Hi.
On Sunday, January 31, we will be marking our 15 year anniversary as a local church family. (One of the founding members, Mrs. Elna Bonne, just entered the gates of heaven last week. I can only imagine her current celebration with our Lord and Savior. Wow.)
On this particular Sunday morning January 31, we have only one chief goal: celebrating with all our heart our perfect Head – the Lord Jesus Christ. Please. Come join us.
In our new, developing Resource Center at our church building, we have a number of books on Jesus Christ. Also, I have a few. Consider these words by over a dozen men:
1) John Owen wrote about Jesus in 1657 (Communion With The Triune God, reprint, Crossway Books, 2007), “Lovely in his person . . . lovely in his birth and incarnation . . . lovely in his death . . . lovely in his whole employment . . . lovely in the glory and majesty wherewith he is crowned . . . lovely in all those supplies of grace and consolations . . . lovely in al the tender care, power, and wisdom . . . lovely in his ordinances . . . lovely and glorious in the vengeance he takes . . . and lovely in the pardon he has purchased and does dispense . . . What shall I say? There is no end of his excellencies and desirableness” (181-182).
2) F. W. Krummacher wrote (in the Suffering Savior: Meditations on the Last Days of Christ, reprint, Moody Press, 1947), “Ecce Homo! Behold the man! Yes, the sight of the suffering Saviour is still the mighty power which silently changes lions into lambs, breaks and melts the stony heart, and prepares the way for His most glorious achievements” (287). “O see Him lie! His holy arms forcibly stretched out upon the cross-beam; His feet laid upon each other and bound with cords. Thus Isaac once lay on the wood on Mount Moriah. But the voice that then called out of heaven, saying, ‘Lay not thine hand upon the lad!’ is silent on Calvary. The executioners seize the hammer and nails. But who can bear to look upon what further occurs! The horrible nails from the forge of hell, yet foreseen in the sanctuary of eternity, are placed on the hands and feet of the righteous Jesus, and the heavy strokes of the hammer fall. Dost thou hear the sound?” (330).
3) In Chicago, March, 1864, Robert Boyd wrote, “To the Deacons and Members of the Wabash Avenue Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois. Beloved Christian Friends: To you, among whom for so many years it has been my privilege to live in the solemn relation of Pastor, and to whom I have so often preached ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ I dedicate this volume. A kinder people to a Pastor could not exist. You have given me a place in your prayers and in your hearts. You have rejoiced with me in my prosperity; and when dark clouds of sorrow have gathered around me, you have surrounded me with tenderest sympathy. I felt it as the heaviest trial of my life when compelled by long-continued affliction to resign my charge over you, and the assurance of your continued affection and prayers is a great comfort to me in my retirement. As I am now laid aside, perhaps permanently, from my loved work of preaching Christ, I wish through this book to call up to your remembrance those glorious truths which have formed the chief theme of my ministry among you; and my hope is, that even when I am laid in the silent grave I may still be speaking to you and your children through its pages.” The book is entitled None But Christ (Church & Goodman, 1864). In the last pages of the book, he climaxes, “Let it be none but Christ in the matter of your justification. . . . Let it be none but Christ in the matter of your sanctification. . . . Let it be none but Christ with us in the matter of ordinances. . . . Let it be none but Christ in all your religious duties. . . . Let it be none but Christ in your thinking of your future home. It is he who has prepared that happy place for you, and his presence there will form its chief attraction. ‘I had rather depart and be with Christ, which is far better.’ To get a crown from his hand and a welcome from his lips will be unspeakable glory. In short, for sickness or for health, for prosperity or adversity, for life or death, for time or eternity, let your constant motto be– ‘NONE BUT CHRIST” (356-360).
4) James Stalker, in his book, Life of Christ (Henry A Sumner & Co., 1880) wrote, “But the most important evidence of what He was, is to be found neither in the general history of modern civilization nor in the public history of the visible Church, but in the experiences of the succession of genuine believers, who with linked hands stretch back to touch Him through the Christian generations. The experience of myriads of souls, redeemed by Him from themselves and from the world, proves that history was cut in twain by the appearance of a Regenerator, who was not a mere link in the chain of common men, but One whom the race could not from its own resources have produced–the perfect Type, the Man of men” (145-146).
5) G. Campbell Morgan, in The Crises of the Christ (Fleming H. Revell, 1903), wrote, “There is no way by which man can know God save through Christ. All attempts on the part of man, to formulate a conception of God, or declare a doctrine concerning Him are futile, save as conception and doctrine based upon, and perpetually true to, the Revelation He has made of Himself in Christ” (309-310).
6) W. Griffith Thomas, in Christianity is Christ (1909), wrote, “The crowning proof of the revelation of the Christ of the Gospels and of experience is that He is capable of being reproduced by the Holy Spirit in the lives of His followers. . . . We see, then, that for human life Christ is essential, Christ is fundamental, Christ is all. . . . Christ’s call to the soul is four-fold: Come unto me, Learn of Me, Follow Me, Abide in Me. Come unto Me as Redeemer; Learn of Me as Teacher; Follow Me as Master; Abide in Me as Life” (154-155).
7) Andrew Murray wrote in Like Christ, “Let us gaze, and gaze again; let us worship and adore. The more we see Him as He is, the more like Him we must become” (7).
8 ) J. Oswald Sanders in The Incomparable Christ (Moody reprint, 1971) wrote, “To sum up, ‘He is altogether lovely.’ Every element of moral and spiritual beauty resides in Him” (5).
9) Erwin Lutzer wrote in Christ: Among Other gods – A Defense of Christ in An Age of Tolerance (Moody, 1994), “Have we–I speak to those of us who are committed Christians–have we become so desensitized by the tolerance of our age that we can see Christ dethroned in the minds of the multitudes and turn away as if we didn’t notice?” (13) “Like our Savior, we are sent into the world; there is no room for a monastery in a New Testament faith. Whenever the gospel has found its mark, it has left the cloister and gone into the marketplace. The cry of the Reformation was the cry to return the living faith of ordinary people into the world. To speak on behalf of the queen or the president of the United States is both an honor and a coveted responsibility. To speak on behalf of Christ is the most grand vision ever to enter the human spirit. We will never recover the impact of the Christian faith until we have a revival of the laity, a firm commitment that every vocation is sacred; every believer is on duty for His King” (199-200).
10) John Piper wrote in Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ (2004), “What was the most loving thing Jesus could do for us? What was the endpoint, the highest good, of the Gospel? Redemption? Forgiveness? Justification? Reconciliation? Sanctification? Adoption? Are not all of these great wonders simply means to something greater? Something final? Something that Jesus asked his Father to give us? ‘Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me’ (John 17:24)” (16).
11) Greg Harris in The Cup and the Glory (Kress Christian, 2006) prayed, “Please pass me the Cup, Lord. It’s as necessary for me as it was for You. Give me strength and courage because what I ask is a fearful thing to me. Change me into a vessel fit for receiving not only what You would have for me, but also whom You would have me become. I have no strength to do this but by You. Strip me of me, and replace it with You. Have your own way with me. Thy will be done on earth–my earth, my life–as it is in heaven. Amen.” (36).
12) Robert Bowman and J. Ed Komoszewski in Putting Jesus In His Place (Kregel, 2007) wrote, “There’s no denying it: Jesus is one of a kind” (17). . . . “Here’s a sobering thought. This life is short. Soon we will meet Jesus face to face. And we promise you this: none of us will extend a hand to him and tell him it’s finally nice to put a face with the name! We’ll fall at his feet and worship. The time to start doing that is now” (280).
13) Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler wrote in Jesus in Trinitarian Perspective (B&H Academic, 2007), “Though the body of Christian truth is made up of a great many doctrines, perhaps hundreds of them, there are only three great mysteries at the very heart of Christianity: the atonement, the incarnation, and the Trinity. All the lesser doctrines depend on these great central truths, derive their significance from them, and spell out their implications. Each of these three mysteries is a mystery of unity, bringing together things which seem, in themselves, to be unlikely candidates for unification. The Christian doctrine of atonement describes reconciliation between the holy God and fallen man. The Christian doctrine of the incarnation confesses that the complete divine nature and perfect human nature are united in the person of Jesus Christ. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity affirms that the one God exists eternally as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (8).
14) Mike Abendroth, in his book, Jesus Christ: The Prince of Preachers (Day One Publications, 2008), wrote, “Jesus of Nazareth preached Christ, and Him crucified. It sounds strange but it is true, albeit anachronistic. The central aim and object of the Messiah’s preaching was Himself, the Eternal Son” (50).
It is quite an encouragement to be reading these men today.
In Christ alone,
Todd
