CHRIST'S DIVINITY IGNORED.
By L. Anderson
MANY there are, even in Christendom, who deny the proper divinity of Jesus Christ, while pretending at the same time to be Christians; as if an intermediate position were possible. It is not. Their very compliments paid to him as a good and pure man, cover a terrible charge against him, even of lying and hypocrisy. Did he not declare his divinity? did he not represent himself as the Son of God, as well as the Son of man? To ask these questions is practically to answer them. To deny his claims to divinity is to proclaim him a liar in the face of truth.546If Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, and therefore divine, the gospel ought to be thrown to the winds, and the Bible torn to pieces as an imposture. He spoke falsely all his life, if he is not divine; yea more, he practiced duplicity towards his disciples, even the last night he spent with them before his crucifixion. Let the deniers of his divinity speak no more of his moral purity, of his holiness. If he was not divine, then the Jews and Pilate condemned him justly as an impostor. Let those who detract from his divinity think seriously of these logical sequences. But we inquire, what can be the possible motives that impel men to reject the eternal divinity of Jesus Christ? Is it done under a pretense of honoring God? as if, for divinity to be associated with humanity, in the person of Christ, would be a detraction from the honor of divinity—a condescension below the proper dignity of a God? Does it not rather show a compassion for man who needed a revelation of such compassion? Nothing is more worthy of God than the voluntary humiliation of the Saviour, his Son, in behalf of a sinful race; "God was manifest in the flesh." To deny the divinity of Christ, moreover, is to stifle, and thus embarrass the doctrine of the atonement (for his divinity is necessary to the atonement); is to take water from the soul's burning thirst, and bread from its consuming hunger; is to mock the cherished aspirations of the soul, that have asked these six thousand years for a manifested God as a Saviour. The world without a divine Saviour would be utterly at a loss whither to turn; for since the promise to Adam, all eyes looked forward to the coming Christ until his advent, and all since he came have had only him to fix their hearts upon. There is plainly no middle position. Either the church must rightfully acknowledge Christ's perfect divinity, as well as humanity, or it is idolatrous to worship Jesus when he is not a God. If there is any doctrine established by the most undeniable testimonies, it is the doctrine of the divine and human nature of Jesus Christ. With this doctrine, as a foundation, Christianity stands, but without it, the whole system is foundationless. Hence all deniers of this doctrine, in the pulpit or out of it, are, as far as their influence is felt, the destroyers of Christianity. Wherever and whenever this doctrine has been impaired even, the foundation of religion has been shaken in the confidence of those who have been deceived by such mockers of God. So it is written on the pages of the world's history. Does not this doctrine alone respond to the promise of God that "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head?" That seed is the incarnate Christ. By his incarnation he allied himself to the race—became the seed of the woman, and yet the Satan-bruising God. The Word of God became man, to enable man to receive God, that he might become a partaker of the divine nature. We conclude that to deny the divinity of Christ, it must be done in violation of a human consciousness and conviction that has pervaded the human mind in all the ages of its history. Such denial is born of human pride. Man is unwilling to be dependent, and affects to scorn the idea of aid in the regeneration of his character. Such pompousness does not bespeak thorough religious intelligence; but rather shows a want of knowledge of one's self, as well as a want of knowledge of God's ways with men. The pulpit therefore that discards the doctrine of Christ's supreme divinity is not true to its wiser convictions, is not true to truth. And the result of such preaching, is invariably an unsaved congregation, and a spiritually bankrupt minister.—Rev. L. Anderson, in Golden Censer.