The apparent incompleteness of our Lord's life.
It was but a beginning. The word "began" is as characteristic of St. Luke as "straightway" is of St. Mark; it occurs thirty-one times in his Gospel. The idea of Christ's life on earth as being a "beginning" fits well into the Pauline theology, which sets in such prominence the present and continuous working of the risen, glorified, living Savior. To the apostles' first view our Lord's earthly life must have seemed a failure; they could not know how it was to be continued and completed. From our enlarged knowledge we can apprehend it as being the necessary introduction to his present and permanent spiritual work. Illustrations of apparent incompleteness of earthly life may be found in the story of Moses, who did not cross the Jordan; and David, who did not build the temple. A man's life is never incomplete if he does well his appointed piece.
I. THE BREVITY OF OUR LORD'S LIFE-WORK. At the longest computation it extended only over three years, and many think the time was even shorter than this. Thirty years were spent in secluded preparations; and we may well ask—What great work could any man accomplish in three brief years? And yet some of the most powerful and permanent influences recorded in human history have come from men whose lives were short. Illustrations are found in every department of life; and the common observation has gained expression in the proverb, "Those whom the gods love die young." Life may be very short, and yet very full of power and impulse for good. "He liveth long who liveth well."
II. THE SUDDEN STOPPAGE OF IT. Taken away by a violent death, our Lord could not make it what men would call "complete," "rounded off." On his last day he had to admit that it must remain, to men's view, seemingly imperfect. "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." So with many human lives, the close comes suddenly, and we wish we could tarry to get things completed. But we must leave them, as Christ did; and we may be restfully assured that, if our work has been good, God will find for it completeness by finding its fitting into his great plan.
III. THE INTRODUCTORY CHARACTER OF IT. It was a "beginning," a "preface," a "threshold," an "ante-chamber," an outward earthly show to help us in realizing a continuous spiritual reality. The remembrance of what was is to aid us in realizing what/s. And, in a yet fuller sense, that brief human life was to lay the intellectual, moral, and religious bases on which the Divine relations with men were from that time to rest. "It behooved Christ thus to suffer, and to enter into his glory."
IV. THE CONTINUANCE OF IT. Of that "continuance" we have several distinct forms of Conception; such as:
1. The work of the Holy Spirit.
2. The actual presence of Christ in his Church.
3. The permanent office of Christ as the one human Mediator, Intercessor, and High Priest.
The relation of the "continuing" work to the "introductory is shown in our Lord's statement concerning the Holy Spirit: "He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." So far as the continuance of Christ's earthly life and influence is concerned, we find it in the holy living of his Church, and the teachings of apostles and ministers. In application, it may be urged that a work so graciously introduced in our Lord's life on earth, and so graciously continued in his present working in his Church, must have its completion some day. Such completion is reached in the believer's "full sanctification;" and, for the Church, in that day when the "kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ," and the "Church" shall be the redeemed world.—R.T.