The Inescapable
Christ
A woman in India had learned that she was a sinner and that God is holy and cannot overlook sin. She often said: "I need some great prince to stand between my soul and God." Eventually she heard that the Bible contains the account of a Saviour who had died for sinners, so she asked a pundit to read the Bible to her. He began at the first chapter of Matthew, and as he read the list of names in the genealogy of Christ, the woman thought: "What a wonderful prince this Jesus must be to have such a long line of ancestors." And when the pundit read: "Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21), the woman exclaimed: "This is the prince I want! This is the prince I want! The Prince who is also a Savior!"
One of the most crucial questions on any university campus is: "What about Jesus Christ?" The modern student simply cannot escape Him. He must decide whether Christ and the Gospel really matter, whether He is relevant in this modern age. On the one hand Jesus Christ is the center of opposition; on the other hand He is the object of devotion and worship. What we think of Christ influences our thinking and controls our actions.
History, philosophy, theology, and in many centers of learning even the sciences are being studied to discover what they have to say about Jesus Christ. The records of the early church are being reexamined with minute care for their testimony to Him. Archeologists are digging to discover new evidence concerning Jesus Christ. What D.S. Cairns said in
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the forepart of this century remains true in the closing decades: "The historic personality of Jesus has risen upon the consciousness of the church with the force almost of a new revelation, the ultimate results of which still lie far in the future. It is literally true that this century is face to face with the great figure as no century has been since the first."1
Some say that Jesus Christ is a myth, that He never really existed in history. Others say that He was merely a man, that there was nothing supernatural about His birth, and that His resurrection was to the Apostles a hallucination. Others talk about a Christless Christianity. They say that whatever one thinks about Christ does not affect Christianity. They are wrong.
Christianity is forever linked with the person of Christ. Carlyle recognized this when he said: "Had this doctrine of the deity of Christ been lost, Christianity would have vanished like a dream." Lecky remarks: "Christianity is not a system of morals; it is the worship of a person."
When many religious leaders are exploring points of contact between Christianity and the non-Christian religions, the question of the person of Christ becomes all-important to the church. Christianity is now being compared with other religions as never before. Even some Christian leaders advocate syncretism, or the working out of a system of morals, ethics, and religion that would bring together all the religions of the world. Many of these leaders are willing to give up some of the teachings of the Bible in order to harmonize Christianity with the other religions.
The Uniqueness of Christ
Why insist on the uniqueness of Christianity? What did Christianity bring into the world that had not appeared before? The Christian answer
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is the uniqueness of Christ, the supreme manifestation of God. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (2 Cor. 5:19). This is the central fact of our Christian faith.
Some 700 years before Christ was born, Isaiah the prophet had said: "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son" (Isaiah 7:14). This expression is unparalleled in literature. No man but Christ in all history could say that his mother was a virgin. The Scriptures teach that Jesus Christ did not have a human father. If he had had a human father — "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6) — he would have inherited all the sins and the infirmities that all men have. He would have been conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity even as the rest of us. He was not conceived by natural means but by the Holy Spirit, who overshadowed the virgin Mary; and Christ stands as the one man who came forth pure from the hand of God. He could stand before all of His fellowmen and say: "Which of you convicts me of sin?" (John 8:46). He was the only man since Adam who could say: "I am pure."
There are mysteries about the incarnation that none of us can ever understand. In fact, Paul speaks of "God . . . manifest in the flesh" as a mystery" (1 Timothy 3:16). In another epistle, he says: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:5-7).
The Deity of Christ
Jesus Christ was uniquely, divinely, and wholly God's only begotten Son. None ever approached the eminence that
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Jesus reached. None ever became what He was, because none was ever born as He was born or died as He died!
From beginning to end the New Testament testifies of the deity of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Thomas called Him "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). Since Thomas was not rebuked by Jesus, this is equivalent to an assertion of His own as a claim to His deity. He possesses all the attributes of God Himself.
He has divine life. "In him was life" (John 1:4). "I am . . . the life" (John 14:6).
He is unchanging. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
He is the truth. "I am . . . the truth" (John 14:6).
He is holy. "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). "We know that you are the Holy One of God" (John 6:69). "Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heb. 7:26).
He existed before time began. "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). "He is before all things" (Colossians 1:17). "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 21:6).
He knew all things. "Jesus knowing their thoughts" (Matthew 9:4). "He knew all men . . . He knew what was in man" (John 2:24-25). "Thou knowest all things" (John 16:30). "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3).
To Him are ascribed all the works of God. "All things were made by Him" (John 1:3). "One Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things" (1 Cor. 8:6). "All things were created by him, and for him" (Colossians 1:16). "The heavens are the works of thine hands" (Hebrews 1:10).
To Him was given worship and honor accorded only to deity. "If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it" (John 14:14) "Let all the angels of God worship him" (Hebrews 1:6). "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . .
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and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10, 11). "Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever" (2 Peter 3:18).
When He forgave sins, He did the work that only God can do. "But that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins . . . Arise, take up your bed, and go home" (Matthew 9:6). "Why does this man speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7).
William E. Gladstone once said: "All I write and all I think and all I hope is based upon the divinity of our Lord, the one central hope of our poor wayward race."
Jesus calls himself the Son of God. Twice in John's Gospel He identifies Himself as the Son of God, in chapter 9 verse 37 and chapter 10 verse 30. He does it again in Mark 14:61, 62, as well as many other places either by direct statement or inference. John's Gospel opens with this majestic statement, which parallels Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here is coequality with God. Again John says: "And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God" (John 1:34). Nathaniel said: "Rabbi, you are the Son of God" (John 1:49). Reference can be made also to John 3:16, 18, and 19:7. It is clearly established that Jesus either claimed to be the Son of God or it was ascribed to Him by God or claimed for Him by His contemporaries.
When the New Testament prescribes saving faith, it identifies that faith with the deity of Christ. At the conclusion of John's Gospel, the Apostle says: "But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name" (John 20:31).
Two things are most important at this point. First, the object of faith is Jesus Christ. "These are written that you
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might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:31).
It is specified and emphasized that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." This is the highest revelation of Jesus. Anything less than this level of faith is ineffectual as an act of saving faith.
The object of saving faith is not a body of truth called a creed, although creeds are important. The object of faith is a person — Jesus Christ. This person is not merely the historical person known as Jesus Christ, but the prehistorical and posthistorical person of Jesus Christ known as the Son of God! He is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
If the Bible is to be our basis of authority, then we must "by faith" accept Him as the Son of the living God. This sounds narrow and intolerant, and in a sense it is! Some of our modern theologians would not go so far as this. However, in my long study of the Bible, I have had to come to the conclusion that the Scriptures teach that we must believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
When Jesus returned to His home in Nazareth, it is said: "And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief" (Matthew 13:58). What was their unbelief? They believed that Joseph was His Father, not that He was the Son of God.
Salvation is an act of God. It is initiated by God, wrought by God, and sustained by God. The faith that saves the soul is described as faith in Christ as the Son of God — not as a good man or a great man, but as the uniquely begotten Son of the living God! This is consistent with the witness of the entire New Testament and with the proclamations of the first preachers of the Gospel. All proclaim the necessity of faith in Jesus Christ as deity.
The second important thing about John 20:31 is that the
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effect of faith in Jesus Christ is "life." "And that believing you might have life through his name." The result of a well-placed faith of this specific nature is described as "life." The Bible describes man as alive physically, but dead spiritually. A dead man needs life. The whole human race is described as being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). This means they are dead to God. They are incapable of producing divine life. This can be done only by God. They are capable only of believing and receiving. The life spoken of here is that with which Adam was created, but which he lost because he sinned. It is the life that was subjected in the wilderness temptation to the enticements of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. It is the life that was submitted to the routine of daily life as we have to live it today, where Christ was "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). This life was made available to all humanity by Christ's death on the cross. He said: "I am come that they might have life" (John 10:10). This is the life you can have — now. This is "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).
The Historic Reality of Christ
The life of Jesus has been the object of human tribute from the greatest of men to the lowest. This is particularly true of great minds who have recognized Jesus as the world's unique and superlative character. Their estimates of Jesus have testified to His historic reality and have confirmed that what He was and did is based on solid historic fact. Rousseau said: "It would have been a greater miracle to invent such a life as Christ's than to be it." Another has said: "It would take a Jesus to forge a Jesus." Pascal wrote: "We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all
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communion with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God."2 Men are awed in the presence of the Saviour's life, and their instinctive assessments are ample witness to the uniqueness of a life to which no other human being has either approximated or approached. On the death of Winston Churchill a London newspaper said: "It might be said that he was the greatest man since Jesus Christ." In other words, the newspaper editor was recognizing that Jesus was the greatest of all men. In the case of Christ, no natural explanation can be given. He can be ranked neither with the school-trained nor with the self-trained. He spoke as one who not only knows the truth but is the truth. As Philip Schaff said: "Christ stands . . . solitary and alone among all the heroes of history, and presents to us an unsolvable problem, unless we admit Him to be more than man, even the eternal Son of God."3
Thus all of Christianity is based on a person — Jesus Christ. Christ Himself is the embodiment of the Gospel. He makes the highest claims without the slightest sense of pride, ambition, or vanity, but with the simplicity and authority of self-evident truth. And when Jesus spoke to His own generation, He said: "If you believe not that I am he, you will die in your sins" (John 8:24).
Christ represents Himself as having been "sent from God" and being "not of this world" and having "come from God." He declares Himself to be "the light of the world," "the way, the truth, and the life," and "the resurrection and the life." He promises eternal life to everyone who believes in Him as the Saviour. When in view of His approaching death and under a solemn appeal to the living God, He was challenged by a religious leader: "Are you the Christ, the Son of God?" He calmly and deliberately answered in the affirmative. Furthermore He referred to His glorious return, thus
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in the moment of deepest humiliation and in the face of apparent triumph of the powers of darkness proclaiming Himself the divine ruler and judge of mankind (Matthew 26:63, 65).
The God-Man
Where does such overwhelming testimony leave us? It leaves us with the conviction that Jesus was not merely a good man, or a great prophet, but the Son of God, divine as well as human, revealing in His life and by His teaching the mind and heart of God. Indeed, if Jesus were merely a man like other men, although better, then Christianity is simply a superlative philosophy or just another code of ethics. It is actually the deity of Christ that above anything else gives to Christianity its sanction, authority, power, and its true meaning.
Archibald Rutledge has written: "For more than thirty years it was my chief business in life to study and try to teach literature. To anyone earnestly so engaged there naturally comes a certain ability to distinguish the genuine from the spurious, the authentic from the invented. Every time I read the Gospels I am impressed more deeply with the conviction that the narratives concerning Christ do not belong to the realms of fancy, tradition, or folklore. There is about them the ingenious reality of life itself. These cannot be, as St. Peter expressly tells us they are not, 'cunningly devised fables.' The incidents are such that they could never have been invented; and their effect on the world for two thousand years has been such as no inventions could have produced. These stories possess that patent transparent validity that belongs only to truth."4
"In the deity of Jesus Christ," Rutledge affirms, "I have
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implicit faith, complete and reasoned confidence . . . Christ is God."5
This same author asks and answers an important question: "And can we believe that God would give us a way of life based on a fraud? Would God offer us a religion that reason is compelled to refuse? The answer is obvious, and the higher the human intelligence the more certain it is of its power to recognize truth. The acceptance of every great teaching of Christianity is easy and natural the moment we accept the deity of Christ, and how any honest mind can reject Him as God is beyond me to comprehend."6
Ultimately, in one way or another, or at one time or another, we shall be faced with this question: What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He? If Jesus Christ is not who He claimed to be, He is a deceiver or an egomaniac.
We must answer this question with both belief and action. We must not only believe something about Jesus but we must do something about Him. We must accept Him or reject Him. Jesus made clear who He was, and why He came into the world. He asked His disciples: "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" They told Him of a variety of designations on the human level. Then Jesus turned to them and asked: "But who do you say that I am?" Whereupon Peter replied with this historic affirmation: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:13-16). This is the apex of faith. This is the pinnacle of belief. This is where the faith of each must rest if he hopes for salvation. Christ is inescapable! You too must decide "what shall I do with Christ?"
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1. Christianity and the Modern World (New York: George H. Doran, 1906), p. 14.
2. Pascal, Pensées.
3. The Person of Christ (London: James Nisbet & Company, 1880), p. 30.
4. Archibald Rutledge, Christ Is God (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1941), pp. 14-15.
5. Ibid, p. 45.
6. Ibid., pp. 43-44.
