The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 08: Talmage to Knox Little
Sermons
Do I say, then, that Jesus Christ was a man like other men? No. But I
do say that in their essential qualities God and man are identical,
and God entered into humanity that He might show to humanity what He
is. I do say, not that Jesus Christ was a man like other men, but that
other men may become like Jesus Christ. I hold a bulb in my one hand
and a tulip in my other. Will any man say to me, this beautiful flower
with all its rich coloring is like this bulb? Oh, no! But let the
sun of God shine long enough on this bulb, put it where it belongs,
subject it to the conditions of life, and this bulb will become like
this flower. Man is made in the image of God. All that is in man
that is not in God's image does not belong to man's nature. Natural
depravity? There is no natural depravity. Depravity is unnatural.
Depravity is contra-natural. It is against the whole law of man's
being. It is never wrong for any creature God has made to act out the
nature which God endowed him with. It is not wicked for a tiger to be
ravening. It is not wicked for a snake to be sinuous. It is wicked for
man to be ravening or sinuous, because it is against the divine nature
that God has put in man. He made man for better things.
God made man in His own image, God coming through successive stages,
manifesting Himself in successive relations of Himself in human
experience, God at last disclosing Himself in one pure, sinless,
typical man in order that man through that humanity might know who and
what God is--and is that the end? Oh, no! That is the beginning,
only the beginning. For what did God come in Christ? Simply to show
Himself? Here is a hospital--all manner of sick; the paralytic, the
fever-stricken, the consumptive. Is it good news to these hospital
bedridden ones if an athlete come in and show them his life, his
muscles, the purity of his lungs, the health of his constitution, and
then goes out? But if he comes in and says, "My friends, if you will
follow my directions I will put into you consumptive ones some of the
strength of my lungs, into you fever-stricken ones some of the purity
of my blood; into you paralytic ones some of the sinew and muscle
I possess--you can become like me," then there is good news in the
message. If God came into the world simply to tell us what God is and
what the ideal of humanity is, the gospel would be the saddest message
that could be conceived, as delivered to the human race. It would add
gloom to the gloom, darkness to the darkness, chains to the chains,
despair to despair. He comes not merely to show divinity to us, but to
impart divinity to us; rather, to evolve the latent divinity which He
first implanted in us. As God has entered into Christ, He will enter
into me. Christ says to me: As I am patient, you can become patient;
as I am strong, you can become strong; as I am pure, you can become
pure; as I am the Son of God, you can become the Son of God. Therefore
His message is the gospel that it is.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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