And so, when Peter stood up amongst that congregation of wondering
strangers and scowling Pharisees, and said, 'The Man that died on the
Cross, the Rabbi-peasant from half-heathen Galilee, is the Person to
whom Law and Prophets have been pointing,'--no wonder that no one
believed him except those whose hearts were touched, for it is never
possible for the common mind, at any epoch, to believe that a man who
stands beside them is very much bigger than themselves. Great men
have always to die, and get a halo of distance around them, before
their true stature can be seen.

And now two remarks are all I can afford myself upon this point, and
one is this: the hearty recognition of His Messiahship is the centre
of all discipleship. The earliest and the simplest Christian creed,
which yet--like the little brown roll in which the infant beech-
leaves lie folded up--contains in itself all the rest, was this:
'Jesus is Christ.' Although it is no part of my business to say how
much imperfection and confusion of head comprehension may co-exist
with a heart acceptance of Jesus that saves a soul from sin, yet I
cannot in faithfulness to my own convictions conceal my belief that
he who contents himself with 'Jesus' and does not grasp 'Christ' has
cast away the most valuable and characteristic part of the
Christianity which he professes. Surely a most simple inference is
that a _Christian_ is at least a man who recognises the Christship of
Jesus. And I press that upon you, my friends. It is not enough for
the sustenance of your own souls and for the cultivation of a
vigorous religious life that men should admire, howsoever profoundly
and deeply, the humanity of the Lord unless that humanity leads them
on to see the office of the Messiah to whom their whole hearts
cleave. 'Jesus is the Christ' is the minimum Christian creed.