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SUBJECT: 03. Chapter 3: Christ Condemns the Vicious Circle
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C H A P T E R T H R E E
Christ Condemns the Vicious Circle
And when he had thus spoken, one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, Answerest thou the high priest so?
Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil: but if well, why smitest thou me?
—Joh_18:22-23.
THE apology which Christ addressed to Annas at the beginning of His trial was not concluded by the words considered in the preceding chapter. That apology is deepened by Christ’s response to the blow, which, as a symbol and as a brutal revelation of the whole actuality of this sinful world, rocked the atmosphere when Jesus stood before the aged Annas. Christ was struck on the cheek. He was struck before the accusers were able to set on paper a single formulated charge. Moreover, the blow was dealt Him by one who had no authority to administer blows. A subordinate, a servant, whose business it was neither to determine nor to execute penalties, is the one who struck Christ.
We know approximately how matters went. When Christ replied to Annas by means of the words we pondered in the foregoing chapter, He placed this superannuated high priest—and Caiaphas also, if he was present—in a position of great embarrassment.
Had they wanted to convict Christ of a revolutionary attack upon the existing order, or at least of the fact that He was considering such forceful means and coups d’etat as were employed by this world, the proper procedure for them to follow would have been to question those who had been in direct contact with Christ’s word. They could have called in any amount of witnesses from the street, and Christ, by lightly touching on the fact that they were not following this logically natural procedure, simply—if we may use a current phrase—simply left Annas “without a leg to stand on.”
At this point the flame of self-assertion leaps from the master to the servant. In their hearts Caiaphas and Annas have already concluded what they want to do with Christ. The only question which still concerns them is on what legal grounds they can best base their proposed action. For that reason the penetrating light which Jesus suddenly throws upon their strangely illogical procedure is doubly uncomfortable for them. Now it happens that in this embarrassing situation one of the attendants has been so sympathetically identifying his own with his patron’s feelings that he makes use of the “argument” which is the first resort of stupidity and hate. He gives Jesus a sharp blow on the cheek. Perhaps the blow was to the jaw. If one wants to, one can turn to a great deal of material which has been written about the exact nature of this blow and what name characterizes it best. At this time we shall be content with the knowledge that Christ was struck while still standing before Annas.
The attendant names as his motive for this brutal piece of business the fact that Jesus answered the high priest unbecomingly. Well, this is not the first time that people in the effort to escape from the content of a message, choose to criticize the form in which it is given. Naturally, such response is always foolishness. It is especially that when the message is one which comes from Christ. Obviously, if I am to determine whether any given expression has been clothed in a “becoming form,” I must first determine what its meaning, its content, its purpose is; I must appraise this in reference to the standard of the law of God. For it would be folly to say that there is only one form which is appropriate to all possible messages in the world. The richer one’s mind is, and the more qualified one is in discriminating issues, and in enhancing their meaning, so much richer will be the forms which give the argument and testimony expression. As a matter of fact, each meaning must have its own and peculiar form. Now Christ, also inasmuch as the forms and manners of His replies and protestations are concerned, is infinitely rich, for He never makes hackneyed, stereotyped speeches. Every speech, every protestation, every testimony which He makes, He makes but once. His spoken word always has its unique meaning, its peculiar place in the history of revelation, and it also has its peculiar purpose there. The dates of His letters determine their form, for each day for Him differs from the others, and each of His messages is appropriate to the day on which it is spoken.
For this reason, then, it was folly for the servant of the high priest to raise the question of the form, of the manner, of Christ’s reply, in his effort to absolve himself and his patron of the content of that reply. No one may ever ask Jesus, “Answerest thou the high priest so?” as long as he has nothing to say about the content of Jesus’ words.
Again Christ’s majesty appears in the fact that he immediately refers the question of the manner, of the style, of His speaking to the content of His message. If I, he says, have spoken evil, go on and testify of the evil; and if I have spoken well, why, pray, do you strike me? By this rejoinder Christ does not allude to the speech He has just made in reply to the high priest, but He refers to all of His speaking, all of His pedagogy, all of His prophetic teaching as He conducted these throughout His public activity in Israel. Christ does not engage in discussion with this eye-servant about the manner and tone of His last words, but raises the question of the synthetic content of all of His teaching taken as a unit. If ever I have taught anything which was evil, you may point it out, He says. Have I not said just now that anyone who heard me can testify of my doctrine? If you were present at my addresses—very well, say on. Tell your patron by all means, then, what you know of the content and purpose of my prophetic teaching. Begin at the beginning, I pray you. The blow which you gave me is an expression of overbearing impetuosity. And if you cannot point out that my teaching is subversive of true obedience to the law, binding as it is upon all, who gives you the right to strike me?
Such is the record of what happened in the hall of Annas. The next question is whether all of this is suitable matter for more specific study. Some seem to think that it is not. These do their best to add a little color to the somber data of the Biblical narrative.
It is well known that Chrysostom—a name meaning “golden- tongued orator”—wanted to make this story interesting by maintaining that this servant of Annas or Caiaphas was related to Malchus, the man whom Jesus had just healed and protected from injustice in Gethsemane. Similar efforts to make interesting that which really weighs as heavily as eternity can be detected in a few other preachers “with golden tongues” also. Nevertheless, these efforts remain essentially mean, and are a disparagement of what is really a weighty message of revelation. Similar worthlessness characterizes the assertions of others to the effect that the man who struck Jesus was Malchus himself. Those who make this claim ignore the fact that the Greek text uses very different words in referring to these two. Malchus is called a slave, and the second subordinate is named a servant.
In other words, we do not know who this man is. To go on, however. As we read this story we must be on guard against shaking our heads in amazement at the brutality of this uncouth man. For if we do no more than to shake our heads incredulously, and then pass on to the order of the day, we overlook the fact that the logic of this impetuous person is by nature characteristic of us all.
This narrative must also be related to a setting. If we separate this blow from the moment in which it was given, and pass judgment upon it from the outside only, it becomes lost among all the insults and disparagements of soul and body which will take place afterwards. But if we pause to consider what is taking place in this moment and at this place between Christ and the person who struck him, this apparently trivial episode becomes a definite subsidiary part of that extensive history of the passion in which everything has its special place.
Now if we were asked to say what to our mind appears to be the main issue in this matter, we should reply as follows. Christ at the very beginning of His legal process was, because of the course things were taking and because of the pathetic fate of the whole world-order, involved in the vicious circle to which our life is subservient. But He, asserting Himself in His strength, passes judgment upon that vicious circle, and, as a greater than Samson. He begins to deliver the world and Himself from it. In principle He on this occasion already comes down from the cross and redeems Himself—Himself and us.
He begins to do so. For the process of the redemption is merely set in motion by this means. And we may remember that our Samson is not hesitant as was the other one.
If this is the main issue, our first duty is to point out that there is a vicious circle in the world in which we live. This we want to indicate in part by reference to the events of the day, and in part by allusion to the world-view which explains and sheds its light upon these events.
In the first place, the facts of the “trial” which is being carried on here speak an unmistakable language. We can put the message of that language in these words: In the place of judgment, wickedness was there! A legal process is in course of action. That process must be set in motion according to law. But unrighteousness enters into the place of justice. Certainly it was illegal for a servant to do what only a judge has authority to do. The law emphatically forbade that an accused person be treated as a convicted person before the charges had been investigated and sustained. Now if it be true, as it is here, that unrighteousness sits in the seat of judgment, and that this violation of law is the first step in the trial, then the circle which life is describing here must be named a vicious circle. By the use of such methods no one can ever escape from his own problems, and the provinces of justice and injustice can never be properly circumscribed. The unpunished blow which was given to Jesus, therefore, really amounts to an official placement of Jesus outside of the sphere of law. Essentially Christ is being regarded as an outlaw.[1] The trial has not even begun; there has been no opportunity to give the law a chance to express itself against Him, but already He has been placed outside of the sphere and the course of law.
[1] Used here and throughout this work not in the sense of a “rebel,” but as “one having no rights.”
That is why this blow, which Caiaphas and Annas are quite willing to countenance, represents a new phase in the suffering of Christ. Until now He has been an exile; now lie becomes an outlaw. And there is a significant distinction between the two. Being an exile means that one is no longer in one’s original dwelling place, that one is a man without a country. But of such a man it can at least be said that the authority which drives him out of his country is the authority of law. The law pursues him, the law exerts itself against him. Hence to be an exile is not the same as to be an outlaw. An exile stands outside of the pale of his country, but not outside of the bourne of the law.
But the outlaw? Alas, he is thrust outside of the sphere of law. He is given up into the hands of arbitrary forces, of whoever wishes to take him. He is not merely exiled; he is accursed. Such is the vicious circle. The circle describes itself around the chair of Annas.
Note the situation. Those seated here are the official executors, the officially appointed bearers, the authentic proclaimers of the law in Israel. We must remember that Israel, although fast decaying, is still, according to God’s ancient ordinances and according to the “dispensation” of this particular phase of the history of revelation, the people which peculiarly sustains and exercises and proclaims the law. In the kingdom of heaven up to this time this people has been entrusted with the laws of revelation, and consequently also with the law of that particular proclamation of justice whose fundamental principles of jurisprudence coincide with the realm of heaven. Hence this place especially must everywhere reflect the light of the law. According to the dispensation of the ages it must lead to the specific “case” of Christ. The law must fan the flames prompting Caiaphas and Annas to action. All things here must scintillate with the lights of the perfect commandment which alone can illuminate a lawless world.
But the tragedy of the blow which is dealt Christ in this room arises from this that it proclaims aloud: We cannot sever the knots of sin; we cannot and will not explain the riddles of human life in terms of the law which God announced from above. Hence this body of officials proceed to take the shortest route. Here is the Lawgiver Himself, One who professes to be the expressed Image of the Highest Lawgiver, and the Reflection of His legislative glory. And this one is named an outlaw, is beaten and insulted as such, and is thrust outside of the pale of legal procedure. Says Christ: I am the expressed Image of the Lawgiver of heaven and earth. In me you will find an expression of law a thousand times stronger, a thousand times more moving and alive than were the tables of Moses, though these were written with the finger of God. I am the law, and I am the one who both interprets and fulfills it. But before Caiaphas and Annas can say whether the law is compatible or at variance with Christ, they have “in the place of judgment,” that is, in the place dedicated to the law, thrust Him outside of the sphere of jurisprudence altogether.
That is what prompted us to say that the repercussions of this blow were felt in all the worlds. This is the last self-defense of a lost mankind: a curse, an impetuous stroke of the sword upon the knot which God has tied in the rope, the rope of the Forbidden Admission. It represents a departure from the unique office of justice at the very moment in which that office should have made itself felt most effectively.
All this is sad enough. Nevertheless, it can also be very easily understood. That statement referred to above, “In the place of judgment, wickedness was there,” can readily be explained by the truth which underlies it: namely, In the place of knowledge, blindness was there; at the place of insight into the hidden essence of things, a superficial sense of externalities was there. Or, if we wish, we can put it even more directly: In the place of insight into the essence of the Messiah (Christ), we find only a superficial sense of the exterior Jesus (the man as He appeared in history).
This much, at least, is certain: Justice whirls around in a vicious circle because knowledge does. Significant, therefore, is the question put to Jesus by the high priest, a question which we have already illuminated from another side. Annas asks Jesus, you remember, to inform him about His disciples and His doctrine. In other words, two matters require his attention: Christ’s influence and Christ’s teaching.
Now it is plain that this question is put to Jesus too soon. Surely, before I can say anything about the disciples which Jesus has and about the teaching which He gives I must know about his hidden essence. Who art thou? That is the first relevant question. And the second question, “What art Thou revealing to me?” (the doctrine), as well as the third, “With what success art Thou influencing others and me?” (the disciples), may never be separated from the first question. Only when I have seen the essence of Christ, the reality of the Messiah, the basic significance of the Son of man, the real meaning of God become flesh—only then can I have a proper perspective and true knowledge of His teaching and of His success. As long as I look only at the externalities of the number of His disciples and of His doctrine, as long as I fail to believe and appreciate the deep mystery of His being, I must continue to be an embarrassed or an arrogant fool. For externalities can never explain externalities. “Jesus” is not the explanation of “Jesus.” The historical manifestation of Jesus does not explain itself. That which the externalities explain and make tangible must be illuminated by the light of the concealed essence, of the inner being. Jesus and His historical appearing must be understood in reference to Christ (the messianic being foretold long ago, and conceived in God’s eternity). The historical manifestation of the Word of Life can be understood only in relation to the super-historical, external decrees of God, arrived at in the council of peace and derived from the mystery of His trinity.
Inasmuch, therefore, as Annas limits his investigation to those two externalities, Jesus’ success and Jesus’ propaganda, he, in spite of the fact that he is standing on ground which by special revelation had been prepared for receiving the hidden meaning of the God of the Messiah, remains entangled in the vicious circle of purely natural knowledge. He remains oblivious to the great blessing of special revelation. He nonchalantly overlooks all of the Scriptures, for these point only to the hidden essence of the Messiah. He is perfectly willing to look upon Jesus the Nazarene in the light of his own impoverished theology, of his own Sadducean party-interest, and of his Jewish ideal of nationalism. But he refuses to look upon Jesus in the light of special revelation. He explains time in terms of time, externalities in terms of externalities, and historical phenomena in terms of historical phenomena.
Such is the tragedy of the events of the day. We have said already that as a judge Annas cuts the knot which was tied instead of untying it. This also applies to him as a seeker of the truth. As a thinking man also he cuts the knots into pieces instead of unraveling them according to the wisdom of the Scriptures. Hence Caiaphas and Annas become enmeshed in the same snare which trapped Pilate later. Just as Pilate degenerates from sinning against truth (“What is truth?”) into sinning against justice (“What is justice?”), so Israel’s priests at this time degenerate from a false approach to the problem of truth to a false solution of the great problem of justice.
Such is the vicious circle as it was drawn by the events of the day.
Can it be, then, that the events of this day are so much different from those of other days in the world? No, not at all. If you fit the trial of Christ Jesus into the whole course of the world you will come to recognize the fact that this is all that could possibly be expected to take place. Jesus must be condemned by the world at all times, for the world simply cannot escape from the vicious circle. How, indeed, can circles and straight lines ever get on together? How can the flat planes of the world and the intervention of God’s lightning harmonize? Can we suppose that there will be no more friction, no more nameless antagonism between the sons of men included in the vicious circle and the Son of man who is of the line of transcendant revelation?
But for this purpose came Christ into the world, that He might break the cycle of the vicious circle. And because He came into the world for this purpose, I must learn to appreciate the seriousness of this session which is being conducted by Annas. In other words, I must learn to correlate the events of the day with the whole scheme of the Biblical world-and-life-view.
We may be sure that the events of this day (and this night), in other words, that the events as they concern Annas, are appraised aright only if related properly to the world view which teaches us the essential despair of that vicious circle. For it is only from such a viewpoint that we can see in that circle in which both knowledge and justice are spinning around, not only an incident in the life of Annas and Caiaphas but also a symptom of all purely natural life.
Who, indeed, can teach us the nature of that circle? Which philosopher, which philosophy can teach us its secret or point out its laws? Surely, no philosophy, no world-view which observes things from a human vantage point can do so·. For all things human and all things mundane in so far as these arc not vanquished and blessed by the God of special revelation and of special grace are included in and cannot escape from the viciousness of it. Every philosophy, every “theology,” every system of morals, every body of jurisprudence which is built up solely on a base of human wisdom and is worldly in its origin, is and remains natural and carnal. Each of these is included in the maelstrom of the world; each is another effort to explain time in terms of time, to regulate the world by means of the world, and to proclaim justice by means of those who themselves are unjust. In short, every world-view not derived from special revelation is itself included in the fatal cycle.
That world-view alone which comes from above and not from below will be able to discover the vicious circle of our human life as it really is and to reveal to us that God may deliver us from it.
Such a world-view chants its lamentation in the book of Ecclesiastes. We must pause to consider it. The book of Ecclesiastes occupies a unique position among the books of the Old Testament. It is one of the last of all those Scriptures which, taken together, constitute that Old Testament. Formerly this fact was denied by many. It was thought that Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes. Were this true, the book of the preacher would by no means be one of the latest of the Old Testament writers. In recent times, however, the conviction is becoming firmer that Solomon was not the author of the book. As a matter of fact, the original text of Ecclesiastes indicates nowhere that Solomon wrote it. On the contrary, this book was written after the time of Nehemiah and Malachi. It dates from a period in which Israel’s glory had long waned and in which alien despots were treading upon the vestiges of her proud past.[1] And the sole and ever-repeated theme of this wonderful book is the vicious circle.
[1] Compare Dr. C. van Gelderen, De boeken der Koningen, Volume 1, J. H. Kok, Kampen, 1926, pp. 241-242.
Its author has observed that Israel’s glory has departed from her. The empire of Solomon has been trodden upon and broken; first by his epigones, and later by the enemies of Israel. Now Solomon himself, after many centuries, arises from his grave—for Ecclesiastes, embodying a well known rhetorical device, introduces Solomon to us as the speaker—in order to declare that everything associated with the great king, his wisdom, his might, his culture, amounted to nothing save vanity and the tedium of endlessly cyclical movement. That is what the glory of Solomon amounted to, observed solely from a temporal point of view. Solomon does not suffice to explain Solomon. He had great power, but his power was broken. He had great wisdom, but his philosophical system was mocked by succeeding thinkers—other philosophers succeeded him in the world. Solomon issued books of law and outlined a system of legal procedure, but what has remained of these? As for Solomon’s culture? In all of its splendor it also had to give way to destruction, bit by bit. The whole of Solomon’s artistically evolved life is part and parcel of the vicious circle. And what, alas, can be done about that? Who, pray, can push back its ever-moving wheel? No one is capable of doing it. The wheel of history is ever turning, to and fro, up and down. Nature and history, these two acts in the drama of general revelation, never reveal the hidden mystery of the eternal, immovable things of God in a way which gives peace to human hearts, always being hurtled to and fro as they are. Just as nature is ever repeating itself, in an endless, expansively cyclical process, so is the history of men. Everything goes but to return, rises to fall again. The one breaks down what the other has begun. No lecture room, no court of justice, no seat of culture, no conference group devoted to a discussion of war and peace, is fixed and sure. What exists today will return tomorrow and the tedium of such interminable repetition is fatiguing even to the point of death.
So says the Preacher about general revelation. He demonstrates to himself and to us how pitifully wanting this general revelation is when it is separated from special revelation.
But he says more. Next to the general revelation stands general or common grace. Of that the Preacher also speaks. He points out how meager common grace is when it is independent of special grace. Of these two the Preacher is constantly talking: of nature, and of the busy and multiple historical life of man. These are the two domains of general revelation and of common grace. And these two are a part of that deterministic cycle which we have called the vicious circle, unless ....
Unless? Yes, unless the domain of general grace is governed by a living and quickening power derived from special grace, and unless the domain of general revelation is illumined by the special revelation of God which intervenes from above.
You see, then, that the book of Ecclesiastes has a beautiful significance for the Old Testament. This book laments the meagerness, the essential poverty, the insufficiency of general revelation and of common grace. That is the value of the book. Yes, that is its peculiar value. The old covenant must die with a lamentation, must pass out with a cry, because of the insufficiency of general revelation; for thus a sound of rejoicing may break out later when Christ appears in the New Testament to give Himself to the victims of God’s vicious circle as the great gift of special revelation and of special grace. True, these were found in Israel before this time also, but in the New Testament they reach their fulfillment, their pleroma.
This Preacher, then, stands at the very end of the weeping wall of the Old Testament, mourning. He raises his bitter cry. And this is the burden of his lament: outside of the pale of the messianic light, eye (in nature) has not seen, nor ear (in history) heard, nor heart (in general philosophies of life) conceived the great mystery of final knowledge, redeeming insight, of absolute certainty, and eternal life. Only when that cry has been uttered, only when the sound of the dirge of all God’s bondmen has been heard, will it be the time for the New Testament to point out to us the tower of the Lord’s redemption standing behind the weeping wall of the Old. Then only will it be the time for Christ, the Chief Prophet, to drive out by means of intervention from above the uncertainties of the spirit of Solomon, the spirit which in itself was unable to sustain life. That will be the time for Paul to answer the Ecclesiast by pointing to Christ, the Messiah who has come. Then Paul can say: Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart conceived (that which could not be obtained from general revelation) what God hath prepared for all of them that love Him. The great mystery is not discovered by a science which subsists on general revelation only, and builds its conclusions up on that, climbing from below upwards, but is revealed from above to those below by the authentic Word of God. For in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And that Word by its own sovereign sharing of itself has become flesh.
Those are a few of the main ideas in the book of Ecclesiastes; such is the essence of its life. That is why this book in which the Old Testament breathes its last breath is the book of the vicious circle. It is in this book that the thought to which we alluded before was raised: In the place of judgment was wickedness, and in the place of knowledge was doubt.
No, no, he who speaks in this book is not a rebel clenching his fist against the palace which keeps the keys of the Bastille. He who speaks and voices his plaint in this book is a son of man who has shared in the misery of the world. For he, too, knows that without God and outside of the temple which is subject to that law of the world which says that wickedness is in the place of judgment, license in the place of law enforcement, he is in the place in which law is thrust aside at the very time when it should let its light shine upon the events of life.
No, the Preacher was not satisfied to say that the vicious circle was present even in the hall of justice. The awful merit of the Preacher is that he describes the whole of natural life, the whole of life not blessed by special revelation, as being subservient to the yoke, to the fate, of the vicious circle. Take nature, for example. In every respect and in every place nature describes a complete arc. The sun rises and sets again; clouds absorb water and release it again; hidden springs supply the rivers, but the sea is never so full that it overflows and smothers the springs. The whole of nature represents a continual vacillation, an endless repetition. Just such a cycle, says the Preacher, characterizes the life of culture, as long as it is not healed and redeemed by the temple, by special revelation, by the special law which is revealed by God. That which the one builds, the other breaks down; that which past generations evolve the future generations destroy; positions of rank shift from one to another; the leaders of today are the slaves of tomorrow. Thus it becomes apparent that the whole life of the world is subject to the law of rotation. Who is there that teaches a philosophy from one point of view and does so authoritatively? The wise teach us wisdom; tomorrow a wiser comes to destroy the wisdom of yesterday. Who can lay down a binding system of morals? That which is named right today is called wrong tomorrow. Virtue and vice continually exchange places with each other. Alas, when life is really left to itself, it is a mere merry-go-round of futility. It turns and turns, et l’on revient tonjours a ses premiers amours. And even as history does, so men return to their first antipathies also. Today hordes of slaves assume the ranks of aristocrats, tomorrow others take their place.
Not one of the world’s classes is assured of its status forever. Just as the servant of Annas arrogates to himself the function of a judge, just as Annas lowers himself to the status of a servant, so the whole world. The world would propel itself by its own ears, but it moves in a circle, and the circle is a very vicious one. On earth man walks in a medium of mystery, and there is no priest to explain God to him, no priest, at least, trained in the schools of nature and history, and in those two alone. Such is the vicious circle.
Fortunately, the Preacher said more than this. To that we shall refer later.
Pausing here, however, we ask ourselves: But is not this the core of the matter? And must we not return to this real issue as often as we undertake to say something about that blow given Christ, the great outlaw? Remember, that blow was a demonstrative blow. Accordingly, instead of hurling invectives against the servant of the aged Annas, we must acknowledge that he fits perfectly into the scheme of a world which wants to live outside of the pale of special revelation.
What we have here is a secularized house of priests which will have nothing to do with “the” law and which, accordingly, shuts out the law and the lawgiver. This is the vicious circle: to know nothing, and to act as though everything was perfectly clear—in short, to administer a blow. This is the pathetic state of things: to fail to place Christ the lawgiver over against Jesus the accused, to fail to measure and to judge Jesus by the standard of God who is the highest lawgiver, and yet to allow the meanest servant to take upon himself the prerogative of the most assured among the people. Such is the world: to refuse to see God in the man Jesus, but to punish the devil in him nevertheless — although this last act is an eternal impossibility. An eternal impossibility, for he only can discern the devil who can discern God. Only the spiritual man, says Paul, judgeth all things — the spiritual man, he who is nourished by the bread for which the Preacher hungered.
When the palace of the spiritual court of justice has been secularized, when all the windows looking out on the everlasting east, on God the lawgiver, have been walled up, that court cannot possibly deal justly with Christ. By such conduct it begins to look up on Him as upon a man among men, and upon His teaching as one among many teachings, upon His influence in procuring disciples as just another manifestation of a recurring phenomenon in the world. But it does not succeed in really explaining Him. Life can never explain life. History cannot lay history bare. And this inadequacy which refuses to confess itself is quite willing to cut the knots it cannot untie, is perfectly willing to smite the Wonder on the cheek. Such is the feeble gesture of victory on the part of the defeated. Moreover, this is the tragedy of us all. Every high priest who forgets God, every slave who forgets God, every zealot, be he serious or frivolous, who wants to explain the world in terms of the world will smite Jesus on the cheek in just this manner. They all strike Jesus; all strike the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. Every philosophy, every theory, every so-called orthodoxy, and every heresy, which is not derived from special revelation, is a blow against the cheek of God, the sole Interpreter of the world, the sole Giver and Proclaimer of the law. The house of Annas has not properly evaluated the mind of the ranking person in this place. But by means of the fist of the meanest person, it frankly and facilely acts as though it had come to the right conclusion. That is the meaning of the blow on the cheek. You and I were born in this same house, and were expertly brought up in its traditions. Left to ourselves, we too would not have known the one lawgiver. The blow on the cheek means that we are attempting to argue Him out of existence. Every court of law in the world witnesses the gruesome injustice of the man who does not believe in God. The blow dealt in the hour of his trial demonstrates the folly and the vicious character of sin — of the sin, that is, which has separated the activity of the creature from the Logos of God. Because it has done that, it can never, never be logical again.
As this blow echoes through the air, I think of Ecc_1:15 : That which is crooked cannot be made straight. Such is the empirical fact. The crooked line which follows a circular course cannot be made into a straight line by life itself. And I tremble when I read next to it the statement recorded in Ecc_7:13 : Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight which He hath made crooked? Alas, in these words that which I experience empirically is laid down as the inescapable lot of the whole world, for it tells me that God Himself has created the world so that it can never solve its own problems nor unravel its own knots. If “God” does not become the “covenant God,” if “God” does not become “the Father,” if the Almighty does not say “I am Jaweh,” if the voice of general revelation is not drowned out by the thundering approach of special revelation, then the rashness of the weary circuit-rider of time will ever again deal the blow against God’s own Son. The tragedy of the matter certainly is that Annas and Caiaphas lagged behind; they came late and they came crippled. They searched, but could not find. Now they literally take the law into their hands, they resort to the blind solution of force. They take recourse to blows. But they do not know the Son of God. Shall I condemn them? Indeed, not. For who can make straight that which God has made crooked? Who can carry the straight line of all-conquering truth into the world, and who can break or bend into shape the crooked line of the vicious circle, if God Himself does not do so? Unless God is very gracious to me, unless He reveals the secret of Himself and the world to me, I, together with the whole world, will raise my hand to smite God on both cheeks. The act will be the most pious gesture in the prayer of the unwitting. In that terrible prayer the fatigue of the world, and its tedium, will be unaware of itself though unmistakably clear to all who have spiritual eyes to see . . .
Bind the hands of the man who smote Jesus just now, and look into the eyes of the Smitten One. He is your Lord and your God. As such He comes to point out the vicious circle to you. Mark how He reveals Himself as the Mediator just when that revelation is necessary. Christ answers the man who struck Him. If I, He says, in my public teaching, in my discourses, ever said anything evil, bear witness of the evil. But if not, if you can testify of nothing against me, why do you smite me?
By this reply Christ at once gets at the heart of the issue. The vicious circle, ever moralizing, argues: plead — or smite. The Mediator demands: bear witness — or believe.
Has the man who strikes Him, possibly, some critical ability in reference to the Christ whom he strikes with such dispatch? Has he mastered the difficult teaching of Christ? Has he some authoritative standard, some touchstone, according to which he can appraise what Christ has said? If so, let him speak. He who wishes to judge must be able to refer to his sources of law, and if he has no such standard, how can he administer the blow? That blow is a false front designed to enhance the mask behind which is concealed the face of an ignorant man. Christ merely asks a question but in that question the Messiah asserts Himself and swears that the legal process begun by the world against Him can take but one course. It must long for and bow before absolute authority. Whoever has not the capacity to criticize Christ may do nothing, may not even say anything which assumes that he knows what it is all about. Whoever has not discovered the sole relationship between Christ and the Chief Lawgiver of heaven may not summon Him into his court or reject Him from the sphere of law. The man who is ignorant simply may not deal with Christ as a problem which he has personally solved.
By pointing to and condemning the vicious circle at the beginning of His trial, Christ, therefore, remained the true Mediator. He enmeshed us in our own snares, entangled us in our own skeins. He proved to us that the only way to evaluate Him is to accept Him on His own authority. To every discourse He gives He appends the same introduction: Why did you strike me just now? Ah, how He embarrasses us. But what do we want? What do we expect outside of the pale of His authority? Imagine for a moment that Christ’s absolute authority does not exist. Then we can never escape from our own difficulties, never elude the vicious circle. The servant may not smite, and the high priest can not bless. For Jesus of Nazareth passed by. Did He really pass by? No, if only He had. He is so very troublesome to the flesh. Who that has listened to His “Why did you smite me?” can fail thereupon to fold his hands in prayer? If I want to evaluate Christ without regard to His own claims to authority, what can I possibly expect to do? The blow represents folly; and a prayer is not wisdom. Nevertheless, up to this time those are the only two things to which I can resort.
Therefore I must let Christ reprimand me as He reprimanded the servant who struck Him. He strikes at the very manner in which I put the problem. My flesh was unwilling to listen to the Preacher, unwilling to attend to the book of Ecclesiastes. For the Preacher had declared that life could never explain itself, that a worldly court could not establish its own moral code, as long as it refused to subject itself to special revelation. So much my flesh would never grant the Preacher. And “Nazareth” does not explain my flesh. Heaven must explain the Nazarene, and His own deep heart — so large that it can contain the heaven of heavens — must interpret Him. Thou fool of Annas, the highest wisdom is to bow before authority. To appropriate the revelation which comes from above is the first principle of reasonable religion, thou mercenary hireling, thou who art continually breathing out blasphemy against the temple. Nature (including Jesus’ food and drink, Jesus’ life and death) is not explained by nature, but solely by special revelation. And today it is this special revelation which is addressing itself to thee. History (including Jesus’ stay in Nazareth, Jesus’ preaching in Galilee, and His being captive in Jerusalem) is not explained by history, but by special revelation. Today that revelation is addressing itself to thee. That, also, the Preacher knew.
Can it be that any among us sometimes thought that the Preacher knew only how to complain about nature and about history? Remember, we can truly and canonically lament the phenomenon of doubt when we look down upon it from the vantage point of the achieved certainty of faith. The insufficiency of the vicious circle is apparent only to the person who has reached that vertical course which leads upward from below. Only he can lament the relative inadequacy of general revelation who has learned to rejoice in special revelation. No, the Preacher is not a member or a guardian saint of that group of doubters which teaches that one can strike Jesus on the cheek without incriminating one’s self. The Preacher, too, had drunk the clear waters which flow from the fountains of the Highest Wisdom.
When He had done so, He saw the temple rising out of and standing above nature. He saw the venerable temple rise out of the vicious circle of natural life, of natural wisdom, and of natural reason. That temple does not deign to discuss its authority but makes its authority binding. It does not argue in mundane terms about the right of God to demand sacrifice, but simply makes sacrifice a binding requirement. It does not make man the measure of good and evil but makes the standard of the temple of God absolutely authoritative. Those are the three articles of the basic law of the temple. Without consulting any of his ministers, the King is exalted far above the need of counselors.
The first article of that fundamental law, then, was that the temple simply imposes its authority. Hence the call is sounded on all sides: Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God (Ecc_5:1.). Freely translated that means: Go cautiously, be on guard, do not let your impulse dictate your steps, “keep your foot” for it is bound, keep your hand lest it smite the cheek, for you are bound. Keep thy foot, keep thy hand, restrain thy tongue, for the beginning of all wisdom is to bow before special and absolutely authoritative revelation. Nature will never teach you to restrain your foot: what difference does your conduct make to it? Nor does history make anything binding upon your conscience: what, pray, is good and what evil? But the temple, special revelation, that it is which really knows, which dictates the law, and does so without asking whether it suits you. The temple only can inspire caution.
The second article of the fundamental law of the temple has it that God’s right to demand sacrifices — sacrifices instead of blows to the cheek — is not based on legal argumentation which is of earthly origin. The question “What must I do and what must I not do?” can be answered solely by the Chief Lawgiver Himself in His special revelation. That is why the Preacher says — and he hears the temple itself sounding the cry: bring not the sacrifice of fools. Liberally translated, that means: do not dally in the place of seriousness, and do not play idly with sacrificial blood, for everything you do and do not do must be governed by special law-giving revelation. Nature and history tell you to follow your own impulses, to bring sacrifices in the company of fools. Nature and history teach you that there is no absolute command. But the temple binds your hands and does not ask you whether you like it. Special revelation teaches the sacrifice of the wise.
The third article of the fundamental law of the temple maintains that I may never regard myself as my own standard of conduct. My subjective inclination can never be a sufficient authority in itself. Accordingly, the temple advises: say not in the presence of the angels that you made a mistake,1 when you promised a great sacrifice and substituted for it a small one. For, even after you have begun to bring sacrifices, even after you have become obedient in a general way, even then you have by no means been given the privilege of determining what is good and what is evil. Not only the fact that you must bring sacrifices but also the kind of sacrifices you must bring is governed by the commandments. In the temple everything is revealed with authority. Sovereign authority, then, is at the bottom of our lives. And that sovereign authority is absolutely binding for all of the efforts and results of our conduct.
[1] Ecc_5:5. As though you had mistaken the value of your sacrifice and are now, just as when you made the offer, following your own whim and fancy.
You see, therefore, that the blow which insulted heaven in the house of Annas was not condemned in human terms based on expedience, or good taste, or natural love, but in the terms of the law of God. Christ disciplined the man who struck Him in terms of the same wisdom which informed the Preacher’s temple-discourse, a discourse which sharply sets the temple off from nature and from history.2 But Christ disciplined in order that He might heal. He who spoke in reprimand is the very same for whom the Preacher yearned. He is the bearer of absolute authority and its proclaimer. He is the sole revealer and preacher of the true law of the temple. In fact, He is the Temple, for God dwells in Him bodily. Destroy this temple, and within three days it will be built up again.
[2] Ecc_5:1-5. According to some (with or without other texts) A Zwischenstiick
Christ, then, at the beginning of His trial immediately pointed Israel’s judges back to the book of Ecclesiastes, in which the Old Testament was reaching out its hands to that great exponent of authority who would place the life of nature under the full rays of heavenly revelation, who would convert the merry-go-round of world history into a straight path to God — or into a straight road to Satan — and who would by the grace of the Lord make straight all the crooked lines of “God.” For God is present in the general, and the Lord (Jaweh) is present in the special revelation. We must let Christ tell us this truth. The blow with which the last legal session of the Jews concluded its preliminary action is the confirmation of the tragical conflict expressed in the book of Ecclesiastes. But the word which Christ spoke on this occasion is the maintenance and fulfillment of the solution which the Preacher discovered when he saw that no human norm, but only the Word which was in the beginning, is warranted in proclaiming the truth.
This Word which was in the beginning and which was with God, is here. It is no wonder that John, the same evangelist who wrote the well-known prologue about the Word which was made flesh and which could put the weariness of the Preacher of the Old Testament to rest, is the one who brings together the blow given by the servant of the priest and the reprimand given by Christ. The problem raised in this late book of wisdom in the Old Testament is solved in the prologue to John’s gospel. And Christ was willing to suffer for that solution. He offers His cheek to those who would strike Him today in this terribly vicious, terribly malignant circle. Today all the ennui and tedium which the Preacher suffered accrues to Him. The blow “grieves His spirit” so severely and makes Him so weary that no one can hope to give expression to it. Have courage, my Saviour, for “the conclusion of the whole matter is this: Fear God, and keep His commandments.”
No, do not ask whether all this constituted suffering for the Christ. Was there no pain in this labor? Indeed, the worst of it was not that the blow hurt Him physically. That again is but the external side of the matter, although it has significance for those who recognize the inner, hidden side. But the main thing also in this instance is the soul-suffering of the Son of man. We can put it thus: a blow dealt Him by the Greeks hurts Him less than a blow given Him by the Jews. For, up to this time the Greeks have been left to heathendom, have been allowed to stay in the vicious circle; to them the oracles (special revelation) of God have not been entrusted. The Greeks have only general revelation. But Israel is a people of special revelation. To Israel the holy Scriptures came and with these the hook of Ecclesiastes. The whole of the old covenant closes with the summons: Look to the Messiah; keep your foot when you go into the temple; restrain your hands when you meet with the image of God; and know that the world cannot explain itself, that the external side of things, be it of Solon of Athens, of Solomon of Jerusalem, or of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot account for itself. Tremble in the presence of the great mystery. And begin with the beginning, with the Word which was in the beginning.
However, in spite of the fact that Christ is the great goal to which the Preacher longingly looked forward, and in spite of the fact that the attention of the dying Old Testament pointed to the distant horizon on which the Messiah would sometime dawn, Christ as He appears here today stands as a smitten one. Darkness — also the darkness dwelling in His people — prefers the vicious circle to the straight line of the Messiah, that line of revelation which extends from above downward. They ask about His disciples and about His doctrine, but not about the essence of His being.
Because of its frightful inadequacy, therefore, this question becomes the downfall of Israel. It was a denial of the yearning of the Preacher; it was an outspoken abnegation of that which wounded the Ecclesiast even unto death. In short, it was an acceptance of the external, the empirical, the historical side of things, and of that side only. Ah, but this was suffering for the Christ! Think — to be the bread of heaven, for which the Old Testament had hungered because the scraps of nature could never satisfy. And to be rejected now, now when He is lying on Israel’s display table as the bread of heaven! To be rejected because no one would look upon this bread in the light of heaven! Men placed it in the scales of earth and found it too light — and used it later as the bait by which to entice death to come.
The blow on the cheek — it is an outright denial of the burden of the Preacher. The dog returns again to his own vomit. The Preacher himself said so .. .
In view of what has been said now, it is a futile pastime to set up labored arguments about the weighty question of whether Christ, by reprimanding the man who struck Him, was practicing what He had preached on the mount. There are those who raise that question. They call attention to the fact that in His sermon on the mount He said: Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. Christ said that, these critics aver, and then tremulously add: But as a matter of fact He does not practice the theory Himself; instead of keeping silence, He pronounces a sharp reprimand.
Those who say this, however, are mistaken. For it is precisely in this that Christ fulfilled the sermon on the mount. The great fundamental idea underlying that sermon is that everything in the kingdom of heaven, everything, including the least significant detail of life, moves in a medium of infinite earnestness. Everything is subject to the law. Nothing is insignificant. And, although Christ in the sermon on the mount includes everything within the pale of the law, Annas and Caiaphas, and the servants attempt to thrust everything outside of the circumference of law. They find an outlaw in the very place where the Chief Lawgiver takes his stand. The vicious circle dresses the Chief Lawgiver in the ragged burlap of the outlaw, just as it dispatches the Chief Wisdom to Rome in the motley garb of a fool. In short, they place the whole trial outside of the sphere of Christ’s sermon on the mount. When they did so, Christ restored things to their proper place by proclaiming to the man who struck Him that He must not exert a single muscle of his clenched fist before he has pondered upon and reached a conclusion about the problems of absolute authority, of the law and gospel, of the Word and eternity.
The impulsive reaction of our “natural” life, such as the blow to the cheek doubtless was, must be interpreted in the light of the absolute seriousness of life. If that is done, we will see that Christ who first pressed Himself and His judges against the high wall of the kingdom of heaven, now proceeds to offer the man, who struck Him on the one cheek, the other also, by way of giving him the right to testify of the evil if he can. “If I have spoken evil, testify of it.” Christ does indeed turn His other cheek to all orators and all authors who manipulate their pen without reference to the sphere of revelation, and to all theological faculties who have humanized revelation. He says, Testify against me, lest you speak some word which shows that you do not understand God and eternity. If you cannot do this, bow before authority, acquiesce in it as the first principle of life, and then see whether I am not always what I say I am, to all who believe; then see whether I will not kiss you upon both cheeks.
Christ’s reply, therefore, to the blow on His cheek is a messianic self-revelation. He reveals Himself to the fatigued people of the Old Testament and hears the prayers of the Preacher, in whose momentous book prophecy approached its culmination. In that book prophecy was awaiting its great First. A blow on Jesus’ cheek without the word with which Christ accompanies it, would have left the court of Israel in the helpless condition of the Preacher, would have left it in the tragic conflict of the vicious circle. If Jesus had held His peace He would have been unfaithful to the house of Israel, He would have failed to respond to the duty of active obedience, He would indeed have failed to turn the other cheek. But now we know that He speaks the Word, that He ministers the Word, and that He has done well in this. He has done it for us, as an example to us. He has also done it in our stead.
This is a marvelous discovery. I am the one who by nature am ever trying to rid myself of this great Representative of authority by means of a blow to His cheek. Every word hastily spoken, every doubt-prompted leap to a false serenity, every flight from the pain of the absolute to the sedative of my accursed relativism, is but another blow which I am giving Christ, the great bearer, and the holy content of God’s most special revelation. Alas, how often have I not struck my Saviour on His cheek! Alas, alas again — for now He comes to offer me the other. He hurls His lasso around me, He throws that evil circle of His condemning Word around my flesh. He tells me: If I have spoken evil, testify of it. This He says to me now. His patience is very frightening, for He inducts me into the world of His sermon on the mount. In that world I may strike Him on both cheeks if I feel like doing that — He swore with an oath that I could. Alas, Annas, you and I stand next to each other, next to each other and almost pressed to death against the High Wall of the kingdom of heaven. There He will offer me His cheeks — He has sworn that He would with an oath. His bonds wound me terribly. I cannot oppose this man whom you suspect, Annas. What must I do with your prisoner?
Annas does not answer. The High Wall is dumb. I know of only one thing which I can do. I shall tell Him that in this other world in which He offers me His other cheek and in which He offers me the right to speak out my cogitations aloud — that in this world I cannot breathe. I shall ask Him whether He will not first carry me into that world, receive me in grace, transfer me to the realm of His Spirit and teach me to breathe the atmosphere of eternity. When I open my eyes there, I shall not accuse Him, for He will have drawn me with the cords of love, and brought me to the place where I might reach His cheeks. I shall kiss His cheeks; I shall kiss Him whom my soul loves. Strike Him? Behind me, insane Satan; for who would strike Him? I shall sing hymns of praise in His honor, for faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things which cannot be seen in the vicious circle. I have read the sentence which my blow to His cheek has pronounced upon me; I read it from 1 Corinthians 2. The natural man cannot discern the things of the spirit; he has not the critical capacity to explain the things of time in terms of time, for these are all distorted. But he that is spiritual “judgeth” all things, even though he himself is “judged” of no man. Hence I must suffer the affliction of the blow on the cheek together with my Saviour from now on. I must do that as soon as He has bound my hands lest I should strike my Lord and my God. But I will bear the blows. I shall offer Annas both my cheeks. Thou art great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised, and our hands tremble restlessly at our sides until such time as Thou dost bind them, dost bind them with cords of love.