212
T h e
May 1929
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
Orient, living in the ancient world, walking through the land of Judaea, healing the lepers, and feeding the mul titudes beside the Galilean sea. But they find it impos sible to visualise Him moving in the midst of modern civ ilization. They seem to feel that the personal figure of the Son of God would somehow be out of place in our sophis ticated cosmos. „ Such men do not know Christ. If they knew Him they could have no fears. For Jesus Christ belongs to no one certain age or stage of world civilization. “He rises above the parentage, the blood, the narrow horizon, which bounded, as it seemed, His life; for He is the archetypal Man in whose presence distinctions of race, intervals of ages, types of civilization and degrees of mental culture are as nothing” (Liddon). As the late Dr. Moorehead once wrote, “He belongs to all ages, He is related to all men, whether they shiver beneath the snows of the arctic circle, or pant beneath the burning heat of the equator, for He is the Son o f Man.” The enlightened Christian is certain that if, in the plan of God, the first coming of Christ had been fixed in our own twentieth century, not all its stupendous and complex works could have dimmed His majesty. He would have been just as great in this century as He was in the first century. He belongs to no century. The centuries belong to Him. He is the “Father o f eternity” (Isa. 9:6 A.R.V. margin). He is the Maker of the ages. Certainly, then, He is at home ih any of them. If this could be true of Him at His first coming, it can also be true of Him at His second coming. When “this same Jesus” shall come again, He will not be an incon gruous figure. He will not seem to be a first-century per son transplanted to the twentieth. Modern opposers of His coming may dismiss their fears on this point. It is true that our Lord, when He comes, will change radically some features of modern civilization that need changing (Matt. 13 :41), but if He should come tomorrow He would be just as much at home in this modern world as He was in the country of Galilee. He is the eternal Christ. Therefore, He is at home in all the ages because He is above them all. To some modern thinkers He may be merely “ this Jesus of Nazareth,” but to us He is “over all, God blessed forever.” Our “Precious” Illusions T HE other day Colonel Lindbergh, with his fiancee, narrowly escaped disaster while making an airplane landing. Except for his remarkable skill both might have been killed. The entire nation rejoices in their escape. Now for the strange and rather amusing aspect of the matter. At the field where the accident took place, Mex ican guards immediately cleared the field of spectators and systematically destroyed photographs taken by newspaper men.' But one enterprising reporter eluded the guards with his camera and within a few hours the pictures appeared in a Los Angeles paper. Naturally, it was a “scoop,” be cause the “flying eagle” is the best news in the world. The publication of the pictures, however, did not help the popu larity of thè newspaper. The editor has been bitterly ex coriated by various people for daring to publish a picture of Lindbergh’s accident! One critic thinks the alert re porter should be “tarred and feathered.” Thus humanity loves its precious illusions. When the ancient Roman Emperor, deified by the people, made a blunder, it was extremely bad form for any one to “see” it. And George Washington, it is said, never told a lie.
And Mrs. Eddy, in the minds of many devotees, has never died. Likewise, we resent the unpleasant discovery that even the splendid Mr. Lindbergh can have an accident. It is this stubborn tendency of man to deify himself in his heroes that will pave the way for that final apothe osis of humanity in the “Man of Sin.” Having rejected the truth, men will finally come to believe a lie. The truth is that men at their best are human, finite, full of sin and mistakes. But there is one Man who is more than human, infinite, sinless, infallible and worthy of di vine honors—the Man Christ Jesus. Those who idealize and worship men are following illusions, and at the last they will find nothing but disillusionment and bitter dis appointment. But those who worship the Lord Jesus Christ shall never be put to shame, because in Him we have found One who is “over all, God blessed forever.” He alone makes no mistakes. With Him there are no accidents. The pitiless light of publicity can never dim His glory. He alone never disappoints His worshipers. Roman Catholic “Salvation” A CROSS the front page of a Roman Catholic paper, • L I left in the writer’s mail box, in great newspaper headlines were these words : “Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish, says Christ.” Now, of course, careful Bible students know that Christ never said any thing of the kind. But this is the priestly version of our Lord’s words in Luke 13:5. Inside the paper was an article instructing men how to be saved. The writer said : “The great remedy for evil is Jesus Christ’s atonement on the Cross and the grace of God which comes therefrom, especially in the Mass and the Sacraments.” What a mixture of truth and error ! And yet not much worse than the mixture offered by some Protestants. For those who say that salvation is to be had through the Atonement plus the sacraments are really following the Roman scheme, although they may not realize this. No one who tries toi be saved by works, however good in themselves, can ever find assurance and peace of soul. Roman Catholics have never found it. Those who would be saved by keeping the commandments must keep them all, not merely one or two. And that is an endless road. Ask the Apostle Paul. He can tell you in his epistle to the Romans. Lasting peace comes only as we trust Christ and His finished work. We should withstand “to his face” anyone who may try to lead us back to the Roman system. Works are the result of salvation, not the procuring cause of it. Until we have learned this, we know nothing about Christianity. Why Is It? H UNDREDS of men and women, many of them church members, traveled thousands of miles to see Mr. Hoover inaugurated. The same people stood in line for hours for an opportunity to shake his hand or see him pass in parade. Church leaders will do almost any thing to get a President to appear for a few minutés and speak a few sentences at a church conference or con vention. Yet some of these same church leaders are stoutly op posed to the personal return of Jesus Christ to this earth, on the ground that such an expectation is “grossly mate rialistic.” They accuse us of “materialism” because we long to have His literal bodily presence once more among
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