The Character of Jesus

by Charles Edward Jefferson

to accept the science of the generation that went before it. But the ideas of Jesus have such breadth that they can cover the world and the ages, and although nineteen ce...

was believed and taught in Jesus’ day, his ideas are still alive and the very words in which they are expressed seem destined to outlive the stars. This is indeed strange, tha...

part of the Nazareth congregation, listening to the very ideas which interested Jews nearly two thousand years ago, and so broad are these ideas and so universally appli...

of the heart that each succeeding generation down to the end of time will take its place in the congregation of the prophet of Nazareth, so that if one could see the whole...

the countless millions of humanity gathered round a single teacher, and that teacher none other than the teacher whom the people of Nazareth tried to kill. Broad, indeed...

and kindreds and tongues throughout all the eras of...

And his heart was as far-reaching ...

It is the picture entitled, “The Pharisee and the Publican.” The lesson of the picture is that God’s heart is more responsive to a penitent Publican than to a vain-glorious Pharisee.

There was only one set of men lower than the Publicans, and they were the Samaritans. Every man’s hand was against them. Every heart was hard as flint

toward them. And Jesus befriended them. He felt with them. He gave religious instruction even to a Samaritan woman, and healed even a Samaritan leper. So wide w...

Samaritan outcast whose flesh was rotten. And as if determined that all the world down to the end of time should know the width of his sympathies, he painted a p...

have eyes to see and hearts to feel, and the name of the picture is, “The Good Samaritan.” What havoc this man made with the trad...

His great, loving heart burst asunder

all the regulations and restrictions. There was room in his soul for everybody.

His love was unbounded. It was an ocean without a shore. He was not

willing that his followers should set boundaries to their love, because all such barriers were contrary to his habit and foreign to his spirit.

There are no boundaries in the realm of love. You cannot calculate in the empire of the heart. Mathematics is foreign to affection.” Whenever he spoke about love he said something which amazed his hearers. One day

he said, “Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”

Jesus went on to add that God is to be the model of all men who want to live right, and that one’s constant aim shall be to bring his life up to God’s style, and to imitate Him in

the unbounded reach of His good will.

His heart was so sensitive that it blazed against evil, but while he loathed the sin he could love the sinner,

the only word which escaped his lips was, “Forgive,” “Forgive,” “Forgive.” That great word contained the blood of his heart.

His hope was as immeasurable as his love. He did not reject the refuse of society. He saw promise even in the scum.

I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” So boundless was his confidence in man, that he set no limits to his expectations.

The formation of this Christian society is one of the great events of

the New Testament.

That is what God always is

— broad in His sympathies, wonderful in His expectations, boundless in His love. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son — and this Son came to earth and tasted death for every man — and the Spirit

whom He sent and also the bride who is His church, they keep on crying through the centuries: “Come! Let him that is athirst come. Whosoever will...

No matter what you have

said or felt or thought or done, you are still the object of His love. No matter how often you have disappointed Him, He is still expecting of you better things. Whoever you are, and wherever you are, and whatever you

are, you are included in His plans. When He laid down the lines of His vast scheme for humanity, you were not overlooked or forgotten. When He framed His church, a...

place will remain vacant until you fill it. You cannot escape Him. His arms are all-embracing. The width of His heart is ...

I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care.”

His strength and gladness came from his steadfast trust in God.

what is deepest and most fundamental in the character of Jesus, I should say, it was his trust in God.

From that first point to the last point the music of his trust was never broken. He is everywhere and always a man of prayer.

The word which he applied to God was Father.

To trust in the goodness and mercy of the good Father was his own intensest and fullest delight; to induce others to trust in Him also was his constant ambition and endeavor.

How much Jesus has to teach us at this point. It is often supposed that it is easy to believe in God. The fact is, nothing is more difficult to do at certain times and in certain circumstances. It is easy, indeed, to say that one trusts in God, but really to do it when justice seems dead and

love seems to have vanished, that is dif...

Jesus of Nazareth found in Nature fresh evidences of God’s love. Other men noting

how the sunshine falls upon the heads of the good and the bad had come to the conclusion that God does not know — God does not care. Whereas Jesus looking on the same phenomenon sees in it fresh evidence of the great heart of the good Father. The rain falls upon the farm of the man who blasphemes and also upon the farm of the man who serves God, not because God is indifferent to the difference in character, but because he is so good that his mercy covers all of his children.

hoping still that every heart will surrender. To Jesus Nature is a great witness, clothed in light, bearing continuous testimony to the width of the eternal mercy.

But if Nature seems indifferent and cruel, what shall we say of history — the arena in which has been played out the tragedy of human life? What a jumble of mysteries! What a mass of woes! All of the centuries groaning with agony, all of the ages dripping with blood! Who can look upon the sufferings of the innocent,

or hear the cries of the oppressed, or witness the slaughter of the pure and the good without asking himself...

Some men read the dark and terrible story and give up their faith in God. Jesus looks upon the same scene and gives to it a different interpretation. He sees good men come

and offer their services to the world only to be rejected and repulsed. One of them is stoned, another is beaten, another is killed. Their dead bodies are piled up in sickening heaps, but to Jesus this is not evidence of the indifference of God — it is the proof of his long-suffering patience; it is because he is not willing that any should be lost that he keeps on century after century, sending into the world prophets and apostles, heroes and saints, who shall proclaim the message of heaven to bewildered and sinful man.

Jesus of Nazareth had all the dark experiences which it is possible for the soul to have. He had a work to do to which he gave all the energy of his brain and his heart. He had a dream which filled him with enthusiasm, he had a message to communicate which he was certain would drive away the gloom and the woe of the world. He went to Jerusalem to announce it — the door there was slammed in his face. He announced it in the synagogues of Galilee, but the people there would not receive it. He then preached it on the street corners of the great cities, but the crowds melted away like snow banks in June. There were at last only twelve men who stood by him,

and the hearts of these were so fluctuating that he said, “Will ye also go away?” To these twelve men he gave himself with passionate devotion, pouring into their souls his own very life. But the boldest of them turned out a coward, and one of the most trusted of them became a traitor, and when the crisis in his life came they all forsook him and fled.