The officers answered, Never man spake like this man.
The officers sent to arrest Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles were held spellbound by His presence and words, forgot their commission, and returned without Him declaring that no one had ever spoken as He did. His speech was unmatched in power because His voice was clear, calm and distinct, His teaching was simple, authoritative and convincing, and His words were full of grace, truth, wisdom and love that touched hearts and exposed sin. No one could speak as He did because no one lived as He did, for His convincing power came from a pure and holy life, from teaching eternal truth under the inspiration of the Spirit, and from revealing the Father in word and character. Those who heard were astonished and drawn to Him as the divine Teacher above all human teachers, while the priests and rulers stifled the same conviction through prejudice, envy and pride and turned others away from the light to their own ruin.
Feast Setting and Arrest
The saying belongs to the account of Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. That feast brought its crowded ceremonies and celebratory atmosphere into the temple courts. There He was watched by spies while the rulers sought to silence Him and put Him to public humiliation.
The traps set by the spies were met by answers that exposed their schemes and left them confounded. The Jewish chiefs and rulers, their eyes blinded and their understanding darkened, were stirred to take His life and to seize Him. They sent officers under Jewish authority to arrest Him. Those men came near Him but could not lay hands on Him, and returned without Him.
Manner and Power of Speech
The officers sent to arrest Him were struck by the unmatched power of His words and returned without Him testifying that no one had ever spoken as He did. His speech was unlike anyone else's in its singular power, a fact even His enemies had to acknowledge. His words comforted, strengthened, and blessed those longing for peace, and lifted hearers to higher thought and action.
His voice was musical, neither strained nor raised, and His words were not rushed together but each word was pronounced distinctly so people could understand Him. He spoke slowly and impressively, with clear emphasis, so that listeners of every age and level of learning could understand Him. His teaching and manner of speaking made a unique impression, for hearers found His words unlike anyone else's.
His teaching was simple, attractive, and authoritative, using familiar figures and earthly examples to explain heavenly things. His words were clear and convincing, spoken with power, astonishing to those who heard His teaching. He brought the living principles of God's law with its matchless principles home to minds and consciences through familiar things and illustrations that made its lessons fresh, clear, and understandable. He expressed truth in clear, simple, forceful language, His answers cleared up misunderstandings, and His words were valuable to seekers of the way, the truth, and the life because they were meant to be received and practiced. Some who heard and believed were later among the converts after His resurrection.
He spoke with grace and truth, and His words made a deep impression on His hearers. Holy, ennobling truths flowed from His lips with heartfelt power and a pathos that touched the heart. His words were words of wisdom, love, and knowledge, tenderly encouraging the weak and afflicted. His simple doctrine sank into hearts and held minds, and His kindness won hearts, and together with His healing and feeding of thousands this led hearers to believe He was the Messiah and strengthened conviction of His divinity.
His words carried the authority of true greatness, and the truth never weakened on His lips. He fearlessly exposed hypocrisy, dishonesty, and deceit and dishonest practices, and denounced teachings that replaced God's commandments with human rules. His words rebuked the sins of those in high authority, commanding respect even as He walked the path of humiliation toward Gethsemane and the cross. With a voice of authority He rebuked the power of Satan and bade His captives go free, and His speech so captivated the officers that they could not lay hands on Him. If His voice were heard in assembly He would condemn judges for carefully objecting to small faults while committing the far greater wrong of cruelty and injustice toward a blind brother.
Content and Authority of Teaching
He taught with authority because He knew He was teaching the truth, not as the scribes taught. He did not repeat their fables and trivial sayings, their empty traditions and uncertain, repetitive instruction, but presented weighty, compelling truths that astonished hearers, appealed to heart and conscience, and carried conviction. As the Sent of God teaching in the temple and in the highways and hedges, proclaiming truth by parables, by tears of sympathy, and by restoring the sick to health and going about doing good, His teaching stood in great contrast to that of the scribes and Pharisees. Though false teaching had confused minds and kept people from fully grasping divine truth, they recognized the uniqueness of His words.
He opened God's Word in its purity and divine beauty after Israel's teachers had obscured it with traditions and human commandments, and spoke words of eternal life. He restored familiar truths that had been obscured, misinterpreted, mixed with error, or separated from their meaning, setting them again in their proper place and showing them in original clarity and beauty. He spoke with complete understanding of His subject and with unmatched wisdom, authority, certainty and power, revealing the full treasure of heaven and truth founded on eternal principles rather than uncertain opinions. He came to seek and save the lost, not to display scientific knowledge, and crowds followed and honored Him as they listened.
His teaching was not aimed at satisfying curiosity, ambition, or selfish desire with abstract theories, speculation, scientific display, or discoveries. It taught what is essential for forming character, knowing God, doing good, living rightly, and joining human life to eternity. It directed minds through His works, His word, and His providence into contact with the Infinite mind, with power to awaken thought, kindle aspiration, and stir every capacity of body, mind, and soul. It gives guidance for every circumstance and crisis of human life, for all people and for all time.
He taught the realities of eternity, the living principles of the law, the new kingdom to be established among people, the call to deny self and take up the cross daily and follow Him, and the way people should walk. Even in simple lessons His divinity shone through His humanity with a freshness, power, and attractiveness no great men of the world could equal, drawing the common people to hear Him gladly. To unprejudiced hearers His words shone like light from heaven so that worldly things faded, and those who prayed for light eagerly received His truth while the proud and self-righteous refused His message. Though many did not clearly comprehend His instruction about the cross, they were moved by deep conviction to declare decidedly that never man spoke like Him.
Source of Unique Power
No one could speak as He did because no one lived as He did. His words carried a convincing power unmatched by any other speaker because they came from the life He lived, from a pure and holy heart full of love, sympathy, beneficence and truth. His manner of speaking could not be separated from His character, for what He said was matched by what He was.
He taught under the inspiration of the Spirit because He was sanctified through the truth, and His speaking is the pattern for all who are sanctified through the truth. When men are baptized by the Holy Spirit they put on the robes of Christ's righteousness and sit at His feet to learn of Him, so that they too speak under the inspiration of the Spirit, and His doctrine astonished the people because He taught with divine authority, not as the scribes. He spoke with complete understanding of His subject, making known the full treasure of heaven's wisdom and knowledge in which every aspect of truth was clear to Him. His words were not uncertain opinions but eternal, unchanging truth firmly grounded on principles that do not change, greater than the unstable claims of human learning. He did not come to display scientific knowledge but to seek and save the lost, presenting spiritual and heavenly truths through nature and experience, nourishing hungry souls and announcing a new kingdom to be established among men, while crowds followed and honored Him as they listened. He restored familiar truths that had been obscured, misinterpreted, mixed with error or separated from their proper meaning, setting them again in their proper place and showing them in their original clarity and beauty.
Those who heard Him recognized in Him a humanity filled with divine glory as He taught in the temple during the feast, so that the officers sent to arrest Him were so impressed by His words and presence that they forgot their mission and commission. His speech bore a divine influence that His opponents could not explain away, though prejudice led the chief priests and rulers to reject the evidence of His Messiahship. The priests and rulers had felt the same conviction and reverence but had stifled the Holy Spirit's influence. His words and prayers expressed the divine will, revealing His unique holiness, glory, love and sympathy, and His words and character revealed the Father.
Responses to His Words
The officers sent to arrest Him were held spellbound by His words and presence, their hearts softened and drawn toward Him though their work among violence and crime had hardened them, and filled with awe and reverence they forgot their mission and commission, stepped back, and returned without Him, unable to treat Him as a criminal or lay hands on Him. They testified that no one had ever spoken as He did, for His words reached their hearts and left lasting impressions. Even as He walked the path of humiliation toward Gethsemane and the cross His pure and holy teaching commanded respect, holding even hostile listeners spellbound and feeling powerless to harm Him, and exalting Him above the religious teachers.
The priests, rulers, and Pharisees felt the same reverence and conviction but stifled the Spirit's influence through self-righteousness, prejudice, envy, malice, and hatred. They shut out the light and refused to be convinced by His words or works, despite the truth and blessings offered to them. They hated the grace that drew the people to Him and resented that sinners listened to Him and could be saved. They accused the officers of being deceived, distorted His teaching and led people away from life, despised the common people and did not expect them to understand the Word or try to explain it so they could understand, and met the testimony with scorn, the claim that none of the rulers had believed on Him, and the charge that the people who listened were cursed.
Many hearers were astonished, convicted, and gladly listened even when they did not fully understand, recognizing that His teaching was unlike anything they had known. His words sank into their hearts, and His sympathy and power revealed a character far above their honored teachers. His miracles of healing, feeding thousands, raising the dead, and healing disease helped draw them and convince them He was not a Sabbath-breaker or blasphemer but the Messiah and divine, frustrating efforts to turn them against Him. His divine grace and power won the disciples' hearts though their love was mixed with pride and ambition, and some who heard and believed later became converts after His resurrection, including thousands converted in a day.
Others persistently refused the light: that generation, blinded by hopes for a temporal kingdom and expecting earthly pomp and national glory, rejected Him and despised His love despite His extraordinary words, mercy, and works. Its refusal of His teaching and the evidence for Him led to ruin and eternal loss by cutting itself off from life. Those stirred and convicted would not surrender traditions and practices and were condemned by that refusal. Even spies and highly cultured opponents who sought to defeat Him were confounded and gained no advantage. Nicodemus, having heard Christ and received light from His teaching, could have joined the officers in bearing witness, and many magistrates and elders did believe on Jesus but Satan kept them from acknowledging Him because they feared the reproach of the people more than they feared God.
Christ’s Identity and Application
The confession that no one ever spoke like this man marks Him as the divine Teacher, the Great Teacher, the Prince of Teachers, and the unsurpassed Educator on earth, above even the most illustrious human teachers. He taught as never man taught, and those who work for God must depend wholly on Him. Those who learn from Him through close association are educated in the highest school, where even humble followers regarded as unlearned gain sound principles, clear perception, and reliable judgment. Those who would become what God intended must enter Christ's school to learn His meekness and humility, and His servants follow His example in seeking the lost, with angels drawing near and the Spirit giving greater knowledge of the best ways to serve. His words direct people to seek eternal treasure rather than earthly wealth.
His word is God's word and law throughout the universe, the final authority in every controversy in heaven and on earth. His words belong to Him as the light giving light to every person, and the truth and promises of God's Word bring joy to hearts surrendered to God while the unrenewed mind finds no pleasure in them. His words reveal God's love for the world and call disciples to show that love by loving others as He loved them. He promises to act when followers ask in His name so that the Father is glorified, and He links love for Him with keeping His commandments. No one spoke as He did, and no one lived or died as He did, for He lived without equal and died not as a martyr or merely as an example but as a sacrifice. His gentle manner and divine majesty accompanied words and works that brought healing, life, joy, and rest, and His words and prayers expressed the divine will, revealing unique holiness, glory, love, and sympathy.
He was an Educator on earth, and after His resurrection He continued as Educator to the lonely, disappointed disciples traveling to Emmaus and to those gathered in the upper chamber, opening the Scriptures concerning Himself and giving sacred hope and joy. That same grand work of instruction goes on from the Holy of Holies, where He officiates in the sanctuary and, with angels communicating to people, works upon human hearts. His voice is still to be heard, so conscience must be kept tender enough to hear even its faintest whisper. Hearing Him frees from social custom and bondage to show true colors when faith is at stake even if called singular, to wear His yoke with inflexible purpose to do right because it is right, and to keep the eye fixed on Jesus testing every step by whether it is the Lord's way, with assurance that none who does this will be left to become the sport of temptation.
His speaking is the pattern for all sanctified through the truth, for He taught under the inspiration of the Spirit because He was sanctified through the truth, teaching with divine authority not as the scribes. When people are baptized by the Holy Spirit they put on Christ's righteousness and sit at His feet to learn, so that they too speak under the Spirit's inspiration. His disciples, though regarded as unlearned, received the highest education by learning at His feet, and even those highly educated in human arts and sciences could learn precious lessons from them. Their connection with God gives clearer, broader, more penetrating discernment and better-balanced judgment even with little book learning, and Christians are to represent His character so the world recognizes they have been with Him. When the Word alone is taken as God's voice to man, clothed with power and majesty and opened in clear, forcible arguments revealing truth in simplicity, hearers feel divine power and confess that no mere man speaks like this. Such preaching stops human subtlety and artifice and clogs mere reasoning, in contrast to empty, Christless declamations filled with human opinions, traditions, and testimonies of the fathers, and it tears away superstition, unbelief, ignorance, formality, and ministerial control to free people held in bondage.
Truth is not decided by whether priests and rulers or good, intelligent leading men receive it, and refusing God's message because trusted leaders have not united with it repeats the rejection of Christ. The officers were held by His speaking and would not bring Him, and their testimony was met with scorn, the charge of deception, the claim that none of the rulers believed, and the charge that the listening people were cursed. That same appeal that no rulers or Pharisees believed remains a great barrier when many hold back because the learned and ruling classes have not joined, despising lowly believers while the enemy sows tares among the wheat to give excuse. Work must therefore not cast the net only for the most objectionable class but must labor more earnestly for people of ability and talents, who if converted will become channels of light, with faithful medical missionary work bringing many conversions among the higher classes.
The officers sent to arrest Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles were held spellbound by His presence and words, forgot their commission, and returned without Him declaring that no one had ever spoken as He did. His speech was unmatched in power because His voice was clear, calm and distinct, His teaching was simple, authoritative and convincing, and His words were full of grace, truth, wisdom and love that touched hearts and exposed sin. No one could speak as He did because no one lived as He did, for His convincing power came from a pure and holy life, from teaching eternal truth under the inspiration of the Spirit, and from revealing the Father in word and character. Those who heard were astonished and drawn to Him as the divine Teacher above all human teachers, while the priests and rulers stifled the same conviction through prejudice, envy and pride and turned others away from the light to their own ruin.
Feast Setting and Arrest
The saying belongs to the account of Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. That feast brought its crowded ceremonies and celebratory atmosphere into the temple courts. There He was watched by spies while the rulers sought to silence Him and put Him to public humiliation.
The traps set by the spies were met by answers that exposed their schemes and left them confounded. The Jewish chiefs and rulers, their eyes blinded and their understanding darkened, were stirred to take His life and to seize Him. They sent officers under Jewish authority to arrest Him. Those men came near Him but could not lay hands on Him, and returned without Him.
Manner and Power of Speech
The officers sent to arrest Him were struck by the unmatched power of His words and returned without Him testifying that no one had ever spoken as He did. His speech was unlike anyone else's in its singular power, a fact even His enemies had to acknowledge. His words comforted, strengthened, and blessed those longing for peace, and lifted hearers to higher thought and action.
His voice was musical, neither strained nor raised, and His words were not rushed together but each word was pronounced distinctly so people could understand Him. He spoke slowly and impressively, with clear emphasis, so that listeners of every age and level of learning could understand Him. His teaching and manner of speaking made a unique impression, for hearers found His words unlike anyone else's.
His teaching was simple, attractive, and authoritative, using familiar figures and earthly examples to explain heavenly things. His words were clear and convincing, spoken with power, astonishing to those who heard His teaching. He brought the living principles of God's law with its matchless principles home to minds and consciences through familiar things and illustrations that made its lessons fresh, clear, and understandable. He expressed truth in clear, simple, forceful language, His answers cleared up misunderstandings, and His words were valuable to seekers of the way, the truth, and the life because they were meant to be received and practiced. Some who heard and believed were later among the converts after His resurrection.
He spoke with grace and truth, and His words made a deep impression on His hearers. Holy, ennobling truths flowed from His lips with heartfelt power and a pathos that touched the heart. His words were words of wisdom, love, and knowledge, tenderly encouraging the weak and afflicted. His simple doctrine sank into hearts and held minds, and His kindness won hearts, and together with His healing and feeding of thousands this led hearers to believe He was the Messiah and strengthened conviction of His divinity.
His words carried the authority of true greatness, and the truth never weakened on His lips. He fearlessly exposed hypocrisy, dishonesty, and deceit and dishonest practices, and denounced teachings that replaced God's commandments with human rules. His words rebuked the sins of those in high authority, commanding respect even as He walked the path of humiliation toward Gethsemane and the cross. With a voice of authority He rebuked the power of Satan and bade His captives go free, and His speech so captivated the officers that they could not lay hands on Him. If His voice were heard in assembly He would condemn judges for carefully objecting to small faults while committing the far greater wrong of cruelty and injustice toward a blind brother.
Content and Authority of Teaching
He taught with authority because He knew He was teaching the truth, not as the scribes taught. He did not repeat their fables and trivial sayings, their empty traditions and uncertain, repetitive instruction, but presented weighty, compelling truths that astonished hearers, appealed to heart and conscience, and carried conviction. As the Sent of God teaching in the temple and in the highways and hedges, proclaiming truth by parables, by tears of sympathy, and by restoring the sick to health and going about doing good, His teaching stood in great contrast to that of the scribes and Pharisees. Though false teaching had confused minds and kept people from fully grasping divine truth, they recognized the uniqueness of His words.
He opened God's Word in its purity and divine beauty after Israel's teachers had obscured it with traditions and human commandments, and spoke words of eternal life. He restored familiar truths that had been obscured, misinterpreted, mixed with error, or separated from their meaning, setting them again in their proper place and showing them in original clarity and beauty. He spoke with complete understanding of His subject and with unmatched wisdom, authority, certainty and power, revealing the full treasure of heaven and truth founded on eternal principles rather than uncertain opinions. He came to seek and save the lost, not to display scientific knowledge, and crowds followed and honored Him as they listened.
His teaching was not aimed at satisfying curiosity, ambition, or selfish desire with abstract theories, speculation, scientific display, or discoveries. It taught what is essential for forming character, knowing God, doing good, living rightly, and joining human life to eternity. It directed minds through His works, His word, and His providence into contact with the Infinite mind, with power to awaken thought, kindle aspiration, and stir every capacity of body, mind, and soul. It gives guidance for every circumstance and crisis of human life, for all people and for all time.
He taught the realities of eternity, the living principles of the law, the new kingdom to be established among people, the call to deny self and take up the cross daily and follow Him, and the way people should walk. Even in simple lessons His divinity shone through His humanity with a freshness, power, and attractiveness no great men of the world could equal, drawing the common people to hear Him gladly. To unprejudiced hearers His words shone like light from heaven so that worldly things faded, and those who prayed for light eagerly received His truth while the proud and self-righteous refused His message. Though many did not clearly comprehend His instruction about the cross, they were moved by deep conviction to declare decidedly that never man spoke like Him.
Source of Unique Power
No one could speak as He did because no one lived as He did. His words carried a convincing power unmatched by any other speaker because they came from the life He lived, from a pure and holy heart full of love, sympathy, beneficence and truth. His manner of speaking could not be separated from His character, for what He said was matched by what He was.
He taught under the inspiration of the Spirit because He was sanctified through the truth, and His speaking is the pattern for all who are sanctified through the truth. When men are baptized by the Holy Spirit they put on the robes of Christ's righteousness and sit at His feet to learn of Him, so that they too speak under the inspiration of the Spirit, and His doctrine astonished the people because He taught with divine authority, not as the scribes. He spoke with complete understanding of His subject, making known the full treasure of heaven's wisdom and knowledge in which every aspect of truth was clear to Him. His words were not uncertain opinions but eternal, unchanging truth firmly grounded on principles that do not change, greater than the unstable claims of human learning. He did not come to display scientific knowledge but to seek and save the lost, presenting spiritual and heavenly truths through nature and experience, nourishing hungry souls and announcing a new kingdom to be established among men, while crowds followed and honored Him as they listened. He restored familiar truths that had been obscured, misinterpreted, mixed with error or separated from their proper meaning, setting them again in their proper place and showing them in their original clarity and beauty.
Those who heard Him recognized in Him a humanity filled with divine glory as He taught in the temple during the feast, so that the officers sent to arrest Him were so impressed by His words and presence that they forgot their mission and commission. His speech bore a divine influence that His opponents could not explain away, though prejudice led the chief priests and rulers to reject the evidence of His Messiahship. The priests and rulers had felt the same conviction and reverence but had stifled the Holy Spirit's influence. His words and prayers expressed the divine will, revealing His unique holiness, glory, love and sympathy, and His words and character revealed the Father.
Responses to His Words
The officers sent to arrest Him were held spellbound by His words and presence, their hearts softened and drawn toward Him though their work among violence and crime had hardened them, and filled with awe and reverence they forgot their mission and commission, stepped back, and returned without Him, unable to treat Him as a criminal or lay hands on Him. They testified that no one had ever spoken as He did, for His words reached their hearts and left lasting impressions. Even as He walked the path of humiliation toward Gethsemane and the cross His pure and holy teaching commanded respect, holding even hostile listeners spellbound and feeling powerless to harm Him, and exalting Him above the religious teachers.
The priests, rulers, and Pharisees felt the same reverence and conviction but stifled the Spirit's influence through self-righteousness, prejudice, envy, malice, and hatred. They shut out the light and refused to be convinced by His words or works, despite the truth and blessings offered to them. They hated the grace that drew the people to Him and resented that sinners listened to Him and could be saved. They accused the officers of being deceived, distorted His teaching and led people away from life, despised the common people and did not expect them to understand the Word or try to explain it so they could understand, and met the testimony with scorn, the claim that none of the rulers had believed on Him, and the charge that the people who listened were cursed.
Many hearers were astonished, convicted, and gladly listened even when they did not fully understand, recognizing that His teaching was unlike anything they had known. His words sank into their hearts, and His sympathy and power revealed a character far above their honored teachers. His miracles of healing, feeding thousands, raising the dead, and healing disease helped draw them and convince them He was not a Sabbath-breaker or blasphemer but the Messiah and divine, frustrating efforts to turn them against Him. His divine grace and power won the disciples' hearts though their love was mixed with pride and ambition, and some who heard and believed later became converts after His resurrection, including thousands converted in a day.
Others persistently refused the light: that generation, blinded by hopes for a temporal kingdom and expecting earthly pomp and national glory, rejected Him and despised His love despite His extraordinary words, mercy, and works. Its refusal of His teaching and the evidence for Him led to ruin and eternal loss by cutting itself off from life. Those stirred and convicted would not surrender traditions and practices and were condemned by that refusal. Even spies and highly cultured opponents who sought to defeat Him were confounded and gained no advantage. Nicodemus, having heard Christ and received light from His teaching, could have joined the officers in bearing witness, and many magistrates and elders did believe on Jesus but Satan kept them from acknowledging Him because they feared the reproach of the people more than they feared God.
Christ’s Identity and Application
The confession that no one ever spoke like this man marks Him as the divine Teacher, the Great Teacher, the Prince of Teachers, and the unsurpassed Educator on earth, above even the most illustrious human teachers. He taught as never man taught, and those who work for God must depend wholly on Him. Those who learn from Him through close association are educated in the highest school, where even humble followers regarded as unlearned gain sound principles, clear perception, and reliable judgment. Those who would become what God intended must enter Christ's school to learn His meekness and humility, and His servants follow His example in seeking the lost, with angels drawing near and the Spirit giving greater knowledge of the best ways to serve. His words direct people to seek eternal treasure rather than earthly wealth.
His word is God's word and law throughout the universe, the final authority in every controversy in heaven and on earth. His words belong to Him as the light giving light to every person, and the truth and promises of God's Word bring joy to hearts surrendered to God while the unrenewed mind finds no pleasure in them. His words reveal God's love for the world and call disciples to show that love by loving others as He loved them. He promises to act when followers ask in His name so that the Father is glorified, and He links love for Him with keeping His commandments. No one spoke as He did, and no one lived or died as He did, for He lived without equal and died not as a martyr or merely as an example but as a sacrifice. His gentle manner and divine majesty accompanied words and works that brought healing, life, joy, and rest, and His words and prayers expressed the divine will, revealing unique holiness, glory, love, and sympathy.
He was an Educator on earth, and after His resurrection He continued as Educator to the lonely, disappointed disciples traveling to Emmaus and to those gathered in the upper chamber, opening the Scriptures concerning Himself and giving sacred hope and joy. That same grand work of instruction goes on from the Holy of Holies, where He officiates in the sanctuary and, with angels communicating to people, works upon human hearts. His voice is still to be heard, so conscience must be kept tender enough to hear even its faintest whisper. Hearing Him frees from social custom and bondage to show true colors when faith is at stake even if called singular, to wear His yoke with inflexible purpose to do right because it is right, and to keep the eye fixed on Jesus testing every step by whether it is the Lord's way, with assurance that none who does this will be left to become the sport of temptation.
His speaking is the pattern for all sanctified through the truth, for He taught under the inspiration of the Spirit because He was sanctified through the truth, teaching with divine authority not as the scribes. When people are baptized by the Holy Spirit they put on Christ's righteousness and sit at His feet to learn, so that they too speak under the Spirit's inspiration. His disciples, though regarded as unlearned, received the highest education by learning at His feet, and even those highly educated in human arts and sciences could learn precious lessons from them. Their connection with God gives clearer, broader, more penetrating discernment and better-balanced judgment even with little book learning, and Christians are to represent His character so the world recognizes they have been with Him. When the Word alone is taken as God's voice to man, clothed with power and majesty and opened in clear, forcible arguments revealing truth in simplicity, hearers feel divine power and confess that no mere man speaks like this. Such preaching stops human subtlety and artifice and clogs mere reasoning, in contrast to empty, Christless declamations filled with human opinions, traditions, and testimonies of the fathers, and it tears away superstition, unbelief, ignorance, formality, and ministerial control to free people held in bondage.
Truth is not decided by whether priests and rulers or good, intelligent leading men receive it, and refusing God's message because trusted leaders have not united with it repeats the rejection of Christ. The officers were held by His speaking and would not bring Him, and their testimony was met with scorn, the charge of deception, the claim that none of the rulers believed, and the charge that the listening people were cursed. That same appeal that no rulers or Pharisees believed remains a great barrier when many hold back because the learned and ruling classes have not joined, despising lowly believers while the enemy sows tares among the wheat to give excuse. Work must therefore not cast the net only for the most objectionable class but must labor more earnestly for people of ability and talents, who if converted will become channels of light, with faithful medical missionary work bringing many conversions among the higher classes.