What was Jesus like as a person?

The meat, or cake-offering, sets forth Christ as a living man here below, and this as offered up to God. "His offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon." "This meat-offering, taken from the fruit of the earth, was of the finest wheat. That which was pure, separate, and lovely in human nature was in Jesus under all its sorrows, but in all its excellence, and excellent in its sorrows. There was no unevenness in Jesus; no predominant quality to produce the effect of giving Him a distinctive character. He was, though despised and rejected of men, the perfection of human nature. The sensibilities, firmness, decision, (though that attached itself also to the principle of obedience), elevation, and calm meekness, which belong to human nature, all found their perfect place in Him. In a Paul I find energy and zeal; in a Peter ardent affection; in a John tender sensibilities and abstraction of thought, united to a desire to vindicate what he loved, which scarce knew limit. But this predominates in a Peter. In a Paul, blessed servant though he was, he does not repent, though he had repented. He had no rest in his spirit when he found not Titus, his brother. He goes off to Macedonia, though a door was opened in Troas. He wist not that it was the high priest. He is compelled to glory of himself. In him, in whom God was mighty towards the circumcision, we find the fear of man break through the faithfulness of his zeal. He who would have vindicated Jesus in his zeal, knew not what manner of spirit he was of, and would have forbidden the glory of God, if man walked not with them. Such were Paul, and Peter, and John. But in Jesus, even in man, there was none of this unevenness; there was nothing salient in His character, because all was in perfect subjection to God in His humanity, and had its place, and did exactly its service, and then disappeared. God was glorified in it, and all was in harmony. When meekness became Him, He was meek; when indignation, who could stand before His overwhelming and withering rebuke! Tender to the chief of sinners in the time of grace — unmoved by the heartless superiority of a cold Pharisee, curious to judge who He was — when the time of judgment is come, no tears of those who wept for Him moved Him to other words than 'weep for yourselves and your children,' — words of deep compassion, but of deep subjection to the due judgment of God. The dry tree prepared itself to be burned. On the cross, tender to his mother, and trusting her in human care to one who, so to speak, had been His friend, and leant on His bosom, when His service was finished — no ear to recognize her word or claim, when His service occupied Him for God — putting both blessedly in their place, when He would show that before His public mission He was still the Son of the Father, and though such, in human blessedness, subject to the mother that bare Him, and Joseph His father as under the law; a calmness which disconcerted His adversaries; and in the moral power which dismayed them, by times a meekness which drew out the hearts of all not steeled by wilful opposition … In a word, then, His humanity was perfect, — all subject to God — all in immediate answer to His will, and so necessarily in harmony. The hand that struck the chord found all in tune — all answered to the mind of Him whose thoughts, of grace and holiness, of goodness, yet of judgment of evil, whose fulness of blessing in goodness were of sweetness to every weary ear, and found in Christ their only expression. Every element, every faculty, in His humanity, responded to the impulse which the divine will gave to it, and then ceased in a tranquillity in which self had no place. Such was Christ in human nature. While firm, where need demanded, meekness was what essentially characterized Him, because he was in the presence of God, His God, and all that in the midst of evil … for joy can break forth in louder strains, when all shall echo, 'Praise his name, his glory.'"

His story touches the most tender chords of the human heart, and His moral excellency so mightily appeals to the soul of the faithful disciple, that his most blissful moment is when he is at the feet of this adorable Person as a worshipper. So great is Jesus, so morally different from every other human being, so completely free from all the unworthy motives which govern others, so gracious, guileless, gentle, meek, lowly, compassionate, merciful, self-sacrificing, righteous, holy, harmless, good, so completely unique in all His characteristics, and so unlike man, as we know man, in every solitary way, that some have questioned if such a person ever really existed.

Since the Holy Word exhorts us to consider Him we may draw yet nearer, and with quickened sensibilities behold the beauty of the Lord. The complete absence of what is called character meets us at every turn, every moral trait blending with every other and all crystallizing into one perfect whole. He was the humblest yet the most dignified; the most gracious and gentle, yet uncompromisingly firm and unswerving. Zeal apart from cruelty, lowliness without being mean, a kindness which delighted to make His followers His most intimate friends — their joy a place of sweetest intimacy which, however. in the very nature of things, forbade what we call familiarity. No sign of fear nor hesitancy of speech, and having spoken, there is nothing to withdraw, modify, or call for apology. This latter we see in His most devoted servants.

In the Lord Jesus as Man here was expressed all the moral character of God. Everything that can rightly be connected with the thought of God is found in its perfection in Jesus. Do we speak of holiness? He was holy in His very conception and birth, and holy in life and ways. Do we speak of mercy? When did the appeal for mercy fall unheeded or unanswered on His ears? Of truth? Of righteousness? Of tenderness? Of humility? Of obedience? Of faithfulness? Of confidence in God? Of authority? Of power? Of wisdom? Of love? All these things are seen in Jesus. Not some goodness or obedience, not some mercy or humility, but these very things themselves in their essence, in their essential perfection.

It is surpassing wonderful that the eternal Son of God should become Man, and that in Manhood He should enter into all that was proper to man. His human nature was real and perfect though sinless, and in the practical details of life He knew all the circumstances and conditions of men as a Man, having all the feelings, desires and aspirations belonging to the godly, and knowing what it was to be weary, hungry and thirsty. Jesus knew as no other man the depths of human sorrow, groaning in His spirit and weeping in the presence of death, as beholding its awful results for men, and in a special way for those He loved.

But our part in sorrow here flows thus also from the sense of the subjection of all around us to vanity and the bondage of corruption. It is a very sorrowful thought. We do not hear that Jesus ever smiled. Weep He did, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But it was because He was heavenly, and love, yet also because He was a man. And we have to remember that in us this feeling flows, when a right one, from the same causes. We are partakers of the divine nature by exceeding great and precious promises; the Spirit is life as the spring to the rill, and the Spirit of God dwells in us, making us know we are sons and heirs of God. This we have seen: as heirs, we shall be in glory like Christ, and the creation is waiting for our manifestation, for it was not by its will it was subjected, but through us. But to the groaning creation we are united in our bodies; we draw our sense of the sorrow from more than our being lookers on, and we feel for it from more than selfish grief, we feel for it through the Holy Ghost according to God. Our groans are well the groans of our hearts, but they are the mind of the Spirit, and more, the groans of the Spirit in us, a divine sense of the sorrow around us, yet in the sympathy of a human heart, the mind, too, of the Spirit as acting thus in man. Thus when God searches the heart, He finds my heart with divinely given feelings, and this He loves; the mind of the Spirit, which meets His holy requirements, is acceptable to Him, and the intercession of the Spirit itself for the saints. But it does not follow that our intelligence can estimate the evil or know a remedy, yea, till Christ comes, there may not be a remedy possible. But the heart is formed after God's in respect of the need and sorrow, and this is very precious.

If we trace for ourselves the Lord's course through this world in the various scenes in which He is presented, what is it that strikes the heart? What is it that makes us feel the immeasurable distance there is between Him and every other character that we ever did, or ever can contemplate? Is it not His lowly meekness — His gentleness, His unutterable humbleness of carriage, in contrast with all that was around Him, and in contrast with all that we know of our own spirits and of the world? Think of Him in the presence of His enemies and their provocations! Think of Him in connection with His dull inapprehensive disciples — how He meets their difficulties, bears with their ignorance, corrects their prejudices! How does every scene in which He is viewed add some fresh illustration of the truth of His words, "I am meek and lowly in heart," until the impression of the whole becomes overwhelming.

Not alone in His compassions and resources in meeting others do we see His suitability for meeting our need. His own experiences qualify Him to be support and strength to us. He was in all points tempted as we are apart from sin. He chose a life of poverty and exposure. He who laboured for the comfort and good of others, and used God's power to supply all real wants, suffered want and hunger and thirst Himself without working any miracle. He often spent nights under the open canopy of heaven; He had no place to lay His head. His labours were so arduous that at times He had no leisure to eat bread, and His friends thought and said He was beside Himself. He was ever the target of men without principle. Time-servers and hirelings, who fleeced the flock but fed them not, regarded Him remorselessly as an enemy. They watched Him that they might accuse Him, they intrigued to entangle Him in His talk, they prejudiced the common people against Him where they could, they misrepresented His works and His mission, they spent money freely to overthrow Him and, by and by, the truth of His resurrection. He told them the truth of God; they sought to dash Him over a precipice and to stone Him, and in the end they crucified Him. They sought to turn Him from His service and His path by the threat of what Herod would do to Him. But nothing stemmed the flow, the torrent of grace. No murmurings, no failures on the part of Israel in the wilderness stayed the rain of manna from heaven; and no opposition and no treachery stayed the goodness of Jesus. He was just Himself all through infinitely well-pleasing to God, and full of blessing for men. His disciples misunderstood Him, and often practically misrepresented Him, their loved master, to those around. He patiently corrected their mistakes, showed what His mission was, and made their every failure not an occasion of depressing them but of lifting their thoughts on to a higher plane, even into fellowship with His own. No wonder they loved him! Yet in their weakness they shrank from full identification with Him, they forsook Him when He looked for comforters, they failed Him when He wanted them to watch with Him one hour. Yet He patiently excused their sleep when He needed them, saying, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." He would fain have let them sleep on and take their rest while He went on in His magnificent devotedness to shame and death, but that He knew how their hearts would reproach them if He did riot give them opportunity to follow Him. So He said, "Rise up, let us be going." Yet they failed Him, and He was left alone. Lover and friend were far from Him, and His acquaintance hid away in the darkness. How capable is He of understanding our every loneliness, our whole adversity, even the worst of sorrows, the being misrepresented and deserted by our brethren and our friends!

Nor is this a solitary instance of Mark's carefulness in noting the feelings of the Lord. From him we learn how in the synagogue (3:5) He looked round about on the Pharisees with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. From the same Evangelist we learn what the Lord felt when the disciples rebuked those who sought to bring young children to their Master, that He might touch them: "He was much displeased" (10:14). In John we read of the sympathy and sorrow that He felt for those two at Bethany whom He loved: He wept and He groaned. To weep with those who weep seems perfectly in season; but to sigh deeply at the persistent unbelief of those who were bitterly opposing Him, and were indifferent to their own everlasting ruin, speaks of a chord in His heart of which otherwise none would have conceived.

There is often great difficulty felt by His people in turning from one thing to another of a different character. The truth is, we want to be nothing, which is the secret of this power. Jesus was always ready for everything. He was of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. Divinely perfect, He was also thoroughly human. In us, that which is immediately from God must be given, if we would be kept from the inroads of our own character in each case. The Lord could one moment expose the Pharisees and their temptations, the next moment take up young children in His arms and bless them. And again, we repeat, it is very striking to see how, when events are closing in around Him, He finds, as it were a home. If the world is completely against Him, He can take rest for His spirit with this family of Bethany. He lets His heart out in accepting what is done unto Him. How perfectly human is the Lord here! He delights in accepting all their kind thoughtfulness and love.