272.  It is highly significant that the gospel which records most fully the claim of Jesus to be more closely related to God than he was to men, most fully records also his definite acknowledgment of dependence on his Father, and of that Father’s supremacy over him and all others.  “The Son can do nothing of himself” (John v. 19), “I speak not from myself” (xiv. 10), “my Father is greater than all” (x. 29), “the Father is greater than I” (xiv. 28),—­these confessions join with the common reference to God as “him that sent me” (v. 30 and often) in giving voice to his own spirit of reverence.  It appears as clearly in his habitual submission to his Father’s will,—­“My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish his work” (John iv. 34); “I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John vi. 38).  This submission reached its fulness in the prayer of Gethsemane, recorded in the earlier gospels,—­“Father, all things are possible unto thee; remove this cup from me:  howbeit not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark xiv. 36).  Jesus was a man of prayer; not only in Gethsemane, but also throughout his ministry he habitually sought his Father in that communion in which the soul of man finds its light and strength for life’s duty.  When he was baptized (Luke iii. 21), after the first flush of success in Capernaum (Mark i. 35), before choosing the twelve (Luke vi. 12), before the question at Caesarea Philippi (Luke ix. 18), at the transfiguration (Luke ix. 29), on the cross (Luke xxiii. 46),—­at all the crises of his life he turned to God in prayer.  Moreover, prayer was his habit, for it was after a night of prayer which has no connection with any crisis reported for us (Luke xi. 1), that he taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer in response to their requests.  The prayer beside the grave of Lazarus (John xi. 41, 42) suggests that his miracles were often, if not always (compare Mark ix. 29), preceded by definite prayer to God.  His habit of prayer was the natural expression of his trust in God.  From the resistance to the temptations in the wilderness to the last cry, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” his life is an example of childlike faith in God.

273.  Yet throughout his life of obedience and trust Jesus never gave one indication that he felt the need of penitence when he came before God.  He perceived as no one else has ever done the searching inwardness of God’s law, and demanded of men that they tolerate no lower ambition than to be like God, yet he never breathed a sigh of conscious failure, or gave sign that he blushed when the eternal light shone into his own soul.  He was baptized, but without confession of sin.  He challenged his enemies to convict him of sin (John viii. 46).  Such a challenge might have rested on a man’s certainty that his critics did not know his inner life; but hypocrisy has no place in the character of Jesus.  The reply to the rich young ruler, “Why callest