The True and the False

The two-fold proposition which we offer for your acceptance is this: JESUS CHRIST WAS NOT A PRODUCT OF THE AGE IN WHICH HE LIVED, BUT A NATIVE OF ANOTHER WORLD WHO CAME TO THIS WORLD FOR A PURPOSE; THAT HE WAS GOD AND MAN IN ONE. The geologist, finding a stone where there are no other stones like it, reasonably concludes that it was imported. The botanist, finding a flower where there are no flowers like it, concludes that its seed was brought from another place. A Chinaman, walking down a street of Shanghai, meets an American missionary. The missionary is a man like himself, but in all other respects totally different. His dress, his language, his religion, his thoughts are different from his. A foolish man that Chinaman, if he does not conclude that he has met a foreigner. Now, Jesus Christ was a man like other men, and yet, so different from all other men, that we are justified in believing he was more than man; so different as to warrant the conclusion that he was not a native of this world at all. Our first proof of this proposition is Jesus Christ himself in his claims, his character,and his work.

I. His Cuatms. 1. Jesus claimed that he was “the Son of Man.” — There had never been before him in the world such a Son of Man. His claim was not that he was A son of man, nor the son of A man, but THE Son of Man, of all men, of the human race, of humanity. ‘There is something,’ says F, W.

Robertson, ‘‘exceedingly emphatic in that expression, Son of Man. Our master is not called the Son of Mary, but as if the blood of the whole human race were in his veins, he calls himself the Son of Man. There is a universality in the character of Christ which you find in no other man. Translate the words of Christ into what country’s language you will, he might have been the offspring of that country. Date them by what century of the world you will, they belong to that century as much as to any other. There is nothing of nationalityabout Christ. There is nothing of that personal peculiarity which we call idiosynerasy. There is nothing peculiar to any particular age of the world. He was not the Asiatic. He was not the European. He was not the Jew. He was not the type of that century, stamped with its peculiarities. He was not the mechanic. He was not the aristocrat. But he wastheman. He was the child of every age and every nation. His was a life world-wide. His was a heart pulsating with the blood of the humanrace. He reckoned for his ancestry the collective myriads of mankind. Emphatically, He was the Son of Man.”’

Now was there anything in the environment of Christ to make out of him such a world-wide Son of Man? Just the contrary. He was raised in a mountain village, and village life tends to make men narrow. ‘Travel may correct this tendency, but Jesus did not travel out of Palestine. Born of the tribe of Judah, and, having a legal right to the throne of David, we would naturally expect him to share the narrow bitter feelings of his Jewish kindred, and like them chafe under the loss of national glory. On the other hand he shares none of their narrow feelings. He teaches them a lesson in brotherly love by condemning their priest and levite for passing by on the other side, while he praises the hated Samaritan who stops and helps the wounded man. All through his life there was a conflict between his universal sympathy and the narrow bigotry of his people. When Demosthenes thanked the gods that he was a man and not a beast, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a Barbarian, he expressed the sentiments of all mankind till Jesus came with the thought of universal brotherhood. The

Jew thanked God that he was a Jew,and not a Gentile. The Roman thanked his gods that he was neither Jew nor Greek, while the Greek was just as thankful that he was neither Jew nor Roman. Every nation on earth thought that it was THE nation, and every man in it thought that he was THE man, because he was better than his neighbors. Jesus was not Jew enough for the Jew, nor Roman enough for the Roman, nor Grecian enough for the Greek. They all rejected him, because he belonged to all alike, and refused to belong to either exclusively. The forces at work in the world at that time did not produce such a man. He evidently brought into the world this new idea, which we find through revelation to be native to the world from which he came.

2. Jesus claimed that he was the Son of God. — The high priest said to him on his trial ‘*I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, thou hast said.’? (Matt. 26:63.) The high priest understood this answer as decidedly affirmative, for he at once rends his clothes, exclaiming ‘‘ He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses?’? When Pilate wanted to let him go, the Jews cried out, ‘‘ We have a law and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.’’? (John 19:7.) One of the charges flung into his face on the cross was that he said ‘‘I am the Son of God.’’? (Matt. 27:43.) Thus the enemies of Jesus testify that he claimed to be the Son of God. And his friends who were closest to him and best knew his mind admit the claim. ‘‘I saw and bare record,”’ says John, ‘‘ that this is the Son of God.’? (John 1:34.) Paul preached ‘‘Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God,”’ (Acts 9:20.) When the centurion, beholding the wonders of the crucifixion said, ‘‘Tru’y this was a son of God,’ he simply echoed the claim of Christ and his friends, and the charge of his enemies.

3. Jesus claimed that he was God. — As the Son of Man, he was truly man; and es the Son of God, he was truly God. He was not A but THE Son of God. It is evident that his friends and enemies understood him as claiming that in being the Son of God he was God. Jesus makes the claim so clear that it seems to me no candid mind can doubt it. Listen to these words: ‘‘ He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.’’ (John 14:9.) Again: ‘+ He that seeth me seeth him that sent me.” (John 12:45.) Many men before and after Christ have tried to demonstrate the existence of God. Jesus made no such attempt. His mission was to manifest God in his own person. His claim confirms the message of the angel, ‘* They shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us;’? and Paul shows that he had caught his true meaning when he wrote ‘‘God was manifest in the flesh.?? (1 Tim. 3:16.) Jesus was an agnostic to the extent that he taught the impossibility of knowing God the Father, except through himself. ‘*‘No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he, to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.’’ (Matt. 11:27.) He claims identity of divine nature with the Father in the words ‘*I and my Father are one.’’ (John 10:30) In many places he calmly claims attributes which none but God can possess. He declares that he is eternal. To the cavilling Pharisees he said ‘‘Before Abraham was I am.’’ (John 8:58.) As a man he prays, but in one of his prayers we see a flash of his divinity. ‘* And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.’? (John 17:5.) And, with this eternity of nature, he declares that he has equal honor with the Father. ‘‘The Father hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father that sent Him.’? (John 5: 22-23.) He claims to be omnipresent as to place and time. ‘¢ Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’’ (Matt. 18:20.) ‘+Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.’? (Matt. 28:20.) He claimed that he had power to forgive sins. (Matt. 9:5-6.) And his enemies were right in their question, ‘* Who can forgive sins save God only?’? He claimed to be able to work miracles, even to the raising of the dead. ‘‘As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.?? (John 5:21.) Toanunprejudiced mind, there can be no shadow of doubt as to the fact that Jesus claimed to be God. And those nearest to him who knew him best admit and press this claim. John crowns him Creator of the Universe, ‘+In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.’’ (John 1:3.) ‘* We are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20.) Those who were with him for three years believed that he knew all things. ‘‘ Now we are sure that thou knowest all things, and by this we believe that thou comest forth from God.’? (John 16:30.) Peter said; ‘‘ Lord, thou knowest all things: thou knowest that I love thee.’’ (John 21: 17.) After Jesus had stilled the tempest on the sea of Gallilee ‘* they that were in the ship came and worshipped him saying, of a truth thou art the Son of God.’? (Matt. 14:33.) His receiving their worship proves that he claimed to be God; their giving their worship proves that they gladly admitted his claim. Paul’s ‘¢ Christ who is over all God blessed forever’? (Rom. 9:5) was the true Christ. So that all who to-day deny his divinity are out of harmony with Christ himself and the early church.

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