The Jewish Messiah, in the belief of the Jewish people, was to be a monarch and a conqueror; his kingdom was to be an earthly kingdom, and his glory, gathered first from the conquest, and then from the sovereignty of the whole world, was to be earthly glory.

Such a creed to a youthful heart, must have been powerfully seductive. A throne, a crown, and the empire of a world, might well have kindled ambition in the dullest soul. But Jesus of Nazareth never aspired to sovereignty, of wealth, or earthly glory of any kind. He collected no armies and no instruments and resources of war; he invaded no territory and assumed no state such as became a warrior or a prince. The idea that the love of conquest, or of the splendors and pomp of royalty, the love of fame or of worldly power, ever had a place in his mind, is utterly destitute of support. It is even in the face of all the evidence. No part of his conduct, none of his proceedings, and none of his sayings, awaken such a suspicion. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he declared to Pontius Pilate; “If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered unto the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.” If he had it in his heart to be a king, and he certainly had, it was to be a king not of bodies, but of souls; if he aspired to reign, it was to reign not over men, but in them, in their judgments, affections, and consciences. “I am come,” he said, “light into the world.” “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” The only weapon of which he made use was spiritual truth; he did nothing but teach. His life, his words, all the manifestations of his character, are consistent only with the design to achieve, not a material, but a moral conquest, and to effect not a political, but a spiritual revolution in the world. He had risen to the conception of a purely spiritual reign, the conception of a palace and a throne for God in the soul of man, the conception of the regeneration of man’s inward nature, and the free and glad restoration of that nature to the unseen, but living and ever-present Father of souls.

We have looked only at one side of the popular faith. Viewed from an opposite side, the originality and individuality of Christ’s idea will be still more apparent. The Messiah, in the belief of the Jewish nation, was to be not only a monarch, but emphatically a Jewish monarch; reigning, indeed, over all the kingdoms of the world, but acknowledging a peculiar relation to the ancient people; his throne being in Jerusalem, and his ministers and distinguished servants, Jews. This belief at a time when they were laboring under a foreign yoke, had become tenfold more dear; every feeling of patriotism was enlisted on its side, in circumstances when, if ever, patriotism is genuine and fervid; not to say that, in this case, patriotism was invested with the sanctity of religion. Last of all, the popular faith harmonized with the deep hereditary contempt of the Jews for the rest of mankind, with their settled persuasion of the distinction which God had made between them and all other nations, and with their long-cherished anticipations of permanent and undisputed pre-eminence. Nothing can be more clear than that, to oppose a belief so deep-seated, to crush hopes so sacred, to disown the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, and to look with equal favor on both, was to invite unmeasured and relentless hatred, and certain disgrace and defeat. If Jesus had meant to ingratiate himself with his countrymen, his course would have been to sympathize with their creed and their hopes.

But, independently of any personal or public object which he might have in view, how could he have failed to adopt as his own, the faith of his country in this matter? He had been brought up, like others, in all the common views; he must have heard them often from his mother’s lips, from grave and pious men also, and especially in the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath days. There is no reason to think that he can have heard anything but the common views, from his infancy upward. But he had risen, nevertheless, to a purer and loftier faith, and somehow had formed for himself quite a novel and original idea of the character of the Messiah. “The hour cometh,” he said to the woman of Samaria, “when neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, ye shall worship the Father; . . . when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” Religion to him, and the bonds of religious fellowship, were not national, but spiritual; connected, not with place or people, but with the state of the soul. He believed in something more dear than country, more dear than even the closest of earthly relationships. “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.” “They shall come from the east and from the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” God’s kingdom and his own mission, as he understood it, embraced the world, and was designed, not to confer peculiar distinctions on a single nation, but to originate and diffuse blessings to which all nations alike should be welcome. His idea was catholic, as it was purely spiritual. Born and educated a Jew, associating only with Jews, never beyond the limits of Judea in his life, whence had he derived this idea, whence caught this spirit? how gained this expansion and nobility of soul, how reached this large, and lofty, and Godlike faith?

That poor young man whose external history we have looked upon, was alone in his country, in his age, in the world. His great soul rose above religious prejudices and errors, and above all national, educational, and social influences. He stood forth not a Jew, but a man to fulfill a high and purely spiritual mission; embracing not Judea only, but the world; not a nation only, but universal humanity. 

– John Young, The Christ of History