Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

Echoes NumberLESSON HELPS FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 12, 1954VOLUME LIII WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 1954 NUMBER 8Jesus Christ -The Heart of HistoryPhilippians 2:5-11that was His coat. When He was dead He was takenWho is this Jesus whom men call the Christ, theproperty He had on earth while He was dying and ing."(Bowie.) Associate Reformed PresbyterianSon of God 1" He is an historical figure. "Jesus wasborn in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod thedown and laid in a borrowed grave through the pityof a friend.king.""Nineteen wide, wide centuries have come andThe story of Jesus, and how He flashed like ameteor across the sky of His generation, and thisworld, cannot be told too often. It is true that itcannot be written or told in an adequate manner, butit must never be forgotten.gone, and today He is the centerpiece of the humanrace and the leader of progress. I am far within themark when I say that all the armies that evermarched, and all the navies that ever were built, andall the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kingsthat ever reigned, put together, have not affectedAn unknown author has told the story in thesethe life of man upon this earth as powerfullywords : "Here is a man who was born in an obscurethat Onevillage, the child of a peasant woman. HeSolitary Life."grew upin another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter Here is the supreme Event. "In the life of Jesus,shop until He was thirty,and then for three years in His crucifixion, in His rising again, in His returnHe was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. to His disciples, something happened in the midst ofHe never held an office.history, because of which all history 'before thatEvent and all"He never owned a home. He never set foot in history after it are transfigured. InaJesus Christ thebig city. He never traveled two hundred miles fromlong hopes and yearning of the OldTestament have theirthe place where He was born. He hadfulfillment, and in Him theno credentialsfaith and purpose of men for all the years to comebut Himself.find their meaning and direction. The fact that for"He had nothing to do with the world except thenaked power of His divine manhood. While still amost of the nations of the world the calendar is reckoned from the birth of Jesus Christ, with the yearsyoung man, the tide of popular opinion turnedpreceding Him listed as "before Christ" and thoseagainst Him. His friends ran away. One of them defollowing Him as 'anno Domini,' is a perpetual symnied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. Hebol of human awareness of the crucial effect of Hiswent through the mockery of a trial. He was nailedupon a cross between two thieves."His executioners gambled for the only piece ofentrance into human history. Even when men do notthink explicity about it, they bear thus their silentwitness to the supreme importance of His appear