STUDY VII. CHRIST THE SUPREME REVELATION OF GOD.

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. xi. 28-30.)

"The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly." (John x. 10.)

"I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me." (Phil. iv. 13.)

PART V. MEETING THE NEEDS OF MEN.

BUT even more remarkable than anything else in the life of Christ was his consciousness that he could meet the needs of men. No religious worker fails to see the deep hunger and unsatisfied longings of men. This longing cannot be satisfied with things. Some of the most dissatisfied people we know have a superabundance of things. It is only fellowship with kindred souls that will satisfy a person. It is for this reason that men when they really love a person will sacrifice all else rather than lose the person. Persons alone meet our need. Jesus believed that he in a supreme sense could meet the needs of men. "He seems to be confident that no one else can give what he promises. What he promises is a life of profound usefulness or satisfaction; and he promises it to any troubled spirit, no matter what its burdens or unresting aspirations may be. Imagine with what confident desire he looked out upon the crowds of travelers, business men, and soldiers thronging the great world highways that crossed and recrossed Palestine. They were going here and there in the world on various errands. He stood looking at them from the Galilean hilltops with the

consciousness of being one who could afford them peace and light through his companionship.

The remarkable thing is that men through all the ages have felt that Christ was doing what he thought he could do. Poor, distraught human beings have come to Christ and have gone their way with a new sense of peace and calm. Men needing freedom from sin have found peace through him. Men needing strength for battle have found courage in him. It is no make-believe. Millions of the earth's truest and strongest and best have come to Christ and found life. We can no more doubt their testimony than we can doubt the whole company of scientists who agree on certain scientific discoveries. "The scientific student goes into his laboratory and, taking his formula, tests it to see if it gives the proper results. If he follows the conditions laid down, he gets the results. Another man, who tries the same formula but does not follow the conditions in full, fails to get the results. He allows an error to slip in-some precipitate or acid or what not. But if every man who meets the conditions of the formula finds the same results, we say that the formula is correct.' In similar fashion the men who have met Christ's conditions have found him meeting their deepest needs. Some who have not met these conditions may deride the idea of Christ meeting men's needs, but they can have no right to an opinion when they have not met the conditions. Meeting the conditions and trying the experiment is the one way to find the truth, and those who have made the venture testify that he meets their deepest needs.

992

'Bosworth's "Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles," page 39. "The author's "Introducing Men to Christ," page 169.

STUDY VII. CHRIST THE SUPREME REVELATION OF GOD.

"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh (he that is called Christ): when he is come, he will declare unto us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he." (John iv. 24-26.)

"And many more believed because of his word; and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." (John iv. 41, 42.)

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John xiv. 6.)

PART VI. THE MEANING OF CHRIST'S CONSCIOUSNESS. WHAT, then, is the meaning of such a consciousness as Christ had? He believed himself to be a sinless man. He believed that he had a unique fellowship with God. He believed that he could bring men to turn to God. He believed that he could meet all the needs of men. What a wonderful opinion to have of one's self! He must have been one of three things, either the world's greatest egoist or the world's craziest man or what he really claimed to be.

It seems to me that we can set aside the first at once as being a psychological impossibility. If Christ in his colossal egotism was simply deceiving men, how could we account for his perfect moral life? There is a unity of moral life, and no man can be completely false and untrue in one realm of his nature and still be true and holy in another realm.

We may almost as quickly dismiss the second. If Christ had been deluded as to his essential nature, surely he could not have been the sanest, most normal, best-poised man in

the world. But even the skeptics acknowledge that he was the world's wonder of sanity, poise, and self-possession. Neither could we suppose that the world's finest system of morals and its highest expression of life could be the resultant of a demented brain. No one can believe this.

If, then, he was neither a deceiver nor a deceived man, he was surely the kind of person he believed himself to be, the very Son of God.

If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,-
Account him, for reward of what he was,
Now and forever, wretchedest of all.

For see himself conceived of life as love,
Conceived of love as what must enter in,
Fill up, make one with his each soul he loved:
Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for him.
Well, he is gone, thou sayest to fit reward.
But by this time are many souls set free,
And very many still retained alive:
Nay, should his coming be delayed awhile,

Say ten years longer (twelve years, some compute),
See if, for every finger of thy hands,

There be not found, that day the world shall end,
Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word,
That he will grow incorporate with all,
With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,
Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?
Yet Christ sayeth, this he lived and died to do.
Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,

Or lost!

-Browning's "A Death in the Desert."

STUDY VII. CHRIST THE SUPREME REVELATION OF 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." (John i. 14.)

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament showeth his handiwork."

(Ps. xix. 1.)

"God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds." (Heb. i. 1, 2.)

PART VII. IS THE INCARNATION IDEA UNREASONABLE? AFTER presenting all the foregoing facts to a certain student, he said: "Yes, they all seem to be true; but the incarnation idea seems to me absurd and impossible. There cannot be such a thing." Well, let us see. Is this opposed to all reason, as my student thought? A Christian should be the last one to ask a student to believe that which was essentially unreasonable. We may not be able to demonstrate all truth-in fact, only a very limited number of truths can be demonstrated. All we need to do is to show that a fact is not unreasonable, that it does not cut across the normal processes of the mind.

First of all, let us remember that this idea of an incarnation is deeply imbedded in the human mind. Men of all nations have looked for the incarnation of the God idea. Even in Mohammedan countries, where the founder of the system strenuously denied the possibilities of an incarnation, the human heart has found many ways to circumvent this philosophy. If this is so deeply imbedded in human nature, we should not be surprised if the fact should prove tenable and reasonable.

So long as our philosophy was purely materialistic and all existence was simply the result of blind forces acting in accordance with blind laws-in other words, so long as we thought of the world as purely a mechanical worldthere could be no place for an incarnation. But we do not now so view the world. We think of the universe as the ex