In His Image by William Jennings Bryan
page 56 of 242 (23%)
page 56 of 242 (23%)
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Those who reject Christ reject also the miraculous proofs offered in
support of His divine character, but the _fact_ of Christ cannot be denied. Christ lived; that is admitted. He taught; we have His words. He died upon the cross; that we know; and we can trace His blood by its cleansing power as it flows through the centuries. Judged by His life, His teachings, and His death, and the impression they have made upon the human race, we conclude that He was divine and that He has justified the titles bestowed upon Him. No other explanations can account for Him. Born in a manger; reared in a carpenter shop; with no access to sages living and no knowledge of the wisdom of sages dead, except as that wisdom was recorded in the Old Testament, and yet when only about thirty years of age He gave to the world a code of morality the like of which the world had never known before and has not known since. He preached a short time, gathered around Him a few disciples and was crucified; His followers were scattered and nearly all of the conspicuous ones put to death--and yet from this beginning His religion spread until thousands of millions have taken His name upon them and millions have been ready to die rather than surrender the faith that He put into their hearts. How can you explain Christ? It is easier to believe Him to be the Christ whose coming was foretold, the Jesus who was to save the people from their sins--the Son of God and Saviour of the World--than to account for Him in any other way. To those who try to measure Him by the rules that apply to man He is incomprehensible; but take Him out of the man class and put Him in the God class and you can understand Him. He also can be measured by the work He came to perform; it was more than a man's task. No man aspiring to be a God could have done what He did; it required a God condescending to be a man. |
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