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TheWay Library › The Christ of the Bible › Chapter III: The Christ of the Bible: Was Christ Jesus in Every Respect a Real Man, or Did He Only Seem to Be a Man?

by R. A. Torrey

Chapter III

The Christ of the Bible: Was Christ Jesus in Every Respect a Real Man, or Did He Only Seem to Be a Man?

In this chapter we shall consider the question, The Christ of the Bible: Was Christ Jesus in every respect a Real Man? or did He only seem to be a Man?

We saw in our first chapter that the Christ of the Bible, Christ Jesus, the only real Christ, possessed, in all their perfection and fullness, all the distinctive and incommunicable attributes of Deity, that is, all the attributes that God possesses, and that God alone possesses, that “in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” and that all the distinctively Divine offices were also ascribed to Him, that He was equal to God, the Father, in Nature, Attributes, Authority, and Glory, that He is a Being to be worshiped even as God the Father is worshiped, that He is our Lord, and our God.

We saw in our second chapter that while Jesus possessed all the distinctive and incommunicable Attributes of Deity in all their perfection and fullness, that while He was equal to God the Father in His Nature, Attributes, Authority, and Glory, that He was, at the same time, and always had been, and always shall be, subordinate to the Father in position and office.

We shall now consider the question, Was He, when on earth, at the same time that He was God also, a Real Man? and is He now a Real Man, up yonder in the Glory?

Let us look at three passages in the Bible.

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.”

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“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.”

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“For there is One God, One Mediator also
between God and men, Himself Man, Christ
Jesus.”

These remarkably plain and explicit’ passages of Scripture not only declare that Jesus, the Christ of the Bible, was a Real Man, but they declare also that the denial of the Reality of His Human Nature is one of the most fundamental of all errors, that the denial that He was a Real Man, the denial that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, is one of the distinctive marks of the antichrist. The man who denies the Real Deity and Full Deity of Jesus Christ is fundamentally wrong: the one who denies that Jesus Christ was a Real Man at the same time that He was very God, is equally wrong. To deny that Jesus Christ was in every respect a Real Man is as much a “damnable heresy,” as to deny that He was Real God.

The denial of the real Humanity of Jesus Christ was one of the first heresies that arose in the church, and it did great harm. It was taught that Jesus, the Christ, was only apparently Man, that He only seemed to be a Man. This heresy was called “Docetism,” which name is derived from a Greek word meaning, “to seem to be.” This error arose during the life- time of the Apostle John. The Apostle John regarded this error with great horror, and it was sternly denounced by him. His first Epistle was largely aimed at this very heresy. Christian Science is largely a re. vamping of the same heresy. But Christian Science is not the only modern system that denies, or loses sight of, the Reality of the Human Nature of Jesus Christ. Many people who consider themselves as extremely and preeminently orthodox, are so entirely taken up with the glorious fact that our Lord Jesus was and is God, that they entirely lose sight of the other glorious truth that at the same time our Saviour was and is God, He is also in the fullest sense, our Brother, as truly a Human Being as you or I are, and that now up in the glory at the right hand of God the Father there is a Man, “the Man, Christ Jesus.”

When Stephen’s eyes were opened just before he himself entered the glory, he cried, “Behold, I see

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the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7: 56.)

It was in part the one-sided emphasis laid upon the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the forgetting of the fact that He was at the same time a Real Man, that led to the forming of that exceedingly pernicious system known as Modern Unitarianism. Modern Unitarianism stood for a truth, an exceedingly important truth, the truth of the Real Humanity of Jesus Christ, of which many had lost sight; but it, in turn, lost sight of the other exceedingly important truth, that Jesus Christ was also Real God.

We have already seen that the doctrine of the real Deity of the Christ is found in the Old Testament as — well as in the New Testament: we shall see to-day that on the other hand, the New Testament is full of the doctrine that Jesus, the historic Christ, the Christ of God, was and is a Real Man in every respect.

I. HUMAN NAMES ARE USED IN SPEAKING OF
THE CHRIST.

To come right to our subject: in the first place, FHluman Names are used in speaking of the Christ. We saw in our first chapter that sixteen or more Names that clearly imply Deity are used of Jesus Christ, over and over again in the Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, that, for example, He was called “God,” and ‘‘God Blessed Forever,” and “Mighty God”; but it is equally true that Names that clearly imply that He was and is Man, are also used of Him. Take for example 1 Tim 2:5:

“For there is One God, One Mediator also
between God and men, Himself Man, Christ
Jesus.”

The late Pastor Russell taught among his many errors, that Jesus Christ before He became incarnate, was a purely Spiritual Being, that during His life upon earth He was a purely Human Being, and that now since His resurrection He is a purely Divine Being. But Stephen said, when the wondrous vision of the Christ in the glory was granted him just before his own entrance into glory, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” Jesus Christ is called in the Bible the “Son of man” no less than seventy-seven times. It is a significant number.

II. THE CHRIST HAD A HUMAN PHYSICAL NATURE.

In the second place, The Christ of the Bible, Jesus Christ, had a Human Physical. Nature. He was a Real Man as far as His Body was concerned. We see this in Jno. 1:14:

“And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.”

We see the same thing again in Heb. 2: 14:

“Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil.”

Here we are told that He Who from all eternity was “the effulgence of (God’s) glory, and the very Image of His substance,’ and Who upheld “all things by the word of His power” (see Heb. 1:3), when He became incarnate in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of the Bible, “partook of flesh and blood.” His body then was a Real Body, as real a Human Body as yours or mine.

The denial of the Reality of Christ’s Human Body is a distinctive mark of the antichrist. This we are told in so many words in I Jno. 4: 1-3:

“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come im the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.”

The denial of the reality of all bodies and all matter, and so of necessity the denial of the Reality of Christ’s Body, the assertion that all bodies and all matter are only “illusion,” or “mortal thought,’ is one of the most fundamental and most damning errors of Christian Science. It unmistakably marks Christian Science as being of the antichrist.

III. JESUS CHRIST HAD A HUMAN PARENTAGE.

In the third place, Jesus ‘Christ had a human parentage.

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“And she brought forth her firstborn Son; and she wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Here we are told that Jesus, the Christ of God, was Mary’s Son, “her firstborn Son.”

Turn now to Acts 2: 30, 31:

“Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, (that is to David) that of the fruit of his loins He would set One upon His throne; he foreseeing this spake of the resurrection of the Christ.”

Here we are distinctly told that the Christ Who was to be raised, was the fruit of David’s loins.

Read also Rom. 1:3, 4:

“Concerning His Son, Who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, Who was declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead; even Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Here we are told that “Jesus Christ our Lord,” was “of the seed of David,” “according to the flesh.”

Turn now to Gal. 4:4:

“But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman.”

Here we are distinctly told that the Son of God, the Christ Whom God sent forth, was “born of a woman.” Note in passing, that it does not say, born of a man. It is oftentimes said by those who deny the Virgin Birth of our Lord Jesus that Paul knew nothing of it. Those who so say are not thereby demonstrating their learning, but exposing their ignorance,

Turn now to Luke 1:35:

“And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God.”

This passage clearly declares that the Son of God, the Christ of God, was begotten of a woman, of the Virgin Mary. It is as plain as day then, that the Christ of God had a human parentage and a human ancestry. He was Mary’s Son and David’s Seed, He “sprang out of Judah’ (Heb. 7:14). The Virgin Mary was as truly the mother of Jesus, the Christ of God, as God was His Father. Our Saviour derived His Human Nature from Mary as truly as He derived His Divine Nature from God. This was the process by which the Eternal Word, which from all eternity “was with God and was God” (Jno. 1:1), “became flesh” (Jno. 1:14) in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Real Christ, the Christ of the Bible, the Only True Christ. (Compare Luke 1:35 and Jno. WR HAVA La

IV. THE CHRIST, AS A MAN, HAD HUMAN
PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS.

In the fourth place, The Christ, as a Man, had human physical limitations. I, Read Jno. 4:6: “And Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus by the well.”

Here we are told that Jesus was weary. It certainly was not as God that He was weary; for we are told in Isa. 40: 28:

“Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard? The Everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary.”

But, as a Man, Jesus, the Christ, our Lord and Saviour, was weary. Our Lord and Saviour knew what it meant to be truly weary, completely tired out physically, as really as any of us do. I am so glad He did.

2. Now turn to Matt. 8:24:

“And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the boat was covered with the waves: but He was asleep.”

Here we are told that Jesus Christ slept. It certainly was not as God that He slept; for we are told lah sn T21i4)5.:

“Behold, He that keepeth Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
Jehovah is thy Keeper:
Jehovah is thy shade upon thy right hand.”

3. Now, read Matt. 21:18:

“Now in the morning as He returned to the
city, He hungered.”

Here we are told that Jesus Christ hungered.

4. Read also Jno. 19: 28:

“After this Jesus, knowing that all things are now finished, that the Scripture might be accomplished, saith, I thirst.”

Jesus Christ thirsted.

5. Turn now to Luke 22: 44:

“And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.”

Here we are told that, Jesus, the Christ of God, se fered intense physical agony.

6. Just one more passage on this particular point. Read GCor 163.

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”

Here is the plain statement that Jesus Christ died. Some one will ask, Was it the Human Nature of Christ that died or the Divine Nature of Christ that died? Neither One nor the Other. It was not a Nature that died: it was a Person Who died: it was Jesus Christ Himself that died; and He was both God and Man. Paul tells us that it was the “Lord of Glory” that was “crucified” (1 Cor. 2:8), the One Who was at the same time God and Man.

If Jesus Christ had not been God He could not by His death have made a sufficient atonement to atone for the whole human race. If, on the other hand, He had not been at the same time Man, He could not have died as the representative of man, ‘“‘the Second Adam.” Only He Who was at the same time Son of God and Son of Man, at the same time really Divine and really human, could make an atonement that would be both sufficient and applicable to us; but as He was at the same time “very God of very God” and real man, He could and He did.

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How wondrously profound, and consistent, and complete, and beyond all human philosophy is the philosophy of the Bible, when you take it all in. But if you leave any part out (for example, leave out either the Real Deity or the Real Humanity of Jesus Christ) and the whole system crumbles to the ground.

V. THE CHRIST, AS A MAN, WAS SUBJECT TO HUMAN INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL LIMITATIONS.

In the fifth place, The Christ, as a Man, was subject to human intellectual and moral limitations.

r. Read Duke 2:52:

“And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

Here we are definitely told that Jesus Christ (as a Man, during His childhood), “advancd in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man.” As He advanced from one state of wisdom to a higher state of wisdom, there must, of course, have been a time of comparative limitation in His wisdom. As a man Hle was subject to human conditions of physical, mental, and moral growth.

2. Now read Mark 13: 32:

“But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”

Here we are told that Jesus Christ, as a Man, setting you and me a very solemn example to follow in His steps, gave up the knowledge of the exact time of His own return. This fact does not at all cast a cloud either upon His Deity or upon the reliability and inerrancy of anything He taught; for He Himself distinctly declared that every word He taught was the Father’s teaching, and not His Own.

For example He says in Jno. 7: 16:

“My teaching is not Mine, but His that sent Me.”

And He says in John 12: 49, 50:

“For I spake not from Myself; but the Father That sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life eternal: the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.”

And in Jno. 14: 10, he says:

“Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? the words that I say unto you I speak not from Myself: but the Father abiding in Me doeth His works.”

And in the twenty-fourth verse of the same chapter, He says:

‘He that loveth Me not keepeth not My Words: and the Word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s Who sent Me.”

And in Jno. 17:8, in one of the most solemn moments of His life, talking not to man, but to God Himself on the night before the crucifixion, Jesus, the Christ, says:

“For the words which Thou gavest Me I have given unto them; and they received them.”

The “Higher Critics” and the “New Theology” advocates, in their intense desire (which amounts almost to an obsession) to get around our Lord’s endorsement of the whole Old Testament as the inerrant Word of God, try to make out that in becoming a Man, “He emptied Himself” of His Omniscience, and that therefore He was liable to error, and that He was in error on this point. To sustain their point they urge Phil. 2:5-8: “Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a Man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.”

And they lay the emphasis upon the words, “emptied Himself,’ interpreting them to mean that He emptied Himself of His Divine Attributes, including His Omniscience, and that therefore He might be mistaken in some of His teachings. But any one who will look carefully at these words in their context, and with a sincere desire to discover what they really teach, and not to merely read into them what we would like to have them teach, will see at once that these words speak of our Lord emptying Himself, not of Hts Divine Attributes, including His omisctence, but of His Divine glory.

Furthermore, even if they did teach that He emptied Himself of His omniscience, that would not at all help the enemy, for He distinctly declares in the passages that I have read you, that every word He spoke was not His, but the Father’s, and, therefore, if every word He spoke was not His Fathers, and consequently the inerrant Word of God, Jesus Christ was not only a Man, but He was a liar and a fraud. Who can believe that? I have a profound pity for any one who can.

3. Now read Heb. 4:15:

“For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but One that hath been in all points tempted lke as we are, yet without sin.”

Read also Heb. 2:18:

“For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.”

In these two passages we are plainly and definitely told that Jesus Christ was tempted. It certainly was not as God that He was tempted, for we read in AEA tote Bete

“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempteth no man.”

Oh, I rejoice that my Saviour, the Lord Jesus, is God, the God Who created all things and Who still “upholds all things by the Word of His power,” (Heb. 1:3), but I also rejoice that He was Man, Real Man, and was tempted “in all points’ like as I am, and so He can be not only my mighty Saviour but also my sympathizing Saviour.

Note very carefully the fact that He was tempted “without sin,” or more exactly translated, “apart from sin,” entirely apart and separate from any trace of sin. There was no response in the heart of Jesus to yield for one moment to that which was wrong. Though

He was, for example, suffering the intensest pangs of hunger in one instance, and in another recoiled from death as no other man ever recoiled from death, for He was the “Prince of Light,” not for one moment did He contemplate satisfying His hunger in a wrong way, and not for one moment did He turn back from the cross and its appalling and immeasurable agonies.

The question is often asked, could Jesus have yielded to temptation, could He have sinned? He could not — because He would not. He could not sin because even as a man He was perfectly holy, and sinning in thought or desire or word or act was a moral impossibility to Him. But the constraint that kept Him from sinning was not from without but from within, from His Own perfectly holy heart.

VI. THE CHRIST, AS A MAN, WAS SUBJECT TO
LIMITATIONS OF POWER.

In the sixth place, Jesus Christ, as a man, was subject to limitations of power. We saw in the first chapter that He was omnipotent. Nevertheless as Man he was subject to limitations of power. This appears again and again in the New Testament.

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“Who in the days of His flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and having been heard for His godly fear.”

Here we are told that Jesus Christ obtained deliverance from death, not by the exercise of His Own AIlmighty power, but by prayer. No less than twenty-five times in the four short gospel records of the life here upon earth of our Lord, the Christ of God, is His praying mentioned. Jesus Christ lived His life here on earth as a Man, obtaining power for His work and for His moral victories and achievements as other men obtain theirs, by prayer. As a Man He was subject to human conditions for obtaining what He desired.

2. Furthermore, As a Man, Jesus Christ obtained power for His Divine works, not by His inherent Deity, but by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He was subject to the same conditions for obtaining and exercising power as other men. This we are distinctly and explicitly told in Acts 10: 38:

“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the Devil; for God was with Him.”

VII. JESUS CHRIST SUSTAINED THE RELATIONSHIP OF MAN TO GOD, THE FATHER.

In the seventh place, Jesus Christ sustained the relationship of Man to God, the Father. This we are told in Jno. 20:17:

“Jesus saith to her, Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father: but go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.”

Here Jesus Christ, though He had not hesitated to say that all men should honor Him “even as they honored the Father” (Jno. 5: 22, 23), and that he that had seen Him had seen the Father (Jno. 14:9), and though a week later when Thomas fell at His feet, and addressed Him as, “My Lord, and my God,” He would unhesitatingly and approvingly accept this ascription of Deity to Himself (Jno. 20: 26-28), nevertheless here He equally unhesitatingly calls God “My God.” It is evident then that He bore the relation of Man to God, the Father.

VIII. JESUS CHRIST, AS A MAN, WAS IN EVERY RESPECT A REAL MAN.

Finally, Jesus Christ, as a Man, was in every respect a Real Man. This we are told in the epistle to the Hebrews, a book that emphasizes the full Deity of the Christ as almost no other book in the Bible.

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“Wherefore it behooved Him in all things to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

Here we are definitely told that Jesus Christ, as a Man, was made “in all things’ like unto Hts brethren, subject to all the physical, mental, and moral condttions of existence essential to human nature.

To sum up all that we have discovered from a careful and candid study of the Bible on this subject: Just as Jesus Christ, as God, was in all points like unto the Father, so also, as Man, He was in all points like unto us.

Now comes the question, a question that presents the

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greatest difficulty of any question concerning the Person and Nature of Jesus Christ, How can we reconcile the Bible Doctrine of the True Deity of Jesus Christ with this other Bible Doctrine of the Real Human Nature of Jesus Christ?

The answer to this question that appears so difficult is really easy. The answer is this: Our main business is not to reconcile any two lines of truth, no matter how absolutely opposed to one another and contradictory to one another they may seem to us to be. Our chief business is to find out exactly what the various passages in the Bible mean, in their natural, grammatical interpretation. Then if we can reconcile them, well and good. If not, believe them both and leave the reconciliation to increasing knowledge. It is a thoroughly vicious principle of Biblical interpretation that we must interpret every passage in the Bible so that we can easily reconcile it with every other passage. It is this foolish principle of interpretation that gives rise to the one-sided theology in which narrow minded men revel. One man becomes a one-sided Calvinist and another a one-sided Arminian; and so on through the whole gamut of Christian Doctrine. Our business is to find out the plainly intended sense of the passage in hand as determined by the usage of the words found in it, by the grammatical construction and by the context.

Furthermore, we should always bear in mind that in many cases two truths that once seemed to us to be utterly irreconcilable or even to be flatly contradictory to one another, are now, with increased knowledge, seen to beautifully harmonize. So, it is only reasonable to suppose that truths that still seem to us to be contradictory, perfectly harmonize in the infinite mind of God, and will some day perfectly harmonize in our minds also, when we approach more nearly to God’s omniscience.

As I said in a previous chapter, I cannot understand the radio. What I know to be facts concerning it appear to me to be absolutely impossible and inconceivable. I have been told this last week that last Sunday a woman in Keene, New Hampshire, more than three thousand miles away, heard me last Sunday and even recognized my voice. What perfectly reliable witnesses tell me about what the radio does, appears to me to be absurd and impossible; but I believe it none the less. Indeed, I know it is true. To me it is a great mystery, an unsolvable mystery, and no one else really understands it, however much they may pretend to. Question them, and you will soon drive them up against a wall that they cannot go through or go over, and their attempted explanations are words, words, words — only words, that is all. But, I believe in the radio just the same. But, we cannot understand it, it is full of mystery to us, it is intellectually inconceivable; but we believe it just the same, because the evidence of what it does is conclusive and overwhelming. We would be mentally stupid and not “scientific” but utterly and ludicrously unscientific if we did not. We might boast that we were possessed of “the modern mind” and therefore could not believe anything we could not understand, but we would really be possessed of a prehistoric and unscientific mind. And just so, I believe in the full Deity of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and at the same time I believe in His Real Humanity.

I have a Christ and a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who 1s unquestionably God. He made the heavens and the earth, and upholds the earth and moon and sun and the stupendous stars “by the Word of His Power’ (Heb. 1:3). Oh, I am so glad, so unutterably glad, that He does, and that such an One, possessed of all the attributes of Deity in all their perfection and fullness, is my Saviour. But I rejoice also that I have a Christ and a Saviour, Who, in the fullest and most real sense, 1s my Brother, a Fellow Man, a Real Man, Who lived His life here upon earth under the same conditions under which I live mine, subject to the same temptations that I am, yet absolutely “apart from sin,” that He obtained victory by the power of the same Holy Spirit that 1s ready to help me as well, and that He obtained strength to work, to achieve, and to conquer in the same way that is open to me, by prayer.

That was the thing about Unitarianism, the Unitarianism of Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, and Edward Everett Hale, that attracted me, namely, that Jesus Christ was my Brother, a Real Man, tempted in all points as I was, and that if He got the victory I could too, the same way He did. But the day came when I discovered that historic orthodoxy, the orthodoxy of the Bible properly understood, as stated in the standard creeds of the church, presented the same truth, and presented it even more fully than Unitarianism, and that, together with this precious truth that Unitarianism presented, it presented the other side of the truth, even more precious, a side to which Unitarianism was totally blind, that while Jesus Christ was in every respect a Real Man, He was also in every respect Real

God; that while the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” that the Word Who so became flesh “‘was”’ “in the beginning and was with God, and was God.”

Where, in all the philosophers and sages of all lands and all ages, do we find a philosophy so profound, so well rounded, so complete, so symmetrical and in every way so satisfying and so wonderful as is contained in this Old, Old Book, whose utterances are from eighteen hundred and twenty-eight to thirty-four hundred and twenty-five years old? Where did the Bible writers, kings and peasants, fishermen and petty politicians, herdmen and whatnot, learn this matchless, this 1mperishable, this one and only perfect and absolute philosophy? There can be but one rational answer to that question, only one answer that has the slightest semblance of candor or of intelligence: they learned it from God, both the philosophy and the phrasing of it. Beyond an honest peradventure, these “men spake from God, being carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Pet. B21):

Note — At this point we would naturally and logically take up The Earthly Life of the Christ of the Bible; but I have already done this in my book THE REAL Curist (published by George H. Doran Company, 1920), so we shall not repeat here.

Open in the readerThe Christ of the Bible

Restored from a scan of the 1924 edition, with page headers and numbers removed and words rejoined across line breaks. Scan-derived text, still being proofread; compare the original scan before quoting.