The Jesus of HistoryGlover, T. R. (Terrot Reaveley)
Religion
The Jesus of History
Glover, T. R. (Terrot Reaveley)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity
In speaking of God, it is noticeable that Jesus chiefly emphasizes
God's interest in the individual, as giving the real clue to God's
nature. On the whole, there is very little even implied, still less
explicit, in the Gospels, about God as the great architect of
Nature--hardly anything on the lines familiar to us in the Psalms
and in Isaiah--"The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed
the dry land" (Psalm 95:5)--"He taketh up the isles as a very little
thing" (Isaiah 40:15). There is little of this in the Gospels; yet
it is implied in the affair of the storm (Matt. 8:26). The disciples
in their anxiety wake him. He does not understand their fear. Whose
sea is it? Whose wind is it? Whose children are you? Cannot you
trust your Father to control his wind and his sea? Of course it is
possible that he said more about God as the Author of Nature than
our fragmentary reports give us; but it may be that it is because
the emphasis on God's care and love for the individual is hardest to
believe, and at the same time best, gives the real value of God,
that Jesus uses it so much. Perhaps the Great Artificer is too far
away for our minds. He is too busy, we think; and yet, after all, if
God is so great, why should he be so busy? If he is a real Father,
why should not he be at leisure for his children? He is, says Jesus;
a friend has leisure for his friends, and a father for his children;
and God, Jesus suggests, always has leisure for you.
The great emphasis with Jesus falls on the love of God. Thus he
tells the story of the impossible creditor with two debtors (Luke
7:42). One owed him ten pounds, and the other a hundred. When they
had nothing to pay, they both came to him and told him so. The
ordinary creditor, at the very best, would say: "Well, I suppose I
must put it down as a bad debt." Jesus says that this creditor took
up quite another attitude. He smiled and said to his two troubled
friends: "Is that all? Don't let anything like that worry you. What
is that between you and me?" He forgave them the debt with such a
charm ("echarisato"), Jesus says, that they both loved him. One
feels that the end of the story must be, that they both paid him and
loved him all the more for taking the money. What a delightful story
of charm, and friendship and forgiveness! And it is a true picture
of God, Jesus would have us believe, of God's forgiveness and the
response it wakes in men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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