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T h e Jesus Paul Preached SE RM O N P R EA C H E D T O G R A D U A T E S OF TH E BIBLE IN S T IT U T E OF LOS A N G E L E S, JU N E 27, .9.8
By Dr. L IN C O L N A . FERRIS Pastor First Methodist Church, San Diego, California
the Days of His Flesh,” “Jesus and His Gospel,” “The Ethics of Jesus,” “Christ and Man,” “The Divinity of our Lord,” “The Christ and Salvation,” “The Mind of the Master,” “The Problem of Jesus,” “The Cross in Christian Experience,” “The Christ of History,” “The Authority of Christ,” “ The Place of Christ in Mod ern Theology,” “The Person and Place of Jesus Christ.” These and many more. These are frag mentary, monogramic. Would it vex you, if for the little while we think together of the Jesus Paul preached? For wherever Paul went, in cultured Athens or corrupted Corinth, in sacred Jerusalem or imperial Rome, with sailors on the storm driven sea, or in Rome’s darkest dungeon “he preached unto them Jesus.” A Pre-existent Jesus And what a Jesus Paul preached! He preached a pre-existent Jesus. He was before all things. He was in the beginning with God, dwelling in light eternal, invisible, unap proachable, sharing the eternal glory of the Father. For before the foundations of the earth were laid or the corner-stone thereof was fastened, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, Jesus, the village carpenter of Nazareth, was with God, Principal Fairbairn says that the pre existence of Jesus is perhaps the pro- foundest and most difficult conception of all thinking.
HESE words introduce the two most commanding fig ures of human history,— Saul of Tarsus and Jesus of Nazareth, the cultured dis ciple of Gamaliel and the Carpenter of Galilee.
Viewed simply as a man of genius, of eloquence and of heroic quality, waiving any claim to supernatural power, the Tent Weaver of Tarsus stands out on Time’s canvas as the greatest mind, the bravest heart, the most masterful man our world has seen. He marshalled no armies, yet he has molded empires more than Alex ander or the Caesars. He founded no university, but he has shaped the thinking of the world more than any university from Alexandria to Harvard. But of Jesus how shall one speak? Shall 1 speak of Him as borne on the breast of Mary, or as dwelling in the bosom of God, the Father? As “despised” and rejected of men or “chosen” and beloved of God? As the toiling carpenter of Nazareth; or as Creator of the universe? Of Jesus, how shall one speak? Were you to run your eyes along the shelves of any half furnished library you could not fail to be impressed with the impact of Jesus upon the minds of the thoughtful. 'You will find “Jesus Christ and the Social Problem,” “Jesus and the Labor Problem,” “Christ and the Social Crisis,” “The Life and Times of the Messiah,7 “In
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