PERFECT CONSCIOUSNESS

PERFECT CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE CROSS

There is considerable divergence of opinion as to whether Jesus was conscious of the full meaning of His mission during the days of His boyhood and young manhood. A full discussion of this subject is not here attempted. Neither recorded word of His, nor clear statement of scrip­ture; give any decisive declaration on the point. Believing in the perfection of His unfallen human nature, it would seem as though all the probability were in favor of the opinion that He saw the Cross, and knew through all the quiet processes of preparation, that therein lay the final fact of His wondrous work.

His COMMUNION with His Father was PERFECT, and in un­clouded intelligence He would understand the meaning of the sacred writings of His people. It is unthinkable that He shared their blindness as to that portion of the prophetic writings, which had reference to the suffering of the Messiah. His first utterance declares His consciousness of relation to His Father, and understanding of the fact. This in itself would seem to warrant belief that He realized the fact of His Messiahship. If this be so, then there can be no doubt that He also knew that the pathway of the Messiah to the throne was the pathway of suffering and the Cross.

This position is strengthened by His accurate appre­hension of the meaning of the symbolism of the Hebrew worship. All the types and shadows of the ceremonial law were luminous to Him. The very calendar of the feasts must have spoken to His heart its true message. His intelligence was perfect and unclouded and hard for us to imagine His comprehension was unclouded also.

From this study of the approach of Jesus to His Cross, eliminating any further reference to the early years, and confining attention to those of the public ministry, there is no longer room for doubt or uncertainty. It is perfectly certain that from the commencement of His public ministry HE WAS PERFECTLY CONSCIOUS OF THE CROSS. Through the three years of preaching, of working of miracles, of conflict, and of training of His own, He moved with quiet dignity, and set determination, towards the Cross of His passion.

The present article is an attempt to demonstrate this con­sciousness by an examination of many of the things He said, which while not revealing the fact of the Cross to the men of His age, clearly prove His consciousness of it, in the light of subsequent events. Behind all the teaching and activity of the Master there is evidently a sub-con­sciousness of the Cross, and on at least five occasions this flames out, declaring itself in unmistakable ways. These may safely be spoken of as the lowlands of sub-conscious­ness, and the mountain peaks of immediate consciousness. A consideration of each will now be attempted.