The Messiah’s Devotion to Duty & Triumph of Love
William Blaikie (1820-1899) was Professor of Apologetics and Pastoral Theology at New College, Edinburgh, from 1868 to 1897. He was also a writer and editor.
In Glimpses of the Inner Life of Our Lord, Blaikie offers stirring considerations about the human life, thoughts, and qualities of Jesus of Nazareth.
In this excerpt, Blaikie ponders the love and duty that drove Jesus to the cross.
Christ’s behavior on the cross illustrated his resolute purpose to bear everything that was implied in the office of Messiah. In no other connection do we find him so often using the word “must,” to repel considerations of the opposite kind. At Caesarea Philippi he told his disciples that he “must go to Jerusalem…and be killed.” “This that is written,” he said, “must yet be accomplished in me.” “How then shall the Scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be?” If in Gethsemane he seemed to take another view, and to doubt the absolute necessity of such sufferings, evidently it was but one part of his nature that recoiled; his deeper purpose was to face the storm. This heroic devotion of his to the duties of his office—to the duties of an office which he had taken spontaneously on him—is the most markable exhibition of virtue ever given in human form.
In no man by whom this great fact in Christ’s history is really taken in can a slumbering conscience be found. For who can see the Savior that loved him and gave himself for him paying such unprecedented homage to the will of God, without being impelled to fling from him all the sophistries of his deceitful heart, renounce the pleasures of self-indulgence, and stand firm and steadfast on the rock of duty?
But while the resolute purpose of our Lord exemplified his devotion to duty, it showed not less clearly the triumph of his love. For in this case duty was the offspring of love; love undertook the obligation; and all through his life, and especially at its close, love and duty went hand-in-hand. At the end, the triumph of love was all the greater, because the wickedness it had to conquer was so frightful. Cold floods fell upon a warm heart, but the heart remained as warm as ever. At Calvary, men seemed to defy the love of Christ. They did every conceivable thing to turn it into hatred. But the endurance of Christ showed that no impression had been made on it. His was love that many waters could not quench, and that floods could not drown.
It is indeed a love that passeth knowledge. The most loving hearts feel that it baffles them, and their best returns are miserable returns.