Moral dynamic in the synoptic teaching of Jesus

Abstract

A word or two may now be said as to the special line of investigation we are to follow in seeking to reach and report the answer of Jesus to the question about which Philosophical ttthics is mostly silent, but which is a primary and fundamental matter for Christian ethics, - namely, what is the power by whose aid a man may follow the right and do the good, may achieve the Divine Ideal for him, the vision of unrealised but possible perfection, and live in all his life according to the will and purpose of God? And how shall this power become the innermost quality of his personal life, the basic ruling force in him, and work its way out from the centre of being to the whole circumference of life?

The definite, ultimate aim we have in view, the ruling idea of the present study, may be set down at once: it is to show that the "Moral Dynamic," the ethical incentive and motive-power, as set forth in the Synoptic teaching of Jesus, is the vital and potent energy of Love, begotten in the Soul through the operation of the Divine Spirit and through personal fellowship with Jesus Christ Himself, by which a man is enabled to realise his own highest moral and spiritual possibilities, to come into a growing harmony, a deepening unity, with the will of God in thought and feeling ; in purpose and action, and into increasingly helpful relations with his fellows.

And the particular route by which we shall travel to our goal is marked by the following stages: in the opening Section we shall seek to present in illustrative fashion the personal claim of Jesus to be regarded as the supreme moral Leader and Guide of humanity; in the second we shall endeavour to describe the type of character and the kind of life which He presents aa the highest and best, and to which in native tones and accents of authority He summons men; in the third we shall dwell upon the phases and issues of the "agony" (in the old Greek sense of the word - a contest, a struggle) through which men must normally pass to attain this ideal: the pregnant battle between the good and the evil, between the better and the baser self, as Jesus observes and pictures it; and in the main and culminating section we shall consider, from various angles, the motive-power, the sustaining and impelling force, upon which He bids men wholly and constantly rely for victory and achievement in the warfare and athletic of the spirit.