the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Sincerity
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or SINCERITY
The term.—In the English of 1611 ‘sincere’ was an apt translation of ἅδολος applied to γάλα—‘the sincere milk of the word’ (1 Peter 2:2). It has no longer, however, the sense of ‘unadulterated’ other than in an ethical sense, so that the Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 goes back to the older version of Wyclif—‘without gile.’ ‘Sincerity’ must, however, always bear the association of that which is unmixed. In origin and in meaning it is akin to ‘simplicity’ and ‘singleness’ (ἁπλοῡς); in meaning to ‘purity’ (καθαρός, ἁγυός); but it is most often used in the Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 to translation εἰλικρινής. In so far as this word differs from others of like meaning, it contemplates character as ‘the purged, the winnowed, the unmingled.’ If ‘purity’ (καθαρός) speaks of freedom from the defilements of the world as soiling the soul, ‘sincerity’ speaks of freedom from its falsehoods as from a foreign admixture (Trench, Synonyms, § lxxxv.). The word is used also to translation ἁγνῶς and γνήσιον; but in every case it implies the absence of all that is false and that makes life double (Lightfoot on Philippians 1:10).
It follows from the usage of the word that it may he applied to mind, or to act, or to speech; but everywhere it carries the sense of unadulterated or unmingled, so that, while the word is not used in the Gospels, it is plain that these set forth in Christ the pattern of sincerity. It is also clear that Christ demanded of men sincerity, if they were to enter and to abide in the Kingdom of God. It is at once the presupposition of a Christian experience, and the bond of the Christian society.
1. The sincerity of Jesus.—The character of Jesus sets the standard of perfect sincerity; ‘guile was not found in his mouth’ (1 Peter 2:22); He is ‘the true one’ (ὁ ἀληθινός, 1 John 5:20), opposed by that title to all that is counterfeit. To know Him is to know the Truth and the Life (John 17:3). The perfectly sincere man must be one (a) whose mind is perfectly responsive to the truth. It is not enough that he should speak and act from conviction. The conviction must be sincerely formed, without doublemindedness, without any falsehood of heart (Matthew 5:8, 2 Peter 3:1). All that Jesus said and did must be the manifestation of an inner life; but the believer needs also the assurance that there was nothing in the mind of Jesus to distort the truth. It is not enough to believe that He means what He says; we must believe that He is able to receive without loss or deflexion the rays of the truth. In the Fourth Gospel much is said of the truth of Christ; this is more than His veracity (cf. Robertson’s Sermons, vol. i. ‘The Kingdom of the Truth’). He is the Way because He is the Truth (John 14:6); He is the Light of the world (John 8:12), and His light is the light of life. He is full of grace and truth (John 1:17). His Kingdom is of the truth (John 18:37). He is set over against all that is unreal and partial and transitory. In Him there is an unbroken course for the revelation of the light and life of God (John 17:8; John 17:10; John 17:21 etc.). Sincerity implies the single heart and eye, which alone can receive the vision of God. The sincerity of Jesus is more than the consistency of His action and speech with His thought; it involves His trustworthiness as a mediator of the truth. (b) But sincerity, in the more common usage of the word, implies that between the inner self and the expression, nothing intervenes to confuse or to distort. In the Gospels there is a picture of a life in which there is nothing to conceal; Jesus speaks and acts in such a way as to convince men that He is revealing His conviction. The Gospels manifest a life of perfect harmony. The manifestation is varied, but the motive is single. His gentleness and His sternness are alike the expression of His holy love, and never spring from idle sentiment, or personal feeling, or those cross-motives which break the peace of other lives.
At the outset of His ministry there comes the temptation to accept a compromise in the pursuit of His aims: He answers, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve’ (Luke 4:8); no tampering with the mission in its means or in its ends could be tolerated. ‘His means are pure and spotless as his ends’ (Wordsworth). He is early contrasted with the scribes because of His authority (Mark 1:27); this impression could have been made only by One acknowledged to be sincere. He wins from the first group of disciples the confidence accorded only to a manifest conviction. Even the scribes come to shrink from His clear gaze (Mark 11:18). The accepted opinion is that Jesus speaks truly (Luke 20:21). Many think Him mistaken, or beside Himself (Mark 3:21), or blasphemous (Mark 14:63-64), but none treat Him as a conscious deceiver. Jesus proves His sincerity by His stedfastness in His calling; dark as the way becomes, He never wavers (Matthew 16:22-23). It is possible that the Pharisees would not have been unwilling to compromise with Jesus, but He would keep back nothing of the truth.
In his Life of Jesus, Renan makes allowance for a lower standard of sincerity in the East than that to which the Western nations conform. ‘To the deeply earnest races of the West, conviction means sincerity to one’s self. But sincerity to one’s self has not much meaning to Oriental peoples, little accustomed to the subtleties of a critical spirit.… The literal truth has little value for the Oriental; he sees everything through the medium of his ideas, his interests, and his passions. History is impossible if we do not fully admit that there are many standards of sincerity’ (ch. 16). By such means Renan seeks to explain the attitude of Jesus to popular illusions, and the willingness which he finds in Jesus to take advantage of them in the interest of His enthusiastic purpose.
A truer criticism would rather attribute the story of such accommodation, if it were discerned, to the imperfect understanding of the disciples. There is, however, no need to resort to such explanations; the narratives make it sufficiently plain that Jesus deliberately refused to work upon popular illusions. Nor can it be forgotten that the standard of sincerity, of which Renan speaks, has been set by Christian faith. Nowhere is there a more stern demand for truth and sincerity than in the Apostolic writings, which owe their inspiration to ‘the mind of Christ.’ It is impossible to regard as one among many phases of Oriental religion a faith which in its preparatory history declared that God demanded truth in the inward parts, and in its fulfilment manifested to the world One who was known as ‘the Truth.’
2. Teaching of Jesus.—Everywhere Jesus demands reality. It is the pure in heart who see God (Matthew 5:8). It is the condition of spiritual vision. If the eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light (Matthew 6:22). Jesus calls for truth of heart. ‘There is a truth which lies behind the recognition of particular truths. It is the basis of all right beliefs.’ ‘Sincerum est nisi vas quodcunque infundis acescit’ (Horace, Ep. i. 2. 54). Those who receive the revelation which Jesus brings are likened to babes (νηπἰοις) (Matthew 11:25). Only those who become as little children can enter into the Kingdom (Matthew 18:3). It is the singleness of the child, his truth of heart, and freedom from ulterior motives, that are praised. In the life that is in the Kingdom there must be no confusion of ends; it must be perfect (τέλειος), as the Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). It is the unpurged mind that misses the vision. If the soul is divided, the profession of the lips will be of no avail (Matthew 7:22). Words must not be idle (Matthew 12:36) (ἀργόν), without any correspondence in inward thought and outward action. Words must be the ‘incarnation of thought.’ Nothing must intervene between the mind of the speaker and his word. Oaths are condemned as likely to take from the severe demands of truthful speech. The yea must be yea, the nay, nay (Matthew 5:37). An oath lowers the value of normal speech. In all other departments of life there must be the same absence of duplicity. There cannot be two masters (Matthew 6:24). The disciple must seek first the Kingdom (Matthew 6:33), and must not be over-anxious for food and raiment. He must not only be wise as a serpent, but sincere, simple (ἀκέραιος) (Matthew 10:16) as a dove (cf. Philippians 2:15). He must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). It was this simplicity that Jesus found in the disciples whom He chose; like Nathanael, they were Israelites without guile (John 1:47), ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἔστι.
Literature.—W. Bright, Morality in Doctrine, 220; G. Matheson, Leaves for Quiet Hours, 10; W. G. Rutherford, Key of Knowledge, 40; G. H. Morrison, Flood-Tide, 22; R. M. Pope, Poetry of the Upward Way, 29.
E. Shillito.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sincerity'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sincerity.html. 1906-1918.
