The Revelation of Christ as the Teacher

“And the two disciples heard Him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto Him, Rabbi (which is to say, being interpreted, Master), where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where He dwelt, and abode with Him that day …” (John 1:37-39).

The revelation of Christ to the human soul as the Teacher—which is our subject on the present occasion—was historically subsequent to His revelation as a Savior and as a King. The Shepherds found the Savior, and the Wise Men found the King long before these disciples of John discovered the Teacher sent from God. So it was historically; and in a certain sense, which we shall endeavor to define, we may say that so it is experimentally still.

Superiority of Christ’s Teaching

There is the same order of events in the experiences of the Christian life. First we find the Savior, and then we find the King; and then, and not till then, we are in a position to become, in the true sense of the word, disciples, and to sit at that Teacher’s feet, of whom it may well be said, “Who teacheth like Him?”

I do not, of course, mean to say that we can have no intellectual acquaintance with the great truths of Christianity without first finding the Savior, and bowing before the King. It is possible, alas! to be a good theologian and yet a bad Christian, or even no Christian at all. But it cannot be said of those who are such that they are true disciples, or that they have been taught of God, or that they have “learned Christ.”

Such knowledge often leaves men further from God than they could ever have been, led by mere ignorance. It is better not to know the truth at all than so to know it as that our very familiarity with its form, unaccompanied by any experience of its power, induces a certain deplorable sense of unreality in that which the mind apprehends. Christ proposes not merely to instruct the mind, but, in the words of our collect for Whitsunday,¹ to teach the hearts of His faithful people, by sending to them the light of His Holy Spirit; and where this light is

¹We know it as Pentecost Sunday, or seven Sundays past Easter Sunday—PCAM.