Christ as Separate from the World
H. Bushnell, D. D. Hebrews 7:26-28 For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;… With us of to-day it is the commendation of Jesus that He is so profoundly humbled, identified so affectingly with our human state. But the power He had with the men of His time moved in exactly the opposite direction, being the impression He made of His remoteness and separateness from men, when He was, in fact, only a man, as they supposed, under all human conditions. With us it is the wonder that He is brought so low. With them that He could seem to rise so high, for they knew nothing as yet of His person, considered as the incarnate Word of the Father. What I propose, then, for my present subject is — The separateness of Jesus from men; the immense power it had and must ever have on their feeling and character. I do not mean by this that Christ was separated as being at all withdrawn, but only that, in drawing Himself most closely to them, He was felt by them never as being on their level of life and character, but as being parted from them by an immense chasm of distance. These impressions were not due, as I have said, to any distinct conceptions they had of Him as being a higher nature incarnate, for not, even His disciples took up any such definite conceptions of His nature till after His death and ascension. It was guessed, indeed, that He might be Elias, or some one of the old .prophets, but we are only to see, in such struggles of conjecture, how powerfully He has already impressed the sense of His distinction or separateness of character, for such guesses or conjectures were even absurd, unless they were instigated by previous impressions of something very peculiar in His unearthly manner requiring to be accounted for. His miracles had undoubtedly something to do with the impression of His separateness from ordinary men, hut a great many others, who were strictly human, have wrought miracles without creating any such gulf between them and mankind as we discover here. It is probably true also that the rumour of His being the Messiah — the great., long-expected Prince and Deliverer — had something to do in raising the impressions of men concerning Him. But their views of the Messiah to come had prepared them to look only for some great hero and deliverer, and a kind of political millennium under His kingdom. There was nothing in their expectation that should separate Him specially from mankind as being a more than humanly superlative character. I. Pursuing, then, our inquiry, let us notice, in the first place, How THE PERSONS MOST REMOTE AND OPPOSITE, EVEN THEY THAT FINALLY CONSPIRED HIS DEATH, WERE IMPRESSED OR AFFECTED BY HIM. They deny His Messiahship; they charge that only Beelzebub could help Him to do His miracles; they are scandalised by His familiarity with publicans and sinners and other low people; they arraign His doctrine as a heresy against many of the most sacred laws of their religion; they charge Him with the crime of breaking their Sabbath, and even with excess in eating and drinking; and yet we can easily see that there is growing up, in their minds, a most peculiar awe of His person. And it appears to he excited more by His manners and doctrine and a certain indescribable originality and sanctity in both, them by anything else. II. TURN NOW, SECONDLY, TO THE DISCIPLES, AND OBSERVE HOW THEY WERE IMPRESSED OR AFFECTED BY THE MANNER AND SPIRIT OF JESUS. And here the remarkable thing is, that they appear to be more and more impressed with the distance between Him and themselves the longer they know Him, and the more intimate and familiar their acquaintance with Him. III. WHAT NOW IS THE SOLUTION OF THIS PROFOUND IMPRESSION OF SEPARATENESS MADE BY CHRIST ON THE WORLD? That His miracles and the repute of His Messiahship do not wholly account fur it we have already observed. It may be imagined by some that He produced this impression artificially, by means of certain scenes and observances designed to widen out the distance between Him and the race; for how could He otherwise obtain that power over them which He was properly entitled to, have by His own real eminence, unless He took some pains to set them in attitudes in which His eminence might be felt. In o her words, if He is to have more than a man's power, He must somehow be more than a man. Thus, when He says to, His mother, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come"; or when, being notified that His mother and brethren are standing without waiting to see Him, He asks, "Who, then, is My mother, and who are My brethren?" it will be imagined that He is purposely suggesting His higher derivation and His more transcendent affinities. But, even if it were so, it must be understood only that He is speaking out of His spiritual consciousness, claiming thus affinity with God, and with those who shall embrace Him in the eternal brotherhood of faith; now, as boasting the height of His natural Sonship. The remarkable separation. therefore, of Christ from the sinners of mankind, and the impression He awakened in them of that separation, was made, not by scenes, nor by words of assertion, nor by anything designed for that purpose, but it grew out of His life and character — His unworldliness, holiness, purity, truth, love; the dignity of His feeling, the transcendent wisdom and grace of His conduct. He was manifestly one that stood apart from the world in His profoundest human sympathy with it. He often spent His night, in solitary prayer, closeted with God in the recesses of the mountains. He was plainly not under the world, or any fashions of human opinion. He was able to be singular, without apparently desiring it, and by the simple force of His superiority. 1. How great a thing now is it that such a Being has come into our world and lived in it — a Being above mortality while in it — a Being separate from sinners, bringing unto sinners by a fellow-nature what is transcendent and even deific in the Divine holiness and love. Yes, we have had a visitor among us, living, out, in the moulds of human conduct and feeling, the perfections of God! What an importation of glory, and truth! Who that lives a man can ever, after this, think it a low and common thing to fill these spheres, walk in these ranges of life, and do these works of duty which have been raised so high by the life of Jesus in the flesh? The world is no more the same that it was. All its main ideas and ideals are raised, b kind of sacred glory invests even our humblest spheres and most common concerns. 2. Consider, again, as one of the points deducible from the truth we have been considering, how little reason is given us, in the mission of Christ, toe the hope that God, who has such love to man, will not allow us to fail of salvation by reason of any mere defect or neglect of application to Christ. What, then, does this peculiar separateness of Christ signify? Coming into the world to save it — taking on Him our nature that He may draw Himself as close to us as possible — what is growing all the while to be more and more felt in men's bosoms but a sense of ever-widening, ever-deepening, and, in some sense, incommunicable separateness from Him? And this, you will observe, is the separateness, not of condition, but of character. Nay, it grows out of His very love to us in part and His profound oneness with us, for it is a love so pure and gentle — so patient, so disinterested, so self-sacrificing — that it parts Him from us in the very act of embrace, and makes us think of Him even with awe! How, then, will it be when He is met in the condition of His glory, and the guise of His humanity is laid off? There is nothing then to put Him at one with us or us at one with Him, but just that incommunicable and separate character which fills us even here with dread. If He was separate before, how inevitably, insupportably separate now. 3. Consider, also, and accurately distinguish, as here we may easily do, what is meant by holiness, and what especially is its power, or the law of its power. Holiness is not what we may do or become in mere self-activity or self-culture, but it is the sense of a separated qualify in one who lives on a footing of intimacy and oneness with God. 4. But the great and principal lesson derivable from this subject is, that Christianity is a regenerative power upon the world only as it comes into the world in a separated character — as a revelation or sacred importation of holiness. This brings me to speak of what is now the great and desolating error of our times. I mean the general conformity of the followers of Christ to the manners and ways, and, consequently, in a great degree, to the spirit of the world. Christ had His power, as we have seen, in the fact that He carried the impression of His separateness from it and His superiority to it. He was no ascetic, His separation no contrived and prescribed separation, but was only the more real and radical that it was the very instinct or freest impulse of His character. A true Christian, one who is deep enough in the godly life to have his affinities with God, will infallibly become a separated being, The instinct of holiness will draw him apart into a singular, superior, hidden life with God. And this is the true Christian power, besides which there is no ,thee. And when this fails everything goes with it. Neither let us be deceived in this matter by our merely notional wisdoms, or deliberative judgments, for it is not a mat,st to be decided by any consideration of Jesuits — the question never is, what is really harmful, and so wrong, but what will meet the living and free instinct of a life of prayer and true godliness? There is no greater mistake, as regards the true manner of impression on the world, than that we impress it being homogeneous with it. If in our dress we show the same extravagance, if our amusements are theirs without a distinction, if we follow after their shows, copy their manners, busy ourselves in their worldly objects, emulate their fashions, what are we different from them? It seems quite plausible to fancy the great honour we shall put on religion, when we are able to set it on a footing with all most worldly things, and show that we can be Christians in that plausible way. This we call liberal piety. It is such as can excel in all high tastes, and make up a figure of beauty that must needs be a great commendation, we think, to religion. It may be a little better than to be openly apostate; but alas I there is how little power in such a kind of life! If we are to impress the world we must be separate from sinners, even as Christ our Master was, -r at least according to our human degree, as being in His Spirit. Oh, that we could take our lesson here, and plan our life, order our pursuits, choose our relaxations, prepare our families, so as to be truly with Christ, and so, in fact, that we ourselves can say, each for himself, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." And this exactly is our communion with Jesus; we propose to be one with Him in it. In it we connect with a Power transcendent, the Son of Man in glory, whose image we aspire to, and. whose mission, as the Crucified on earth, was the revelation of the Father's love and holiness. We ask to be separated with Him and set apart to the same great life. (H. Bushnell, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; WEB: For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;