SUNDAY READING,

Taranaki Daily News, 18 March 1922, Page 9

SUNDAY READING,

“JESUS CHRIST, HIS ONLY SON-. OUR LORO." “What think ye of the Christ?” —Saint Matthew, XXII., 42. (By Rev. A. H. Coiling, New i'lymuuth.) Professor Henry Drummond has discoursed with piercing insight and wonderful charm on charity as “the greatest thing in the world.” Our text is concerned with the greatest question in the world: “What think ye of the Christ ?” It is. this question which has pervaded the history of Christendom, and has appeared in a hundred heresies and speculations and controversies, and is still held to be vital and determinative. The interest in this question bears witness to a remarkable instinct in the hearts of men that this is the supreme, issue of all that affects the spiritual life. It is the Person of Christ, and His relation to God and man, that presses for decision. The answer of “the Apostles’ Creed” is unequivocal and sure: “Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord.” It underlines in red ink the claim of Jesus to be the Perfect Revelation of the character of God, in terms of human possibility, and the Saviour of the world.

Centuries later the creed of Nicaea burst into poetry on the same subject, and declared Christ to be “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being 'of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made.” It sounds like a fanfare of trumpets, or the roll of a thousand drums. IS IT TRUE? I| is magnificent, but is it true? Is it true for us? Now» the men of this generation, are in little ’danger of forgetting the true and perfect Humanity of Jesus Christ. There has been a remarkable revival of interest in the homes and haunts of Jesus. Gifted writers, like Farrar and Geikie, Beecher and Stalker, Watson and Campbell, and Patterson Smythe, have explored the life of Christ, and given us the sifted results in volumes that have enjoyed a circulation second only to the most popular novels. The results are self-evi-dent. The real, living, historical Jesus has gripped the imagination of the world. The awakening of social service, the better equipment of hospitals, the revival of nursing, the softening of harsh laws, the growth of mutual forbearance and courtesy, the deepening horror of war, are some of the fruits following a closer and exacter study of the Life of Lives. And still the work of exploration goes on, for, as Carlyle said, “the life of Christ is of quite perennial, infinite chara ter. and its significance will ever demand to be anew enquired into and anew made manifest.” But Christ’s influence has been most deep and most enduring in the realm of religion. For He made religion spiritual instead of ritualistic and ceremonial. universal instead of local, reasonable instead of magical, humane instead of repellant, sublime instead of trivial. 'He gave to the world the mag nificent dowry of faith in one> common Father of the race, and one bond of universal brotherhood. He discovered the child. He raised woman from the position of a toy or a tool and made her man’s companion and equal. He freed the slave. He robbed death of its terror. He confirmed man’s dream of immortality. and opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. NO DIVINER SYMBOL. Love has no diviner symbol than the Good Shepherd. Beneficence has no ideal more perfect than Christ’s word: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Fidelity has no loftier standard than a life' laid down for His dear sake. Sacrifice has no dream higher than His cross. Small wonder that He who has done this should hold the minds of men and compel them to face up to the question: “What think ye of the Christ?” Small wonder that He haunts the hearts of thoughtful men the world over. Small wonder that we simply cannot politely bow Him out of our life. Our conception of God and man, of life and duty, of time and eternity, ultimately depends on our conception o2 “Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord.” Christ is Christianity. Make Him central and orthodoxy will take care of itself. To use Maclaren’s figure, plant one foot of your compass on Christ, the Eternal Son* of God, and then with the other foot of the compass you may describe a circle as wide as you will, and it will not be too wide. To bo right with Jesus Christ is to be right in all that makes life noble and heaven sure. THE MIRACLES. But there are those who say they could better understand Christ if the miraculous element were struck out. The doctrines of the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, stumble them. One of the Roman Emperors instroduced a statue of Christ into his private chapel. Gibbon tells the story thus: “Alexander Serverus placed in his domestic chapel the statues of Abraham. Orpheus. Appolonius, and Christ, as an honor justly due to these respectable sages, who had instructed mankind in various methods of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.” To Alexander Serverus, Jesus Christ was a respectable sage! Jesus Christ was one of a row of respectable sages! That is still where some would place Him. Jesus Christ was a very wise and good man, and one of many Saviours!

“One in a Judaean manger, and one by Avon stream, One over against the mouth of the w Nile, and one in the Academe.” Against this dishonor done to Christ “the creed*' peals out its ringing challenge: “Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord,” and yet more emphatically the creed of Nicaea: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with I the Father, by Whom all things were ! made.” The first article of the Apostles’ I Creed does not end with the affirmation: I “I believe in God the Father.” It pro- I ceeds: “And in Jesus Christ His only i Son our Lord.” The first and second i clauses are united by a conjunction, with only a comma between, and they are so joined because the clauses are mutually dependent. Give up belief in the eternal Sonship of Christ, and Divine Fatherhood becomes, nothing more than a guess, a speculation, a tantalising perhaps. The answer to the riddle of the universe is God: the answer to the riddle of God is Jesus Christ. Creation suggests a Creator. Conscience suggests a Holy Judge. Reason suggests an intelligent First Cause. But neither reveal God’s love, and it is for that the heart hungers and craves. Wbe»> cried: z ‘Show us the Father” »•<* ‘ for the race. We believe >»» (,OJ ,lp Father on the authority am’ b’ relation of “Jesus Christ our Lord.”

RELATIONSHIP TO GOD. Why on His authority? Why should we accept His ipsi dixit as final? Why stake everything on what He said? Simply because the whole Christian Church, east and west, Protestant Greek and Roman Catholic, believe that Jesus Christ holds a solitary, unique, eternal relation to God, But that raises the further question, why has the church believed this? What ground have we for believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God in an absolutely unique, unshared and solitary sense? A sketchanswer is all I dare hope to. give. Scripture and experience alike demand the doctrine of Christ’s Deity to explain His unique personality and influence. The titles given to Him, the attributes claimed by Him, the works He wrought, the life He lived, the death He died, and the power He wields in the world leave us nothing to say save this, that Jesus Christ is the best, the brav- . est, the purest of the sons of men, and the most manifestly Divine of all the sons of God, and that He alone is worthy to be Leader and Lord, Teacher and Saviour of Men. He holds the key to the Christian position. If He be not “God manifest in the flesh,” then not only is our hope of forgiveness a delusion, but our gratitude is changed to moral resentment at the crime of punishing the innocent for the guilty, and His death is changed from a glorious sacrifice into a judicial murder. JESUS’ DEITY. The Gospels s£ate and imply His Deity. He claimed to be not only different but superior to other men, and even when this is not explicitly stated it is assumed. He prayed for His disciples but never with them. He taught them to confess their sins and seek forgiveness, but He never confessed sin. He claimed to be sinless. “Which of you convicteth me of sin?” Our conviction of Jesus Christ’s Deity does not rest on proof texts, or an infallible church, or an errorless Book. Our conviction rests on His holy character and moral supremacy. The romance of the ages has nothing so marvellous as the most prosaic/ version of His life. Child of a village maiden, born in obscurity, nursed in poverty, hated by the rich, resisted by the pl%ud, persecuted by the priests, rejected by the multitude, done to death by the Romans, yet He has lifted Empires off their hinges, turned the currents of history, and reached a throne and dominion such as Caesar never knew! WHAT HE TAUGHT. Think! Hp taught repentance, yet never repented! He warned against the sin of idolatry, yet accepted worship! He commanded humility, yet made Himself the subject of repeated discourses! His words are marked by transparent simplicity and unfathomable depth—- “ Almighty and omniscient epigrams,” as one says. There is no sign of effort, no strain, no hint of “the stone of language scraped smooth by the glass of critical taste.” His words are creative. With a word, He created the church; with another, baptism; with another, the Lord’s Supper! In a few sentences, He made humility, “that violet of the soul,” the sign of greatness. He created new sources of consolation and bequeathed the millions rich men have given to the sick and poor. His words set rivers of charity' running. He found prayer caged within the wire of routine, and hound by cords of verbal ligatures, and He opened the cage and cut the cord, so that the prayer bird soars and sings skyward! He breathed a few words on the morning air, and lo! an unending succession of martyrs were ready to lead forlorn hopes, fearing only lest He should be ashamed of them! He said: “The Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sin.” and millions of sinful men have died in peace! “All hail the power of Jesus’ Name!” HE IS THE MIRACLE. I have said nothing of Christ’s -miracles, lie is the Miracle. He rules in the empire of the world’s thought. He found the mind of Judaea like a lake without a ripple, and left it heaving and tossing like an ocean in a storm. He is still King in the realm of transforming ideas. He rules in the empire of the heart, and every day dying men invoke His Name with a smile of deathless love. He rules in the empire of the soul, for men—the best and the most thoughtful men—find in Him all they could ever wish or hope to find in God. Professor Huxley once said: “I protest that if some great power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of clock and wound up every morning, I should instantly close with the offer." Drummond answered the challenge in his booklet “The Changed Life”: “I propose to make that offer now, in all seriousness, without being turned into a sort of clock.” Then he proceeded to show how Jesus Christ enables men to think what is true and do what is right. He opens new springs of life, refashions and recreates the soul. To quote the words of R. J. Campbell: “Jesus is all the manifestation of God T am able to understand to all eternity. My Father need never be any better than I have found my Saviour to be.”

“What think ye of Christ?” What do you think was His supreme purpose on earth? Did He come to supplement 'ho Hebrew religion, to perfect the Ten Commandments, to broaden the world’s charity? Was He Ylie world’s Model Teacher, its most intrepid Leader, the “Beautiful Syrian Saint,” “a Respectable Sage,” and nothing more? What is He to you? A Name you learned to lisp at your mother’s knee, a Shadow to whom you are almost ashamed to pray, a familiar Nobody enswathed in the golden mist of the dim receding past! Is that all ? For me He is Saviour, Brother. Friend, and without Him my days would be ghosts, my tasks impossible, and the end”a dreadful nightmare. With Saint Thomas T cry: “My Lord and My God/