ng of His own work, which so few of us
do, and it is safe to take His own account of what He intends, as it so
seldom is. His opening declaration is singularly composed of blended
humility and majesty. Its humility lies in His placing Himself, as it
were, in line with previous messengers, and representing Himself as
carrying on the sequence of divine revelation. It would not have been
humble for anybody but Him to say that, but it was so for Him. Its
majesty lies in His claim to 'fulfil' all former utterances from God.
His fulfilment of the law properly so called is twofold: first, in His
own proper person and life, He completes obedience to it, realises its
ideal; second, in His exposition of it, both by lip and life, He deepens
and intensifies its meaning, changing it from a letter which regulates
the actions, to a spirit which moves the inward man.

So these first words point to the peculiarity of His coming as being His
own act, and make two daring assertions, as to His character, which He
claims to be sinless, and as to His teaching, which he claims to be an
advance upon all the former divine revelation. As to the former, He
speaks here as He did to John, 'thus it becometh us to fulfil all
righteousness.' No trace of consciousness of sin or defect appears in
any words or acts of His. The calmest conviction that He was perfectly
righteous is always manifest. How comes it that we are not repelled by
such a tone? We do not usually admire self-complacent religious
teachers. Why has nobody ever given Christ the lie, or pointed to His
unconsciousness of faults as itself the gravest fault? Strange inaugural
discourse for a humble sage and saint to assert his own immaculate
perfection, stranger still that a listening world has said, 'Amen!'
Note, too, the royal style here. In this part of the 'Sermon' our Lord
twice uses the phrase, 'I say unto you,' which He once introduces with
His characteristic 'verily.' Once He employs it to give solemnity to the
asseveration which stretches forward to the end of this solid-seeming
world, and once He introduces by it the stringent demand for His
followers' loftier righteousness. His unsupported word is given us as
our surest light in the dark future, His bare command as the most
imperative authority. This style goes kingly; it calls for absolute
credence and unhesitating submission. When He speaks, even if we have
nothing but His word, it is ours neither 'to make reply' nor 'to reason