SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1922, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

THE TRUE HUMANITY OF JESUS. “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God; every Spirit which confesseth that Jesus -Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every Spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God.” r-I. John IV., 2-3. (By Rev. A. H. Collins, New Plymouth). Saint John was combatting the grave error that assailed the early Church, the denial of the true and perfect humanity of Jesus. The men and women who companioned with Christ in the days of His flesh had I no doubt about His Deity. They had heard Jdis words, witnessed His deeds, and felt the influence of His unique life. He had thrilled their hearts and pardoned their sins. He had done for them what only God could do. and their difficulty was not His Deity, but His Humanity. Their difficulty was to understand how, being God, Jesus Christ cauld be a real man. That was the problem Saint John had in mind when he penned this arresting passage. The Gnostics, suffering a bad attack of “intellectualitis,” argued that it was incredible that God should take flesh and dwell in a body. Matter was essentially evil, and to say that God became incarnate was like saying light and darkness could dwell together. Hence the Gnostic heresy that the body of Jesus was simply a phantom form. Later, that is to say in the fourth century, Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodieea, a very acute and able man, held that Jesus had a h-urtan body and a human soul, but not a human spirit. Later yet came one Eutyches. who taught that the nature of our Lord was neither human nor Divine, but an amalgam of both. It was against the Gnostic error Saint John wrote: “Every Spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every Spirit which confesseth not Jesus, is not of God.” And, it was the teaching of tee Gnostics and others which “the Apostles’ Creed” condemned in the clause that reads “Conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Bilate, crucified, dead and buried.” The words are vert clear and ve’y strong. Look at this string of verbs: “Conceived,” “born,” “suffered,” “crucified,” “died,” “buried.” They describe human experiences. They breathe of mortality. They-are experiences through which Jesus passed asjthe Son of Mary. I know how devout shrink from admitting Christ’s real and complete humanity, lest it should imperil His Deity. JESUS WAS A MAN.

But if there is one fact writ large across the pages of the Gospels, it is. that Jesus was a Man. The historic’ Jesus was as real as Julius Caesar, or William the Conqueror, or Napoleon, and He was more perfectly human than they. Moreover, the truth of our Lord's humanity is as truly part of the Christian Gospel as the truth of His Deity. The one doctrine is the assurance that our help is laid on One that is Mighty;, the other doctrine pledges to us His perfect sympathy. Nor is the thought that God should take upon Him our flesh and submit Himself to human limitations, as incredible as some suppose. It seems to me not only credible, but supremely reasonable and probable Assuming the existence of God, is it not rational to expect that He would reveal Himself?. As Dr. Illingworth says: “We cannot conceive a Person creating persons except with a view to hold intercourse \vith them when created.” But if God is to show Himself fully it must be by a person. I cannot hold fellowship with a stone, for our natures differ. I can only have partial fellowship with a dog, for we touch but slightly. I can have fellowship with a man, for our Nature is kin. God can show His power in €h<\ material universe; His wisdom in the fields of history; His justice in the realm of conscience, but His love could only find expression in a person, a person like “the Man Christ Jesus.” If there had been no Incarnation, the world would have been waiting for it, for the simple reason that it is the felt need of the human heart. That is what Browning means in his great poem “Saul”: —

“’Tie the weakness in strength that I cry for! Mv flesh that I seek. Th the God-head! I'seek and I find it. Oh! Saul, it shall be, A Face like My face that receives thee, A Man like to Me. Thou ehalt love, and beloved be for ever: A Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee, See the Christ stands!” Thus, too, Alfred Tennyson sings: “And so the Word had breath, and wrought With humariTiands the creed of creeds, Tn loveliness of perfect deeds More strong than all poetic thought. That Hp might see who binds the sheaf, And digs the grave, and sails the sea, And those wild eyes that' watch the waves In roaring round the coral reef.” GOD MADE MANIFEST. T say, then, that, so far from being incredible, it seems inevitable that God the Father would show Himself to men. Like the instinct for God. the instinct for “God manifest in the flesh” is well nigh universal. You will find evidence of it in religions outside Christianity. The Greeks and other races had their stories of the coming of the gods in human guise, and these myths and dreams all point to the crave of the human heart for “God made manifest in the flesh.” They are foregleams and foretokens of what actually . came to pass in Jesus Christ. They pointed forward to the Bethlehem idyll- They were rays of that “light which lighteth every man who eometh into the world.” I am not unmindful of the controversy that has raged around the Virgin Birth. I know in some measure the pros and eons of that great mystery. Those who deny the supernormal in any form will continue to. stumble at this. All I can say is this, that unique personality demanded a unique -birth. But admitting the possibility and probability of the Incarnation. whft-t is the evidence that Jesus was God incarnate in the Virgin Son? Reason is not to be despised and treated as the foe nf religious beliefs; but our appeal must chiefly be to the New Testament. What have the Gospels to say on the Humanity of Jesus Christ? That He is an authentic, historic person ( ja not denied. That He lived our human

life, shared our lot, shared our limitations and sinless infirmities, no one seriiously disputes to-day.

HUMAN FACULTIES. Think of the picture drawn in the Gospels. Jesus’ had a human body. He entered life through the same gateway that we entered. His body grew up from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood. He experienced the physical sensations of hunger, thirst, weariness, and pain. He needed food and sleep to renew His spent powers just as we do. Jesus had a human mind. “He increased in wisdom and stature.” He expressly disavowed knowledge of the future beyond what the Father revealed to Him. The apocryptal stories which describe Him as working miracles in His mother’s arms, and foretelling His crucifixion during His flight into Egypt, have no foundation in <■ Scripture or reason. Faber’s line: “He was true God in Bethlehem's crib,” is open to grave misunderstanding. Jesus experienced human [emotions of surprise and anger; He was j grieved and troubled and indignant. He loved.. He felt shame. Jesus was no flawless statue carved in marble, perfect but cold. His was warm, breathing flesh. Jesus had a real human soul. His I temptation in the wilderness was no mimic battle. His conflict in the Garden was a tense, real -agony, issuing in blood. “He suffered being tempted.” He sustained His spiritual strength by prayer, as we do. He leaned upon God for help.- just as we do. Tn the great crisis hours of life He sought strength and guidance from God. Our Lord was a real man, and not a demi-God. He was made in all things like unto His brethren! But this does not mean that He had ceased to be God. DIVINE AND HUMAN NATURE.

Spinoza says it is as absurd to speak of the Divine Nature assuming,the human, as to speak of a circle assuming the nature of a square. So it would be if the Divine Nature were to the human as the circle is to the square. But the Bible teaching is that “God created man in His own image,” which means, "that God and man are akin. Grant this and the Incarnation is an inevitable corollary. God can become man without ceasing to be Divine. There is no impassable gulf between the nature of God and the nature of man. They are Father and Son. We are “partakers of the Divine Nature.” “Now are we the sons of God?” To speak of Jesus becoming “a mere man” is a misuse of language. There is no such being a* a “mere man.” Man is the child of the Highest. Sin is unnatural, the most unnatural thing in- the universe. Tt. is n)t of the will of the Creator or the essence of the creature.

THE IDEAL MAN. Jesus was the Ideal Man, the Pattern and Representative Man. He represented the powers and prophecies of human nature, the glorious end to which the whole creation moves. As Dr. Dale says: “The Incarnation was not an isolated and abnormal wonder; it was God’s witness to the true and ideal relation of all men to* God.” Inebecoming a Perfect Man, He laid aside His omnipotence and His omniscence, for these ape. not of the essence of Deity, but He did not lay aside His love, which is of the essence of God, who is Love; nay, He revealed is most perfectly in His infinite sacrifice. “The Christian confesson,” srys Dr. David Smith, “is not that Jesus was God, nor yet that Jesus was God and man. but that He was God become man for our redemption.” ” Ecee Homo! THE DIVINE HUMANITY. This is the Gospel of the Divine Humanity of Jesus. God has come to us in our flesh that He might teach the creature how to behave himself in the presence'of the Creator. God is not remote and unapproachable. He is near, He is with you. He is “in yon the hope of glory.” God is still the incarnate God. incarnate in a thousand forms of .love and goodness. What is history? It is humanity’s search after God. What is the incarnation? It is God's answer to humanity’s search. “So the All Great were the All Loving too— So though the thunder,. comes a hu man voice, Saying, 0 heart, I made a heart beat here! Face Mv hands fashioned, see it is Myself! Thou hast po power, nor mayst conceive of mine, But love I gave thee, with Myself to love, And thou must love Me, who died for Thee!” “Conceived of the Holy Ghost, born the Virgin Mary.”