What the Nazareth Years Did for Jesus

Abstract

JESUs emerged from Nazareth a mature personality, a personality of a mold sufficiently large not to be overwhelmed by the consciousness of messiahship (at whatever time that consciousness began), and possessed of a moral character sufficiently well established to be able to withstand the fierce temptations that, in the nature of the case, such a Messiah as Jesus had to meet. We do not sufficiently realize that Jesus' conception of what a Messiah ought to be, and of the kind of kingdom that he ought to found, was the product of his personal religious life and character. To Jesus messiahship was not a mere office whose functions were clearly defined and such as could be performed by any naturally forceful and intellectually competent messianic aspirant. Jesus wrought out a conception of messiahship that was essentially moral and that was an expression of his own moral character. He had a profound and unique personal religious experience that no cheap conception of messiahship could ever satisfy. He became the kind of Messiah that he was because of the personal character that he possessed. This personal religious life and character had been previously developed in Nazareth. It is not to be supposed that all development had ceased before Jesus' baptism. The subsequent months, culminating in so profound a personal experience as that of Gethsemane and the death-suffering on the cross, cannot have been without effect upon the personal religious life and character of Jesus as well as upon the destiny of the world. But the fact remains that at the beginning of his public life he was possessed of a mature personal character capable of forming a divine conception of messiahship and of resisting fierce temptation. This is what we should expect, for we are coming