Chapter 31—Christ as Teacher
For His own wise purpose the Lord veils spiritual truths in figures
and symbols. Through the use of figures of speech the plainest and
most telling rebuke was often given to His accusers and enemies, and
they could find in His words no occasion to condemn Him. In parables
and comparisons He found the best method of communicating divine
truth. In simple language, using figures and illustrations drawn from
the natural world, He opened spiritual truth to His hearers, and gave
expression to precious principles that would have passed from their
minds, and left scarcely a trace, had He not connected His words with
stirring scenes of life, experience, or nature. In this way He called
forth their interest, aroused inquiry, and when He had fully secured
their attention, He decidedly impressed upon them the testimony of
truth. In this way He was able to make sufficient impression upon
the heart so that afterward His hearers could look upon the thing with
which He connected His lesson, and recall the words of the divine
Teacher.
The teaching of Jesus was of an entirely different order from that
of the learned scribes. They professed to be expositors of the law, both
written and traditional. But the formal tone of their instruction would
indicate that they saw nothing in the doctrines of the sacred oracles
which possessed vital power. They presented nothing new, uttered
no words that reached the longing of the soul. They offered no food
for the hungry sheep and lambs. Their custom was to dwell upon the
obscurities of the law, and the result of their reasoning was a jargon of
absurdities, which neither the learned could fathom nor the common
people understand.
Christ came to unveil divine truth to the world. He taught as one
having authority. He spake as never man spake. There was no hesitancy
in His manner, not the shadow of a doubt in His utterances. He spake
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as one who understood every part of His subject. He could have opened
mysteries which patriarchs and prophets desired to look into, which
human curiosity had been impatiently desirous of understanding. But
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