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Appreciation (of Christ)

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

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APPRECIATION (of Christ).—The whole NT is one long appreciation of Christ. It is no blind-fold acceptance of Him, no mere echo of a tradition, but a series of utterances of men personally convinced of the supreme value of Christ to the world. St. Paul speaks of Christ only as he himself has been influenced by the Lord, not as the disciples had described Jesus to him. His phrases—high, beautiful, and so often mystical—are the direct expressions of his own personal consciousness of Jesus Christ. No one has accused him of extravagance or of exaggeration. It is because he has felt that to be clothed with the Lord must be the perfection of power and joy, that he says, ‘Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 13:14). It is because he has seen the love eternal that nothing imaginable can utterly root out again from the awakened heart, that he says, ‘Neither death, nor life, … nor any other creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:38 f.). And St. John opens his first Epistle with the strongest personal declaration of the whole of the Epistles, ‘that which we have heard, … seen with our eyes, … and our hands have handled of the word of life … declare we unto you’ (1 John 1:1).

But the simplest appreciation of all—as natural as a bird’s song or a child’s praise—is that which threads its way through every page of the Gospels. Inspite of all the enmity written there; remembering that there were those who saw in Him an ally of Beelzebub (Matthew 12:24), working with the devil’s aid; that some called Him ‘a gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, friend of publicans and sinners’ (Matthew 11:19); that lawyers, and Pharisees, and Sadducees were ever watching to trip Him (Matthew 22:15), and plotting with Herodians (Matthew 22:16) to destroy Him; that the Galilaean cities, which should have known Him best,—Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum (Matthew 11:21; Matthew 11:23), and even Nazareth,—rejected Him (Luke 4:28 f.); and remembering the awful and lonely agonies of the last hours, we can yet point to the Gospels as abounding with witness to the wide contemporary appreciation of Christ.

It was most natural that it should be so, even when He is thought of entirely apart from any doctrine of His Divine personality. His own sympathy for others, and indeed for all things, was sure to attract others to Him. His quick perception of the good in all, His tender response to the least wave of the world’s infinite music, show Him as destined to be the desired of men. He came upon the most diverse types, the most opposite of characters, and instantly knew their possibilities and their worth. He sees through the pure-minded hesitancy of Nathanael (John 1:47), He recognizes the true value of the widow’s mite (Luke 21:1-4), He draws Nicodemus the timid to Him (John 3:1), He knows what will satisfy Thomas (John 20:27), and what will please and win Zacchaeus (Luke 19:5); and His immediate followers include a Mary Magdalene as well as a Mary of Bethany, a Judas as well as a John. Even the failures are appreciated by a standard of faith unknown to the world. He acknowledges the longing of the heart though a weak will robs it of fruition; He reads the zealous affection of Peter between the lines of a moment’s Satanic pride (Matthew 16:22), or a terror-stricken denial (Matthew 26:70); He penetrates to the secret yearnings behind the materialistic questions of the woman at the well, and imparts to her His highest thought of God (John 4:24). He cannot even look upon the earth or sky but He must read into it the indwelling of the Eternal, find in all its pages picture and parable of spiritual realities. To His all-sensitive being the universe of things seen is but a symbol. The sower with his seed, the harvest-fields, the birds of the air, the fox in his hole, the sheep in the fold or lost on the hills, the wind that foretells heat or rain (Luke 12:54-55), the prophecies of the sunset (Matthew 16:2), or the springtide promise of the sprouting fig-tree (Mark 13:28),—all passing through His appreciative spirit is treasured as the visible manuscript of God.

We might expect that such a receptive, comprehensive, and understanding nature would compel confidence. Men could not help trusting such deep and ready sympathy. And, as we read the Evangelists, one of their most notable traits is this—that they succeed in bringing together, almost without form, and apparently without intention, a wonderful accumulation of witness to the appreciation Jesus inspired from the first. The record is so varied. It is from no one school, or type, or rank. Almost every grade of life in the community is there—from the outcast and the leper to the Sanhedrist and the Roman centurion. From the first His gifts of healing attract the sufferers, and none are more definite in their acknowledgment of Him. The villagers bring their sick on beds to the market-places (Mark 6:55-56), or lower the palsied through the roof at Capernaum (Mark 2:4). The centurion in that town is satisfied that a word from Jesus will be enough to heal his sick servant (Matthew 8:8). Martha says, with such simple trust, ‘Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died’ (John 11:21). The ruler of the synagogue feels that the touch of the Lord’s hand would be enough to heal his dying daughter (Matthew 9:18). The woman with the issue of blood would but touch the hem of His garment to be cured (Mark 5:28). The Syro-Phœnician woman persisted in her prayer for her sick daughter, eagerly claiming the rights, while bearing the reproach of being a Gentile ‘dog’ (Mark 7:28). With one cry is He greeted alike by blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10:47), the two blind men (Matthew 9:27), and the ten lepers (Luke 17:13)—‘Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on us’; a cry the meaning of which is uttered by the leper (Mark 1:40)—‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ When sight is given to the man born blind, the parents testify to the Divine origin of the power that has been exercised (John 9:33). And the multitude at Nain, when they saw the dead raised, had no hesitation in crying—‘A great prophet is risen among us’ (Luke 7:16). It was a glad welcome from the sufferers and their friends that greeted Jesus as the manifestation of God in all these things. But not less earnest is the witness of the crowds to the popular estimate of the teacher. ‘There went great multitudes with him’ is the frequent note that leads up to some great doctrine of life (Matthew 19:2, Luke 14:25, Mark 6). The house filled at Capernaum (Mark 2:2) is but the parallel of the occasion when His own mother ‘could not come at him for the press’ (Luke 8:19), or of the thousands by the seashore (Mark 4:1), or of the multitude that ‘trod one upon another’ (Luke 12:1). Lives that He changes from darkness to light bear willing evidence to His power and charm: Mary Magdalene will not be held back by false shame from entering the Pharisee’s house to acknowledge her Saviour (Luke 7:36-50), nor be repulsed by the charge of wastefulness through sentiment (Mark 14:4); and Zacchaeus will boldly profess a practical conversion before those who know him intimately (Luke 19:8).

We look for appreciation from His nearest disciples, a quick obedience, a joy that has no place for fasting (Mark 2:18), the mother’s confidence at the marriage-feast at Cana (John 2:5), the great utterances of His forerunner the Baptist (John 1:30; John 3:30), the exalted vision of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:5), and that Petrine outburst, repeated by all, as they neared Gethsemane—‘If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee.’ From these His intimates we anticipate such trust. We look for it, too, from the band of holy women—Joanna, Susanna, Salome, the Marys, and those ‘who ministered unto him of their substance’ (Luke 8:3). But beyond these we have the scribes (Matthew 8:19, Mark 12:34) earnestly approaching Him, Pharisees inviting Him to their houses (Luke 11:37; Luke 14:1); we have the confession of the council of priests and Pharisees—‘If we let him alone, all will believe on him’ (John 11:48); we have the acknowledgment of Samaritans, convinced not by hearsay but by personal knowledge (John 4:42), of centurions (Matthew 8:5-13, Mark 15:39), and of the rich young man ‘running and kneeling’ and saying, ‘Good Master’ (Mark 10:17). Strangers seek Him out—‘Sir, we would see Jesus’ (John 12:20); and the common people of His own race ‘heard him gladly’ (Mark 12:37), and acclaimed His entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:8-10). In the beginning, shepherds and magi, angels and stars bear witness to the newborn King; so that to the last it is a strange mixed company, that seems to include (by his long faltering before judgment) Pilate himself, the lone, mysterious figure of Joseph of Arimathaea, and Nicodemus ‘bringing myrrh and aloes’ (John 19:29).

This many-sided appreciation of our Lord in His own day, in addition to its obvious gain to the Christian preacher, is suggestive of the many differing points of view from which men may reverently regard Christ, each one expressive of a truth, though not the entirety of the truth. And it may also indicate the many successive ways of wonder, repentance, sympathy, and vision in which Christ speaks to each individual soul.

Edgar Daplyn.