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THE K I N O ’ S BU S I N E S S
December, 1940 fjBBÊBtÊÊIIIIÉ
His Name By A . W . T O Z E R * Chicago, Illinois
saw him heal the sick, still the waves, and open the eyes of the blind. So they said, but some have doubted this. They have felt it to be impossible, and have attributed all such stories to the mis taken zeal of loving disciples whose in flamed imagination saw miracles where none existed in fact. But the church has always believed in the veracity as well as the accuracy of those first disciples. And she has done well so to believe, for the man himself has been greater than his miracles, has been himself the great Miracle, establishing the possibility of miracles and authenticating the record of his own. '■ . "This beginning of miracles did Jesus,” wrote John of the miracle at the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee. “This beginning of miracles was Jesus,” might be as truthfully said of the fact that he Was a forth-bursting of spiritual power from a people which had lost all vitality generations before, and was, at the time of his coming, effete; decadent, spent. The Israel of Moses and the prophets was no more; in her place was a wrinkled beldame, „ a desiccated shadow of her early self. As well ex pect a child from Sarah when she was old as to expect life to spring up there. Nothing of lasting spiritual significance had come out of Israel for weary gen erations, and then suddenly he came, and his coming was like thunderous dawn after a night of waitiiig. This is as great a wonder as any miracle he performed while he lived among men. W on d e rfu l in T ran sform in g P ow er Later, when he began his revolution izing work, he selected disciples to form the nucleus of that which, after his resurrection, was to be his church, and it is noteworthy that he deliberately ignored those who might have been ex pected to bring him help, money, pres tige, or talents, and chose for his dis ciples a dozen uneducated men from the humbler walks of life. As men view such things, it was, all told, a pitiably weak and amateurish beginning. There was not a single great personality, not an ounce of formal education, not a wealthy patron to help the cause along [ Continued on Page 466]
“And his name shall be called Won derful” (Isa. 9:6). R EARLY two thousand years ago, He was bom in obscurity. He came from no great center of civilization, no city famous among the cities of the earth. Prom Judea he came, and from little Bethlehem, the very name of which was strange a mile beyond the borders of Palestine. But the living wonder is here, that his little country, in less than one hundred years after he came, had moved to a place of first im portance in the thoughts and affections of a large part of the earth’s papulation, and it has held it without challenge down to this present time. And that solely because he Was bom there, and lived there, and died there! '• The world when he came had known her great men; she had loved them much and celebrated them well. To gain a place of eminence in the esteem of mankind, it was necessary that he should hurdle the big names—and how many there were—of poets, artists, philosophers, soldiers, lawgivers, states men; but this man did it. He did it with out trying to do it, and reached in one easy bound such exalted heights of greatness as to dwarf all other of the World’s great and make comparison futile. Paul could explain this only by saying, “God . . . hath . . . given him a name which is above every name.” And this has been the testimony of his tory. W on d e rfu l in L ife They say that while he walked on earth he Worked miracles, that he did things that no mere man could do. Men *Pastor of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Tabernacle, Chicago, III. In a letter accompanying the manuscript, Mr. Tozer made this explanation which readers will wish to have in their minds as they read the message : “I have used no capitalization in the pronouns referring to Christ. I usually do so, but I felt that the tone of the article was such that capitalization would be beg ging the question, that is, ASSUMING ■that which we were trying to PROVE.” The proof is doubly convincing as one moves through the arguments which' the author advances.
in a village in Palestine, was bom the man Jesus, later called the Christ, the man of wonderful name.
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