The Proper Humanity of Jesus #JesusFollowers

We’re invited by Jesus Christ to imitate God; to strive to become, “perfect even as our Father who is in heaven is perfect,” (Matt. 5:48) who “is kind to the unthankful and the evil,” (Luke 6:35.) But it’s obvious that this imitation can’t apply to the natural attributes of God: the self-existence, eternity, power, and presence which belong to God and God alone.

And our imitation even of His moral perfections is, admittedly, so feeble and faint in the very best of humanity that had Scripture not enjoined the duty, we’d neither have noticed nor dared to aspire to such ideals.

Yet, we need the stimulus of an example more approachable by our sympathies and level to our nature. We need to see in what sense, and to what extent, Humanity may be like God. We need one specimen exhibited to us of human nature actually made perfect, bearing the brightest transcript possible of all the imitable perfections of our Father in Heaven.

And this need is supplied by the history of Jesus Christ.

But not if he was in person Divine and Human at once. If his example is both Divine and Human we could neither confidently distinguish which is imitable, nor sufficiently discriminate how much is beyond our reach. Nor, if he was an angel, or any being except a man. The virtues of angels are not imitable by us in the way we require.

Jesus is not in nature an angel, but of the seed of Abraham (and indeed, of Adam.) “Wherefore it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren.” (Heb. 2:16-17.) His example is itself human duty exhibited in human life – duty fulfilled with matchless fidelity.

But we’re trained to look upon Jesus as we might upon a visitor from another planet – a creature of a superior order of being, the splendor of whose angelic character we must admire with a distant and detached feeling of wonder. It’s not only a theological, but a practical, mistake that makes the character of Jesus an object of distant reverential wonder, rather than one for direct emulation, or his example a matter of vague contemplation and admiring sentimentality, rather than direct practical imitation. This should not be.

That Jesus should be a perfect example for all men, throughout all time, to look up to and obey, it was necessary for the validity of his example that he should be really and properly human.

When we speak of the imitableness of Jesus’ character, and rest this assertion on the belief that he was a man “tempted in all points as we are,” we aren’t forgetting he was a Prophet, mightier in word and deed than any God had ever sent before.

The example of Jesus is entirely human, and strictly imitable in every respect. That sublime character was strictly of natural growth, under supernatural influences.

The Prophet's amazing commission from God acted upon Jesus, the Man, to produce a pattern so far advanced above all men to furnish all the world, for all ages, a Standard of human Excellence.

Those who profess a religious horror at the doctrine of Christ's Humanity, don’t know of its full worth. The Character and Example of our Savior, viewed as strictly and properly human, and therefore properly imitable by men, have in them a storehouse of virtuous influences, which, when transferred into our own characters, renders him his highest glory.

The great religious advantage of this “peculiar doctrine” of proper humanity, is that it allows our Master to be what he’s not in any other system: a true Example for Humanity. An example of perfected human nature, to guide our conduct here, and to animate our faith as to what we may become hereafter.

Christ's virtues, however exalted, are properly imitated; his perfect example is designed to be our guide. 

He will "hold us by the hand,” will help, guide, and support us, not with an angel's touch (for he helps not angels - and will perform upon us no miracle, and not operate upon us like a magic charm) but will help us as the wisest and holiest of the sons of Adam may help his less experienced brethren.

He will counsel, admonish, reprove and encourage, as one tried and perfected, helping the yet imperfect struggling with their trials and temptations.

His example ought to help us in our duties and our difficulties, to regulate the state of our minds, and suggest the principles of our conduct. Only then do we make the proper application of this great spiritual truth, that Jesus exhibited a perfect model of human duty.

- Adapted from “Christ Imitable; The Religious Value of Christ’s Proper Humanity” by Rev. Edward Higginson (1807-1880)

Let Us "Welcome" The Adult #Jesus Too! #JesusFollowers

  

Tomorrow, on Christmas Day, we "welcome" Jesus into the world along with Christendom. This is a Jesus we already know, a man fully grown and with whom we are more than acquainted.

This isn't a baby we must perpetually welcome into our homes. In the rest of the Gospels, we are confronted instead with the adult Jesus.

Meeting this adult Jesus is difficult for many, and even frightens them to meet him as an adult and not a helpless, unassuming child, a God-man who need only be worshiped, not a master we are compelled to obey.

The adult Jesus scared the religious elites of his day because of what he asked, just as he scares the religious elites of today.

Jesus is an adult whom we must each decide whether to ignore, or to serve as our Master and exemplar, as God intended us to do.

If we claim his name, and wish to be identified with it, we must not assume that admiring a baby in a manger is what God wishes. 

We must not delude ourselves that admiration - or even worship - is alone sufficient. We cannot ignore the adult Jesus, or prefer the baby instead of the adult.

The adult Jesus is hidden away by the religious elites. He scares them, as he did 2,000 years ago.

A fully human Jesus, fully grown, with a clearly understood, fully formed mission and a challenging religion of Good Works, scares them EVEN MORE! But that is exactly what he taught.

So this adult Jesus isn't celebrated at Christmas. At all. And he rarely, if ever, makes an appearance the rest of the year, either.

So, just who is this Jesus?

Jesus, the adult, was of course born a baby, but he was born fully a human, of human parents, just as we were born. (He was recognized as such in the Gospels by his neighbors, by the Disciples, and by his parents.)

He grew in the knowledge of God and gained wisdom; he pleased God in all he did. When he became an adult, he was chosen at his baptism and anointed by God to be our Master, our Teacher, our Template and the Example of how a human being should live for the glory of God and most beneficially for our fellow human beings.

This Jesus is not the one created for us by Priests whom we must simply admire and worship from afar; unable to obey, unable to follow because he is so different, so distant, so alien.

We may instead celebrate this Jesus - a man called and chosen by God - whom we can fully love as our elder brother, and the one whom we can actively follow as our example in all things. We may become more like God because one of us has done it already, setting the example towards which we may strive.

Let us remember the birth, but also the adult life, of THIS Jesus, a Jesus worth celebrating on  Christmas Day, and every day.

The Attainment And Use Of Gospel Knowledge #Jesus Followers

The Gospel of Jesus was certainly a plain doctrine at first, and in general readily and easily understood by those who heard it.

No one can doubt this who reads the accounts how and to whom it was preached by Jesus. Indeed, it is hard to believe that in a revelation of His will, intended for all humanity, the Almighty Being would fail to find a spokesman to speak clearly on His behalf, so that He would be understood by all.

Not that everything is so obvious and upon the surface, to offer itself to us without any thought or labor. It is not the way of the Almighty to easily bestow anything that is good or excellent upon his creatures.

Nor can we understand the Scriptures without taking the necessary pains, attending to the phrases and customs of the times in which our Master preached.

But by this exertion of ourselves, along with a sincere desire to become pious, wise, and good, we cannot fail to succeed. And we shall be let into all the Truth that is needful for our fulfilment.

It is a bad symptom in any person to see them lazily acquiesce to the surface principles of their faith without examining them, whether well or ill founded, and making their religion a series of thoughtless assents to forms, traditions, and doctrines to which they have been accustomed, without any serious application to the practice of piety and virtue.

There is more hope for persons living in open vice coming to their right mind and being awakened to see their errors and be reformed, than those people.

There were men of this character from among the Jews and of the heathen world, who were satisfied with themselves that everything taught to them in their youth was right and true, and nothing further needed to be learned. They rejected without inquiry the teachings of Jesus, and to their utmost, they opposed his teachings.

And thus, all spiritual improvement for them was at an end.

Religion, divine truth, the way to please God, is not the objective of life to such persons. What was instilled into them when they were young was to ill-serve them throughout life.

They were always to remain children. But the Gospel exhorts us to a diligent and careful search after truth, and to grow in knowledge and all wisdom.

Not, indeed, to employ ourselves on barren useless speculations, merely to gratify our curiosity; but on such points that relate to a holy life and practice, and are of the utmost consequence to our true happiness.

We are to seek out: What directions God has given for our conduct, by whom it is that He has revealed himself to us, and what assistances He has taught us to look for in the way of our duty. Finally, we seek after what motives and promises God has laid before us to encourage us in it in all circumstances, to strengthen us against dangerous temptations, to calm and moderate our affections, to give comfort under the unavoidable ills and calamities of life, and carry us safely hereafter to some better state.

This is the knowledge to which Jesus invites us in his Gospel, in which we are to make advances, and surely, we would find much more knowledge to attain, if our lives were greatly extended.

A review of our own errors and recovery from them contributes a method to endear the truth to us, and to confirm us in it. In this way, our wise and good Creator give us a method to produce the greatest good out of the errors and mistakes into which we have fallen.

And although we may at times be involved in darkness and perplexity, and our progress will not always be as rapid and continual as we could wish; yet by an honest, persevering diligence we shall get further into the daylight, and see our way clearer before us. We shall discern greater tokens of divine wisdom in the words of Jesus.

And then we shall find fresh motives and encouragements to our duty, and be more and more animated in our task to overcome the world, and every obstacle that would divert us from the love of God and the obedience we owe to Him.

(Adapted from the sermons of Rev. Theophilus Lindsey, 1810)

We are Saved by Following the Example of Jesus! #JesusFollowers

 

Jesus' idea of salvation centers in his idea of God. His most characteristic description of God is as the bountiful Giver. With a liberal hand God pours out His blessings upon all people.

His love is large and generous. He is ready and eager to bestow His gifts. This impulse to give and to bless springs from God's boundless, universal love.

Jesus' favorite expression for this aspect of God's character is the term “Father.” As the Father, He loves and blesses all people - even His disobedient and sinful children. He yearns for the lost son and waits and watches for his return; He continues to love those who are indifferent, or even hostile, to His will, and sends His Son to seek and to save them.

Salvation means a life corresponding to this character of God. Jesus expressed it by the phrase "becoming sons of the Father" (Matt. 5:45.) Sonship in the Jewish mode of thought denotes moral kinship and likeness.

Jesus presented a view of God designed to move the heart to penitence for sin and to gratitude and obedience. He set the highest value on small deeds, if done from love or compassion.

Jesus illustrates in detail the elements which constitute this true righteousness or salvation. They are: humility, meekness, aspiration after goodness, mercifulness, purity, and peacemaking. These qualities constitute that real righteousness which is the passport into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt. 5:3-9, 20.)

The man who fulfilled Jesus' law of neighbor love was he, social outcast though he was, who ministered to the poor sufferer at the roadside (Luke 10:36, 37.)

The first and great commandment, which summarizes the whole import of the law and the prophets, is the law of love. In comparison with the requirements of this law, all sacrifices and other religious ceremonies are of little consequence.

Love is the law because it is the principle of God's own moral perfection. God’s requirements are grounded in His nature.

The life of love is the Godlike life, the life of sonship; it makes us members of the Kingdom of Heaven; it IS salvation.

This teaching of Jesus does not minimize the requirements of holiness. If the statement of it appears to do so, this is due to the fact that Jesus does not separate righteousness from love, as later thought has done. To him these are never contrasting and rival terms.

What, then, must a person do in order to be saved? They must repent of sins and forsake them. The first word in Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom was, "Repent" (Mk. 1:15). But not only must we repent; we must turn (Mt. 18:3) — turn away from the old life, and in humility and self-surrender take up the life of obedience to God. Our Master’s descriptions of the conditions of salvation are not abstract and formal, but concrete and realistic.

It lay within the power of the erring son to forsake his evil life and escape his sinfulness by returning to his Father with a penitent and obedient heart.

When one recalls the complicated theological discussions of Salvation, the teaching of Jesus on the subject does seem, in comparison, very simple.

That’s because popular theological terminology for the subject is derived more from the language of others than from Jesus himself. Jesus did not analyze the process of attaining salvation, nor define its various steps and stages. He simply pictured the Father's house as standing open, and the Father's heart as ready and waiting to receive the wandering, lost son.

Jesus calls sinners to repent. He demands moral purity, humility, charitableness, and kindred virtues, and does not hesitate to require "good works" in one who wishes to glorify the Father in Heaven (Matt. 5:16.) In one place he declares that only one who does the will of God can enter His Kingdom, and elsewhere he prescribes the law of service as the law of that Kingdom.

When we further observe that he conceives his own mission as a mission to serve humanity, we realize one of his saving works was to induce us, by example and influence, to live the Godlike life of self-giving, in which our true greatness and glory are found.

Jesus saw his teaching and example as saving in their effect upon us. He sought by these to strengthen in us the desires and efforts for a better life - the life of sonship to God.

The life of Jesus, with its various expressions of itself in word and act, was a powerful saving agency in his time, and still remains so. The teaching of Jesus gives us no warrant to speak flippantly, as is commonly done, of his "mere" example.

Theology rarely takes time to mention the saving power of the personal influence of Jesus.

But let us not minimize by silence or by qualifying words what Jesus placed in the very forefront of his message to humanity: the declaration that the door of God's Kingdom stood open before them that they might enter then and there if they would, and that he had come to show them the way.

Jesus says: I am the world's light; by me you can know the Father, God's Kingdom is in your midst - by such words as these Jesus announced a present salvation, available at this moment, and himself as the guide to its realization.

Adapted from “The Christian Doctrine of Salvation” (1917) by George Barker Stevens

Using Our God-Given Salt, Sharing The Light #JesusFollowers

 

Jesus said: "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world.... let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:13-16) (ESV)

We are called by Jesus to be salt and light – salting the earth with goodness and enlightening it with righteous deeds But if our salt has become tasteless, what then?

What if we act without righteousness, or are so infrequent in our Good Deeds, that having they become pointless? Worse, what if we simply ignore Jesus’ call, because we have come to believe that this salt and light are unnecessary, never to be used at all in our lives?

Jesus spoke to challenge us and calls us today to be examples in his name. As God’s chosen Prophet and Spokesman, Jesus authoritatively calls us to take up his challenge and to follow his example.

We are called to show by our ACTS that we are heeding his call, and are taking up his challenge – not in a prideful way, but in a way that is pleasing to God, our Creator.

Coming in the middle of Jesus’ powerful Sermon on the Mount in the book of Matthew, this is a clear and unambiguous call for us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world – letting our light shine before others.

It’s vital to understand that Jesus believes we are capable of doing Good Works for others in his name. In fact, he says we MUST seek to do these Good Works, if we claim to be his followers and wish to still call him “Master.” Some have denied this is necessary, but to deny what Jesus clearly says makes his call meaningless, and the salt worthless.

We have been given the gifts of salt – among them, the gifts of Jesus’ holy example and our God-given ability to choose righteousness over wickedness. But if we allow those gifts to become stale, either by throwing them on the ground to be trampled or pretend that we lack the ability to use them to do Good, then we've failed.

We've been given gifts of light – among them, Jesus’ teachings and our God-given ability of reason and knowledge. But is we convince ourselves that using them to serve others is unnecessary, or convince ourselves that Good Works are merely OPTIONAL things we do if we feel like it – then we make the Good and Beneficial Message (Gospel) of Jesus into a mockery.

Clearly, Jesus calls us to do good and great things to glorify God, our Heavenly Father, and as a fully human man himself, he has shown us that we, as human beings, are fully able to do great things on behalf of others. Let there, then, be no excuse to hide our gifts!