THE CENTER OF THE SCRIPTURES.
By Alexander Maclaren
CHRIST, the Son of God, is the center of Scripture, and the Book—whatever be the historical facts about its origin, its authorship, and the date of the several portions of which it is composed—the Book is a unity, because there is driven right through it, like a core of gold, either in the way of prophecy and onward-looking anticipation, or in the way of history and grateful retrospect, the reference to the one “name that is above every name,” the name of the Christ, the Son of God. And all its incompleteness, its fragmentariness, its carelessness about persons, are intended, as are the slight parts in a skillful painter’s handiwork, to emphasize the beauty and sovereignty of that one central figure on which all the light is concentrated, and on which he has lavished all the resources of his art. So God—for God is the Author of the Bible—on this great canvas has painted much in sketchy outline, and left much unfilled in, that every eye may be fixed on the central figure, the Christ of God, on whose head comes down the dove, and around whom echoes the divine declaration, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” But it is not merely in order to represent Jesus as the Christ of God that these are written, but it is that that representation may become the object of our faith. If the intention of Scripture had been simply to establish the fact that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God, it might have been done in a very different fashion. A theological treatise would have been enough to do that. But if the object be that men should not only accept with their understandings the truth concerning Christ’s office and nature, but that their hearts should go out to him, and that they should rest their sinful souls upon him as the Son of God and the Christ, then there is no other way to accomplish that but by the history of his life and the manifestation of his heart. If the object were simply to make us know about Christ, we do not need a book like this; but if the object is to lead us to put our faith in him, then we must have what we have here, the infinitely touching and tender figure of Jesus Christ himself set forth before us in all its sweetness and beauty, as he lived and moved and died for us.—Alexander Maclaren, D. D.