THE
KING'S BUSINESS
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you do with Jesus, who Is called Christ?" "Oh,'' they said, "there are ways of getting around that." They began by saying that He accommodated Himself to the Ideas of the people among whom He lived, though He knew better Him– self. They followed along that line for a little while, and then It dawned on them that this view made Jesus dishon– est and so, little by little, they Intro– duced the idea that He did not accom– modate Himself to the people, hut that He Himself was ignorant; that He made mistakes. And In one passage of the Bible they thought they found a way out of their difficulties-that In Philippians which speaks of Jesu• Christ as having "emptied Himself." But we said to them: "Whatever 'the Kenosis' may mean It had already taken place-had it not-when the child was born in Bethlehem, when He lived in Nazareth, when He came out among the people- a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief? Well, what did He say of Himself while in a state of kenosis? Did He not say, 'The words that I speak unto you I speak not of mysel~; the Father that dwelleth In me, He doeth the works. Heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Did He not claim to be the absolute mouth– piece of the Father-this Son of man– this Jesus? He emptied Himself when He became man. He could not empty Himself more. But there He stands– the impregnable Rock-and the Father bears witness to the Son, and the Son bears witness concerning Himself– "Thls Is my beloved Son In whom I am we!! pleased. Hear ye Him.'' So they are driven from one evasion to another,-the most atrocious of all of which appeared just before I left Eng– land, from the pen of a professor In Cambridge University. Finding that he cannot get rid of the authority of
Jesus, he twists and maltreats and out– rages the New Testament and says that Jesus condemned the Old Testament and made fun of it. He declares that when Jesus asked the rich young ruler whether he knew the commandments, that it was equiva– lent to asking a respectable young man whether he were a burglar or a mur– derer; and that all Jesus meant to do was to make fun of the moral law and that the young man quite understood that Jesus was making fun of the law of Moses. Of course, at the first opportunity I pointed out to this professor that Jesus again and again, in words that admit of no question, emphasized the integ– rity and authority and finality of the Old Testament; that He spoke of the law of Moses as the commandments of God and contrasted it with the tradi– tions of men; that always the Old Tes– tament settled everything for J esns and even in the temptation In the wilder– ness it was the Word of Scripture that He used to answer Satan; and that all of our Lord's accrediting of the Old Testament revolves around that tre– mendous utterance "The Scripture can– not be broken." "Not one jot or tittle shall fail from the Law until all be fulfilled." "They are they which tes– tify of Me." "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither wlll they be– lieve though one rose from the dead." "Beginning at Moses and all the proph– ets He expounded unto them In all the Scriptures the things concerning Him– self.'' Everywhere Jesus stamped the Old Testament as the Word of God which cannot be broken. Jesus gave His disciples a specific message-a message of life eternal for men-a message which human wisdom could never have devised because hu– man wisdom has always repudiated It. But Jesus never wrote a word Himself. He committed this precious thing which
MIGHT. WHAT? (See Page 886)
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