We ought to think of Christ because of the office He fills between God and man. He is the eternal Son of God, through whom alone the Father can be known, approached, and served. He is the Mediator between God and man, through whom alone we can be reconciled to God, pardoned, justified, and saved. He is the divine Person whom God the Father has sealed to be the giver of everything that man requires for his soul. In His favor is life. There is no person of such immense importance to all men.
All men ought to think of Christ because of what He has done. He kindly set His thoughts on humanity when man was lost, bankrupt, and helpless, and undertook to save sinners. In the fullness of time, He was born of Mary, and lived thirty-three years in this evil world. At the end of that, He shed His life-blood to pay man’s debt to God. He was made a curse, that man might be blessed. He died, that man might live. He was counted a sinner, that man might be counted righteous. If Christ had not died, we would await the wrath of God.
Good Reasons to Think about Christ
Time is too short to set down all the reasons why men ought to think of Christ. Christ is the grand subject of the Bible; Christ is the great object to whom all Christians give honor; Christ is the end and substance of the ordinances; Christ is the great source of light, peace and hope. There is not a spark of spiritual comfort that has ever illumined a sinner’s heart that has not come from Christ. There is no one in whom the world has such a deep interest. There is no one to whom all the world owes so much—high and low, rich and poor, old and young, gentle and simple—all ought to think about Christ.
Common Thoughts of Many about Christ
There were many strange thoughts about Christ when He was on earth. There are still many strange and wrong thoughts about Christ now that He is in heaven.
The thoughts of some people about Christ are simply blasphemous. They are not ashamed to deny His divinity. They refuse to believe the miracles recorded of Him. They tell us that He ought to be ranked with great reformers and philosophers, like Socrates, Seneca, and Confucius, but no higher. There is not the slightest comparison to be made between Christ and any other teacher that ever lived. The difference between Him and others is a gulf that cannot be spanned. It is akin to the difference between gold and clay, between the sun and a candle. Nothing can account for Christ and Christianity but the belief that Christ is God.
The thoughts of some men about Christ are mean and low. They consider that if they do their best, and live moral lives, and go to church pretty regularly, Christ will deal mercifully with them at last, and make up any deficiencies. Thoughts such as these utterly fail to explain why Christ died on the cross. They take the crown off Christ’s head. They overthrow the whole system of the gospel, and pull up all its leading doctrines by the roots. They exalt man to an absurdly high position; as if he could pay some part of the price of his soul. They rob man of all the comforts of the gospel, and place the cross in a degraded and inferior position.
Thoughts of True Christians about Christ
True Christians have high thoughts about Christ. They see in Him a wondrous Person, far above all other beings in His nature—a Person who is at one and the same time perfect God, mighty to save, and perfect man, able to feel. They see in Him an all-powerful Redeemer, who has paid their countless debts to God, and delivered their souls from guilt and hell.
They see in Him an almighty Friend, who left heaven for them, died for them, rose again for them that He might save them forevermore. They see in Him an almighty Physician, who took away their sins in His own blood, put His own Spirit in their hearts, delivered them from the power of sin, and gave them the right to become God’s children. Happy are they who have such thoughts!
True Christians have trustful thoughts of Christ. They daily lean the weight of their souls on Him by faith for pardon and peace. They daily cling to Him by faith, as a child in a crowd clings to its mother’s hand. They daily look to Him for grace, comfort, and strength.
Christ is the Rock under their feet and the staff in their hand, their ark and their city of refuge, their sun and their shield, their health and their light, their life, their hope, and their all. Happy are they who have such thoughts!
True Christians have experiential thoughts of Christ. The things they think of Him they do not merely think with their heads. They have not learned them from schools or picked them up from others. They think them because they have found them true by their own experience. They have proved them, tasted them, tried them.
They think out what they have felt for themselves. There is all the difference in the world between knowing that a man is a doctor while we never have occasion to employ him, and knowing him as “our own” doctor because we have gone to him for medicine. Just the same, there is a wide difference between head knowledge and experimental thoughts about Christ. Happy are they who have such thoughts.
Christians have hopeful thoughts about Christ. They expect to receive from Him far more than they have ever yet received. They look forward to Christ’s Second Coming, and expect that then they will see far more than they have seen, and enjoy far more than they have yet enjoyed. They have the earnest of an inheritance now, but they hope for a fuller possession when this world has gone.
Some of them know more of Him and some of them know less. But all true Christians have learned something about Him. They do not always find such thoughts equally fresh and green in their minds. They have their winter as well as their summer, and their low tide as well as their high water. In other things they may be unable to agree and see alike. But they all agree in their thoughts about Christ. One word they can all say, which is the same in every tongue: that word is Hallelujah! Praise to the Lord Christ! One answer they can all make, which in every tongue is equally the same: that word is “Amen,” so be it.
WHY?
by E. M. Govan
You ask me why I see no charm nor glory
In this world’s pleasures, or its wealth and fame?
And why I love that Galilean story
Of One who died upon a cross of shame?
It is because my soul hath known its sinning,
The grief and darkness of that cry undone,
And at that cross has found a new beginning—
Life through the death of that dear dying One.
You ask me why I find no rest or gladness
In paths where selfish ease would while my hours?
And why I toil where hearts in bitter sadness
Lie crushed beneath sin’s fierce o’erwhelming powers?
It is because I know life’s thread is slender,
But one short hour, one little stretch of road,
Then yearns my heart with love divinely tender,
To seek the lost and bring them home to God.
You ask me why, what gifts I have, what graces,
Are poured an offering at His holy feet,
And why I brave the cold contemptuous faces
Of those who love this world and find it sweet.
It is because I see a distant morning
When stand God’s sons around His jasper throne;
I see bright crowns those holy brows adorning,
And I, too, long to hear my Lord’s “Well done.”