11. The Manliness of Christ
“Behold the Man”
The Manliness of Christ
JESUS WAS NOT ONLY a man, He was a manly man—the crown and glory of humanity. Scant justice has been done to the Master by the many artists who have attempted to interpret Him on canvas. He has far more frequently been represented as womanly and weak than as masculine and manly. Such misrepresentation of the Lord calls for correction and has inspired sentiments like those expressed in Rex Boundy’s poem:
Give us a virile Christ for these rough days!
You painters, sculptors, show the warrior bold;
And you who turn mere words to gleaming gold,
Too long your lips have sounded in the praise
Of patience and humility. Our ways
Have parted from the quietude of old;
We need a man of strength with us to hold
The very breach of death without amaze.
Did He not scourge from temple courts the thieves?
And make the arch-fiend’s self again to fall?
And blast the figtree that was only leaves?
And still the raging tumult of the seas?
Did He not bear the greatest pain of all,
Silent upon the Cross on Calvary?It is certainly true that Jesus was a GENTLE-man, but He was none the less a gentle-MAN. He combined in Himself the gentler graces of womanhood and the virile virtues of manhood. Unfortunately it is the former that have received stronger emphasis.
When World War I was over, a sentence in the report of the chaplains of the services confirmed this impression. It said, “The average Tommy believed that Jesus was just and good but just a trifle soft.” They never knew that He was Lion of Judah as well as Lamb of God.
A young man was being counseled by a Christian man, when a conversation somewhat as follows ensued:
“I do not admire your Jesus. He was rather weak and effeminate. I like a man with red blood in his veins.”
“I suppose you heard the usual Bible stories when you were younger?”
“Oh, yes, I used to love them as a child.”
“And I suppose the rugged Elijah who appeared dramatically and fearlessly before the King of Israel and challenged the whole nation would be one of your favorite characters?”
“You have guessed right. I always admired his manliness.”
“And in the New Testament, John the Baptist with his unconventional garb and fearless preaching would also attract you?”
“Strangely enough you have lighted on my two favorite Bible characters.”
“Then would it surprise you to know that when Jesus asked His disciples whom men said He was, they replied, ‘Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elijah’ (Matthew 16:14)? If He had been weak and effeminate as you contend, would they have been likely to confuse Him with the rugged Elijah, or the fearless Baptist?”
“I had never thought of that before.”
Nor perhaps have many of us so conceived of Him.
We may feel with J. A. Broadus that the term “manliness” is inadequate if not incongruous. Yet it does help to impress an important element in the Savior’s character, for people are inclined to think that goodness, innocence, patience, and purity belong to feeble characters, when the fact is far otherwise.
The manliness of Jesus can be seen in the following characteristics of His life and ministry.
His Resolute Courage
Jesus knew more of peril than most, and yet when faced with it He never evinced the slightest timidity or fear. The highest form of courage is not that of the blind enthusiast who in a moment of exaltation runs great risks, but that of the man who though clearly foreseeing the consequences of his action, nevertheless continues unwavering.
Though Jesus knew Jerusalem meant for Him suffering and death—and no one ever shrank from death as He did—yet “He stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). When confronted with the traitor and the rabble that accompanied Him, Jesus refused to exercise the divine power He demonstrated on them to effect deliverance. Rather, He invited them to take Him. He faced the suffering and obloquy of the cross with manly courage. He displayed no fear of disease, of demons, or of men (John 18:3–8; 12:27–28).
His Intrepid Utterances
He is a strong man who will voluntarily speak words that must inevitably bring on him dire and painful consequences. And yet the Lord never withheld, from fear of possible consequences, one word given to Him by His Father
Hear Him reply to Annas, “I spake openly to the world … in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? ask them which heard me” (John 18:20–21). His reply to Pilate was equally fearless (John 18:33–37; 19:11).
His Physical Endurance
Have you ever endeavored to calculate the extent of His travels or the magnitude of His labors during His brief ministry? In the many tours recorded in the gospels as previously stated, it is estimated that He traveled on foot about two thousand five hundred miles during the three years, and we need not conclude that every journey was recorded. Those were not unbroken marches, for He constantly stopped to help and heal, to teach and preach.
Ponder the strain imposed on His physique by the constant demands of the crowds milling around Him. Consider the constant drain on His nervous resources. We are apt to overlook the fact that He always helped others at His own expense. Even when the woman surreptitiously touched the hem of His garment, it is recorded that “virtue had gone out of Him” (Mark 5:30). His was costly service. Only a man of extraordinary physique could have endured such unremitting strain.
His Courageous Silence
It is often more easy to speak than to keep silence. A strong man may be recognized by his silence, and this was true of the Master. He knew when to speak and when to hold His peace. However strong the provocation He never stooped to self-vindication, much less retaliation. Before the craven Pilate and the taunting Herod, both of whom possessed the power of life and death, He maintained a majestic silence. His silences were often more eloquent than His speech (Matthew 26:62–63; 27:12; Mark 15:4–5; Luke 23:9).
His Unbending Sternness
Nothing is more awe-inspiring than the unbending severity of a kindly man who has been roused to moral indignation. A man who is not tenderhearted becomes harsh and cruel. One who is only tenderhearted is weakly sentimental. But mercy and justice met and were harmonized in the character of the Son of Man.
See the bearing of the divine Lord as He enters His Father’s house, which He loved so fervently, only to find it desecrated, “a den of thieves.” Mark the flashing of His eye, the resolute step as He advances with uplifted whip of cords and begins to oust the rapacious traffickers (John 2:13–17). Watch Him overturn the bankers’ tables. “It is written, My house is the house of prayer,” He is saying, “but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:45–47).
In this incident we are given a graphic example of “the goodness and severity of God” (Romans 11:22). Our Lord evinced not only moral courage, but no small degree of physical bravery as well.
His Remarkable Self-control
Not even once did Jesus betray the slightest semblance of lack of self-control. Strong though His emotions were, He always held them on a taut leash. Calm power and self-possession marked all His words and actions. “Now and then we meet a strong man,” wrote R. E. Speer, “who has control over his emotions in the way of repression, and to some little: extent of stimulation also, but generally there is a large range of involuntary and uncontrolled emotions which are true and unconscious revelations of the inner life which they express and manifest, or betray…. In Jesus there was no contradiction between the voluntary and the involuntary, the unconscious and the controlled. All the manifestations of His inner life were reliable and true, and they constantly increase our awe of Him and our sense of His majesty and mystery.”
His Blistering Denunciations
The tendency of our day is to overemphasize the love of God and Christ. A preacher who is unafraid to denounce in strong terms the sins of the day, within and without the church, is termed “un-Christlike.”
But listen to these sentences from the lips of the King of love. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you … for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves…. Woe unto you … for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness … Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:14–15, 27, 33).
It should be noted that those blistering words were not spoken to the prodigal son or to Mary Magdalene, but to the hypocritical ruling class and religious leaders. There is surely no soft effeminacy here.
His Uncompromising Frankness
Christ never concealed the cross to gain a disciple. No one ever left all and followed Him who did not have opportunity to count the cost. His followers must be intelligent volunteers. The emphasis of our day is rather on what one gains by becoming a Christian. Jesus never failed to emphasize the cost of following Him. The birds had their nests, the foxes their holes, “but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). Following Christ involves a love for Him transcending that for father or mother, wife or child. “Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, CANNOT be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
In His final agony, with tongue parched, fever raging, and joints dislocated, He was offered an anodyne to deaden His sufferings. “They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink” (Matthew 27:34). He displayed no unmanly shrinking from suffering. He showed Himself every inch a manly man in life’s most testing hours.
In all things like Thy brethren, Thou
Wast made, yet free from sin;
‘But how unlike to us, O Lord,’
Replies the voice within.
O holy God! yet frail weak man!
‘Tis not for us to know
How spotless soul and body felt
Temptation, pain, and woe.
Our faith is weak;—O Light of Light!
Clear Thou our clouded view;
That, Son of Man and Son of God,
We give Thee honour due.
O Son of Man, Thyself hast proved
Our trials and our tears;
Life’s thankless toil, and scant repose,
Death’s agonies and fears.
O Son of God! in glory raised,
Thou sittest on Thy throne:
Thence, by Thy pleadings and Thy grace,
Still succouring Thine own.JOSEPH ANSTICE