our heart, to cast down all our imaginations of our own virtue or merit, and to humble our inmost nature before God. But this image of Him who was absolutely pure, is at the same time the image of the Only-Begotten, full of grace and truth. Hence it has the power not merely of casting us down, but of raising us up, of inducing us to surrender ourselves in trust and confidence to that fulness of Divine love which is reflected therein as in an unsullied mirror. It is Christ Himself who thus lays hold of us, and begins to attain a form within us, while we, on our part, enter within the radius of His creative operations, and therefore within the sphere of Christian faith and life.

Thus this kind of evidence, while it objectively justifies the Christian faith, is at the same time that which is most adapted—so far as this can by such means be effected—subjectively to excite or cherish it, by preparing a way of entrance into the mind for that holy Personality who is the object of this faith.

It only remains briefly to point out the course we propose to follow in the following pages.

We start, then, from the phenomenon presented by the merely human life of Jesus. In this we have a stable and independent point of Christianity, comprehensible to all, and calculated to gain access to minds of the most opposite constitutions; a point which cannot fail of producing an impression wherever general moral earnestness and a feeling for purity and holiness exist, and which is of equal significance for men of the most exalted, and of the meanest intellectual attainments. We shall not, however, consider this phenomenon as an isolated one; but, while seeking to maintain it, shall be ever keeping in view our further aim,—the establishment of the Christian faith in general. And in this we are justified by the very nature of our subject. For it is this very moral phenomenon, presented by the human life of Jesus, which is so constituted, that it is impossible to stop at accepting it as a bare fact. Starting therefrom, a very little reflection will necessarily drive us to conclusions of the last importance with regard to the deepest and sublimest doctrines of Christianity.

Hence the matter of the present treatise will naturally consist of two main subjects:—First, that Jesus was indeed the sinlessly Holy One which Christianity, on scriptural grounds, acknowledges Him to have been. Secondly, that this acknowledgment involves most important consequences, justifying our faith in Him as the Son of God, and Redeemer of mankind, and in, the fundamental truths of Christianity in general.

We shall not, however, be able to confine ourselves to the simple establishment of the fact of His sinlessness, and to drawing the inferences resulting therefrom. Before entering upon our first subject, it will be desirable to define more exactly what we mean by sinlessness, and thus to enter into some discussion upon this notion; and before passing on to our second, we must not shun the task of defending 14our assertion of Christ’s sinlessness, against the objections by which it has been assailed. Not till this has been done, shall we have obtained a firm foundation for those apologetic inferences which will naturally form the conclusion of the whole.

Thus the first section will treat of the notion of sinlessness in general; the second, of Jesus Christ as actually sinless; the third, of the objections made against His sinlessness; and the fourth, of the conclusions to be drawn therefrom.