Personal revelation
We must never forget the person of Jesus in the work of revelation
Patrick Henry Reardon is a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity
T
he teaching of Jesus was inseparable from his person. In The way , the truth and the life
the gospel we do not find our Lord appealing to universally When we look at Jesus, we are faced with something radically
available religious truths, truths that could stand on their different. All who heard him recognized that he taught as ‘One
own, truths accessible to man’s mind apart from his teaching of having authority.’ Jesus expounded no truths transcendent to him-
them, truths that could outlive the person who spoke them. It is self: what he taught was otherwise unknowable and inaccessible.
essential to grasp this fact, because it indicates an essential dif- Indeed, how would we know that we have a heavenly Father
ference between Jesus and other religious founders. who loves and cares for us, except on the testimony of Jesus? Is
To illustrate this difference we may take the example of Sid- this an obvious or otherwise available truth? Again, if Jesus had
dartha Gautama some six centuries earlier. When Gautama not mentioned the fact, how would we know that the very hairs of
gathered his disciples to listen to his Deer Park Sermon, he cer- our head are all numbered? Is it really self-evident, after all, that
tainly appealed to his own experience of a revelation. He referred God has even the slightest regard for every sparrow that falls? Or
to his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and expounded to his that a loving Father clothes in beauty the flowers of the field? We
followers the meaning of that experience. He defined Dependent know these things for one reason only, that Jesus told us so.
Causation and explained how to be delivered from it. Thus, the religious message of Jesus is inseparable from the
authority of his own person, his own ‘I’. This ‘I’ is central to his
The essential difference message and permeates the whole of it. Jesus’ teaching is founded
Some historians of comparative religion are of the opinion that on the proclamation, ‘But I say to you.’ This ‘I’ is the founda-
this is essentially what Jesus did. Although they recognize a dif- tional component of the message, because Our Lord’s doctrine
ference in the objective content of the two efforts, they imagine stands or falls with himself. Jesus not only taught us that we have
that the Deer Park Sermon and the Sermon on the Mount have a Father in heaven, but he also claimed to be, in his own person,
this in common, that both preachers were simply expounding the sole access to that Father.
their religious theories. The problem here is that neither Gau-
tama nor Jesus would agree with this assessment of the matter. No resurrection, no gospel
With respect to Gautama, it is important to observe that he This inseparability of Jesus and his teaching was, I submit, a
never thought of himself as essential to his own message. Indeed, major part of the crisis of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. While
he made a point of saying that his religious experience was avail- his dead body lay in the tomb, none of what he said could stand
able to anyone who followed in his footsteps. He asked no one to on its own. The authority that Jesus had claimed, to all human
believe in him as the exclusive channel of his teaching. appearance, died with him. If death were the last word about
On the contrary, Gautama was persuaded that the Four Noble Jesus’ life, the Sermon on the Mount would be nothing but reli-
Truths would be just as true if he had never discovered them. gious theory or plain old make-believe.
What he had to say about the Chain of Causation would be just The teaching of Jesus, as well as the faith of those who
as valid, he believed, if he had never mentioned it. Gautama believed that teaching, seemed radically discredited by the
claimed to teach truths independent of himself and transcend- event of Calvary. The Apostle Paul perceived this clearly when
ent to his teaching of them. In short, Gautama never claimed to he wrote that if Christ was not raised, we of all men are the
be the way, the truth, and the life. most to be pitied.
ND
Sacred vision Noli me tangere
T
he Noli me tangere in cell 1 of the earthbound and reaching out as though
Convent of San Marco is remarkable to touch the intangible; and Jesus, with
among all the frescoes for its love of detail. the hoe over his shoulder, floating,
Was it, perhaps, the work of a hand other dancing almost (note the balletic cross-
than Fra Angelico’s? step of those wounded feet).
It is known that other artists worked on He is visible to her, and clearly bound
the cycle, and that one of them was Benozzo to her with bonds of real affection (the
Gozzuoli, the painter of the jewel-box Chapel forbidding gesture of the outstretched
of the Magi in the Palazzo Rucellai, the hand is also gentle and consoling). But
Medici residence in Florence. A comparison he is already in another place and world.
of the rendering here of trees and of the He is about to ascend to the Father.
flower-strewn meadow with similar details Spring is apparent in the verdure
from the palazzo have persuaded some. which his feet do not touch. It will be
But the fascination of the picture lies not to Mary, when he is gone, a sign that
in the depiction of the garden – so neatly resurrection affects and changes the
fenced against the forest outside – but in the whole created universe.
figures: Mary, statuesque and monumental, Mark Stevens
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newdirections
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April 2007
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