The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Religion
The World's Great Sermons, Volume 09: Cuyler to Van Dyke
Sermons
They think of the historical elements of His Wonderful life as
they would think of those of Buddha, Zoroaster, or Mohammed. Their
conception of His earthly life has no power over the development of
their own lives, except as a mere character of history. They fail to
see that His was a unique life, and that it was lived on earth by
Him, that it might be lived in some measure over again on earth by
us. They fail to see that He became the Son of man, that we might
become the sons of God. They do not learn that He revealed the
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man that we should sweetly
experience the one and constantly illustrate the other. The historic
Christ has no more power over the practical lives of some, than the
traditional heroes of classic legend. Virtually for them there is
no Christ or God. Practically for them there is no historic Christ.
Until the historic Christ is translated into a personal Savior and
Master, controlling our acts, our words, and our thoughts by His
matchless example, His unique personality, and His spiritual purity,
there is for us no historic Christ worthy the name.
There are those who think of the Christ as a dreamy, sentimental,
and poetic character. They are charmed by the commendable
characteristics of His remarkable life. They refer to Him in terms
of soothing speech and of dreamy affection. There is an element of
poesy in all their conceptions of the divine-human Christ. They
think of Him in language which the robust Chalmers called, in his
lofty scorn, "nursery endearments." They are ready to adopt the
language of the renowned French theologian, eminent Orientalist, and
brilliant rhetorician, Renan, when he speaks of the Christ of God
as the "sweet Galilean." Such epithets must be utterly unwelcome to
Christ. If He be not more than man, then He is less than man. If He
be not worthy of our loftiest devotion, He is certainly worthy of
our severest reprehension. In a word, if He be not God, He is not a
good man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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