CHRIST’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE SOUL.

"He knew what was in man." — John ii. 25.

"And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them." — Matt. xii. 25.

"And immediately when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, He said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?" — Mark ii. 8.

"Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile! Nathanael saith unto Him, Whence knowest Thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." — John i. 47-48.

A unique feature in Jesus, as compared with other great leaders and teachers, was His attitude towards men. It was marked by a strange mingling of respect and reserve, of confidence and caution, yearning tenderness and watchful restraint.

An instance of this is recorded in connection with one of His visits to Jerusalem at the time of the Passover feast He had preached His Good News to the pilgrims and strangers who crowded the city, and had strongly impressed them by the wonderful acts of healing He performed; yet, although many of them believed in His mysterious superiority and were willing to recognise Him as Messiah, He held Himself warily back, and would not "commit Himself unto them." And the reason suggested by the Evangelist is that He read their hearts too clearly, and saw that their newly awakened enthusiasm was not of a kind to be trusted fully. It was not an enthusiasm founded on devotion to His spiritual worth, but on extravagant expectations of the temporal power and splendour it was hoped He would soon assume. He longed for the faith of those men; but the faith they were giving Him was shallow, too much tinctured with selfish ideas: and as He detected this disappointing element in it, He could not freely respond, nor throw His heart open as otherwise He would have been glad to do.

The circumstance is particularly noted as an example of the profound penetration of Jesus. He understood the workings of human nature — understood them directly and at first hand, and did not need to depend on the testimony of others. He could pierce with startling accuracy to the inmost secrets of men’s souls. And again and again in the story of His life there is abundant evidence to prove the Evangelist’s statement true, that "He knew what was in man."

The Philosopher’s Grasp.

I. Jesus knew what was in man because He saw all men with the eye of a Philosopher.

It is the province of the philosopher to search into the human mind and gain a comprehension of its various faculties — what they are, what each is fitted for, and how they act and react upon one another. And for long centuries mental science has been a favourite pursuit among learned men. And the fascination of the study is kept alive by the new aspects of human nature which are ever being brought to light. The philosopher, as he pursues his investigations, discovers the marvellous mechanism of man’s inner being — the manifold endowments that compose it, the complex forces that work within it; and he tries to grasp its intricate movements with all the ingenuity he can command.

Jesus had the philosopher’s eye, and to Him the capacities of the human mind were a subject of absorbing interest. He knew the power that resides in the Conscience, and He appealed to men to put it forth by the challenge, "Why even of yourselves judge ye not that which is right?" (Luke xii. 57). He knew the power of Memory, and He relied on His disciples to use it after He was gone in preserving and recording His words and deeds. He knew the power of Imagination, and called it into service by His parables, as a means of apprehending and picturing spiritual truth. He knew the colossal power of the Will, and reproached the sense-bound and wayward for their failure to exercise it aright for their lasting good: "Ye will not come unto Me that ye might have life" (John v. 40). And He knew the benign and winsome power of Love, and sought to purify its tone and quality, that it might become a richer source of blessing to mankind.

The elaborate constitution of man’s spirit lay with amazing clearness before His vision. He had a keen discernment of its intricate modes of operation, and He always stood before it with a certain reverence, but reverence tinged with a feeling of awe, because He discerned also the perilous perversions to which it is liable. The fact is that no one ever had such an intense conception of the grandeur of human nature, and at the same time no one was ever able to realise so impressively the stupendous responsibility which the possession of such a nature entails. From the philosopher’s standpoint He knew what was in man.

The Poet’s Intuition.

2. Jesus knew what was in man because He saw all men with the eye of a Poet.

To know the constitution of human nature as the philosopher knows it, is not in the truest sense to know men. There is one who penetrates farther than the philosopher, and that is the poet The poet gets at the inner springs of a man’s life; he feels the pulse as the philosopher cannot do. Even in the interpretation of outward physical nature, the poet sees deeper than the man of science sees. The man of science, the philosopher, discovers the materials, the forces and laws of working, in the outer world into the secrets of which he pries; but the poet seizes on something in that same outer world more subtle, more elusive — and that is the feelings the hidden meaning, the mystic charm or majesty, which lies behind. The poet can tell us more of the inner spirit, the mystery and glory, of the material world than all the scientific sages can. So, in the interpretation of human nature, where the mere philosopher sees only the action and interaction of certain mental and emotional powers, the poet sees the pathos of the heart-strain, the nobleness of the purpose, the heroism burning through the homely deed, or the dark tragedy behind the smiling show.

It was this deeper vision of the poet that Jesus had in a superlative degree. Physical nature to Him was an open book which He could read with surpassing ease, drawing unexpected suggestions, hints of beauty and wonder, from the blooming lilies by the lake-shore, the grape-clusters hanging on the vines, the waving corn ripening for the harvest, the red glow of the clouds in the sunset sky. And He could see as deeply into human nature also. He could discern, and hold up to view, the moral worth that lends a secret dignity to the most commonplace life; He could discern the beauty of feeling that may shine behind the simplest action, the wealth of heart that may be concealed under the plainest exterior, the brave loyalty to right that may give its high motive to the daily round of the most humdrum duties. He could discern all this, and reveal it to the world’s gaze for all coming time in a way that has never been rivalled. The poet’s illuminating vision — the fine vision of imaginative sympathy — was possessed by Jesus as a superb and original gift. He could see the hidden spiritual value of the widow’s mites cast into the temple treasury (Mark xii. 42-44). He could see the rich, tender grace of the generous offer of a cup of cold water to a thirsty passer-by (Matt. x. 42). He could see the warm, true spirit that throbbed behind a healed leper’s simple gratitude (Luke xvii. 17-19). He could see the ardent struggle of hope and faith that heaved up through a lowly penitent’s tears (Luke vii. 41-48). He knew all the finest, noblest, greatest things possible for the human soul, even under the most prosaic surroundings. And thus He has shed a glow over man’s existence here on earth that is immensely inspiring. He has revealed the secret beauty, the moral worth and dignity, which a man’s life may have in it, lowly on the surface though its appearance may be. And for this revelation of eternal values in the plain doings of plain people we stand for ever in His debt, since it is fitted to kindle hope and courage in every earnest heart.

The Prophet’s Foresight.

3. Again, Jesus knew what was in man because He saw all men with the eye of a Prophet.

What is the distinctive characteristic of a prophet? It is not simply, as the popular idea supposes, that he can predict the future fortunes of men or nations; it is something far higher. It is that he can divine beforehand the inevitable outcome and effect of things — that he can discern the direction in which particular habits and dispositions are bound to lead, the ultimate results to which particular forms of conduct are sure to come. The prophet takes his stand not on mere cleverness, or the faculty of second sight, or clairvoyance of any sort, but on what he knows of the fixed eternal laws and the moral order of the universe.

That was the position of the ancient prophets of Israel. They were not mere predicters of coming events; they were forecasters of the good or evil effects which they saw must necessarily follow from the tendencies at work in their own times. They caught a glimpse of the essential trend of their fellow-countrymen’s ways of living, of the blessing or the curse which the principles of the divine government — which never fail to operate — would bring upon their actions as the years rolled on. It was a gift of high order, this gift of prophetic foresight, and it required a high quality of soul.

It belonged to Jesus as to no other. He knew men not only as they actually were, but as — unconsciously to themselves — they were gradually growing to be. He had a quick, piercing insight into the consequences to which men’s tempers and modes of conduct were tending. From the particular desires and emotions which He saw seething in a man’s soul, He knew whither that man was going, what kind of future he was making for himself, what the issues of his life, for time and eternity, would be.

And His teaching on this point is of measureless value. We owe more than we can estimate to Jesus for the light He has flashed on the inevitable tendencies of the moral dispositions and motives that sway human hearts. He has fulfilled the office of a prophet inasmuch as He has given us a forecast of the results which are being steadily wrought out in the depths of our being by the inclinations and tempers we most habitually cherish. He has shown us, because He saw so clearly Himself, that a pure and real satisfaction is the infallible outcome to which all high and sacred purpose leads; and that emptiness, darkness, and the blight of happiness are the natural effects of a greedy, envious, selfish heart.

The Lover’s Idealism.

4. Above all, Jesus knew what was in man because He saw all men with the eye of a Lover.

As pointed out in a previous section of this book, love is quick to discern the hidden good lying beneath the faults in another’s character, and also that love is eager to devise and strive for the unfolding of that good and the freeing of it from its encumbering imperfections.

For the lover is usually an idealist.

Now, an idealist is not, as many conceive, a sentimental dreamer, a builder of castles in the air, an idle visionary, dwelling in a realm of vague, ethereal fancies. An idealist is one who sees the mighty law behind the commonplace fact — sees the possible statue within the rough block of stone, the rich blossom within the dull, colourless bud, the potential goodness within the imperfect character.

And Jesus was a great Idealist because He was a great Lover. He knew what was in man because the warm, unselfish yearning of His own soul drew Him into living touch with all the latent good, all that was truest and best, in the human souls around Him. He divined that latent good, and felt it; and what was more, He believed in it, and sought to call it forth and raise it to perfection. We can remember how He caught sight at once of the hidden elements of loyalty and strength beneath the impetuous, volatile, irritating temperament of Simon Peter (John i. 42), and how, with His gracious, longing glance, He dived into the soul of the shady-practiced Zaccheus, and beheld in him the makings of a true and godly man (Luke xix. 8-9).

No doubt Jesus was alive to all the flaws and frailties that blemish the lives of men; yet, just because He loved men, and loved them so intensely, He was moved to seek for, and find out, the slumbering germs of worth in every soul: and when He found them. He believed in them; He laboured to stir them up, to develop and strengthen them, to nourish them to fulness and power. He saw the potential nobleness beneath the actual faultiness, and He surrendered Himself to the task of helping men to attain that potential nobleness as a reality. That was the work to which He devoted His life, the object for which He faced the tragedy of Calvary. He had in His mind’s eye the ideal of what He knew and believed every man has it in him, by God’s grace, to be. And the vision of that ideal — the ultimate redemption of men’s souls from the bondage and stain of sin — was the joy set before Him, the joy that cheered Him on, and that nerved Him at last to "endure the cross, despising the shame."

It was a Divine Lover’s sacrifice for what He knew to be worth saving in every human soul. And on that sacrifice rests His claim upon our devotion and faith. Love should answer love, and welcome it — that the heart of the Lover and the heart of the loved may be knit together by a bond which neither change nor death can sunder.