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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
Devotional: September 2nd

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CHRIST’S OWN CLAIM

No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him. - Matthew 9:27

It seems to me that if there is anything certain at all, it is certain that Jesus Christ, whilst upon earth, claimed habitually to be the visible manifestation of God, in a degree, in a manner wholly unlike that in which a pure, good, wise, righteous man may claim to shine with some reflected beams of Divine brightness. And we have to reckon and make our account with that, and shape our theology accordingly. I come to some of you who admire and reverence this great Teacher, this pure Humanity, who know much of Him, who seek to follow in His footsteps in some measure, but who stand outside that innermost circle wherein He manifests Himself as the God Incarnate, the Sacrifice, and the Saviour of the sins of the world; and whilst I thankfully admit that a man’s relation to Christ may be a great deal deeper and more vital and blessed than his articulate creed, I am bound to say that not to know Him in this His very deepest and most essential character is little different from being ignorant of Him altogether.

Here is a great thinker or teacher, perhaps, whose fame has filled the world, whose books are upon every student’s shelf; he lives in a little remote country hamlet: the cottagers beside him know him as a kind neighbour and a sympathetic friend. They never heard of his books, they never heard of his thoughts, they do not know anything of what he has done all over the world. Do you call that knowing him? You do not know a man if you only know the surface and not the secrets of his being. You do not know a man if you only know the subordinate characteristics of his nature, but not the essential ones. The very heart of Christ is this: the Incarnate God, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.

You may be disciples, in the imperfect sense in which the apostles were disciples before the Cross and the Resurrection and the Ascension, imperfect disciples like them, but without their excuse for it. But oh! you will never know Him until you know Him as the Eternal Word, and until you can say, " We beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Not seeing that, you see but as a dim speck, or a star a little brighter than its brethren that hang in the heavens of history, Him who really is the Central Sun, from whom all light comes, to whom the whole creation moves. If you know Him for the Incarnate Word and Lamb who bears the world’s sin, you know Him for what He is. All the rest is most precious, most fair; but without that central truth, you have but a fragmentary Christ, and nothing less than the whole Christ is enough for you.

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