The record-union., 1893-04-03
JESUS OF NAZARETH.
Was Christ Simply a Member Of the
Human FamiIy2
Synopsis of Rev. j. B. Koehne's Easter
Sermon at the Congrega-
tional Church.

Congregational Church yesterday morn
ing: This was the second Introductory
sermon to the series the pastor is preach
ing on the question, "Was Jesus of Naz-
areth Only a Man?" The subject was:
Judaism and Before Christianity" The
text was from John iv, q: ''For saliva
ton is of the Jews The pastor said in
substance:
On last Sabbath morning we exam
ined Paganism in its social life-politics,
morals, religion-and found that none OF
the fundamental principles and doctrines
of ofChristianity could be found in it. This
morning we analyze the converse of
Paganism, and we shall find that Judaism
is indeed the threshold of Christianity;
rather the foundation, or better still,
Judaism is the seed. and Christianity the
full-grown plant. Compress Christianity
and you have Judaism; expand Judaism
and you have Christianity.
The Jew was the man hoping, just as
the Pagan was the man despairing. The
Jew never wearied looking for Messiah.
Through all the upheavals of their
tremendous history their faith never
faltered. Again and again were they
conquered by rival nations. These
nations perished - the Jew lived on.
Egypt became memory and Babylon a
waste. Civilizations borrowing their
splendor from the Jew, crumbled at the
feet of the Jew, his hope came and sur
vived centuries, tyrannieS and civiliZa-
tions.
Es The Jew lived amid Paganism, de-
5pising it with sublime consciousness
of possessing the truth. Paganism Of
tered gods-Judaism denied the power OF
these gods; yes, .defied them. Against
the temple filled with gods Judaism
offered a synagogue, faith and religion
old as the history of man.
The Jewish was pre-eminently a rehg
ious nation and race. One nation devel-
oped the arts; another commerce; another
formulated government. All these ma
tions possessed religion of some form.
But the Jewish nation was Supremely
religious. Its architecture eliminated in
the temple. Its commerce rolled gifts
upon the altar. Its government was over
shadowed by the priest. Its social life
reflected the radiance of the synagogue.
All its poets, prophets, reformers, states
men, its men of genius of every rank and
and of every age, were eXponents of re-
ligion. Hence we have only to examine
the religion Of Judaism to see its relation
to Christ and his doctrine.
Above all nations the Jew possessed the
purest conception of God. God was not
simply cause, force, a creator, but a
spirit, omnipotent and omniscient. Search
the annals of antiquity, explore the re-
ligions of China and India, and the more
modern Kingdoms of the Orient, and not
one contained the idea of God as did
Judaism.
out of the God idea the Jew created a
governmental system-the law of social
life-and formulated the ethical system
1or the upbuilding of mans moral nature.
The Theocratlc type of government,
birthed by Jewish law-givers, was taken
up by Christ and enlarged into that more
lofty conception, 1.-The Kingdom OF
Heaven" with this difference: the Jew
made government external; Jesus made
it internal.."the kingdom of heaven is
within you" Out of the
thought of God-the King of His people
came the doctrine of providence. The
Jew, however, limited the action OF
Providence to Himself while Christ un-
folded the doctrine into universal fact,
and declared its operations to extend to
all humanity.
The Jew never grasped the attribute of
mercy as part of the divine nature-God
was justice. If He loved, His sympathy
was only for the Jewish race, His chosen
people lIt remained for Christ to broaden
that doctrine into worldwide magnifi-
cence. He pointed to the fact that Gods
mercy rained upon the just and unjust.
More than that, taking the idea of God
out from its narrow attribute of justice,
He ranged beyond the loftiest dreams OF
prophet and sage, and in q simple SEN
tence revealed the unspeakable grandeur
of Gods nature by declaring: "God is
Love-"
Gods relation to man.
Here philosophy paused! To solve that
problem had been the effort of centuries
Paganism taltered in despair, reeled into
skepticism and finally erected temples to
the worship of the human occupants OF
its thrones! In the heather world there
was no answer to the question, "What is
Gods Relation to Man?''
To the Jew this was tribal heritage
that God was related to His welfare. In
dreams, visions, the utterances of in
spired men, on mountain tops, amid
earthquakes, the rending of empires,
Gods hand was plainly seen guiding the
race to victory. Never from Jewish lips
do you hear the wall of dispairi A MUIR
mur of suffering and impatience breaks
through the silence of its slaveries and
persecution, but never skepticiSm. But
the Jew never dreamed that God had
other relation than to one people. 1t was
Christ and Christ alone that revealed
the relation of God to m an to be that of a
father, and out of that u tterance came the
wonderful, the most inspiring doctrine OF
the ages-the Fatherhood of God.
Modern civilization rests on that
doctrine. 1t is a question whether or not
the Jews had clearly defined notion of
mans soul nature, certainly their religion
had an earthly meaning and their largest
hopes never reached beyond the con-
quest OF the world. Whatever their
thought was it lacked clearness. Christ
it was who ignored mans physical
nature and dealt with Him as a soul, a
being of immortal hopes and immortal
destiny. Revealing to man his spirit
nature. He reconstructed the thought
=. Do
selfish ends. Judaism defined duty in
external acts. If man is spirit, mo-
fality is not an act, but a condition; a
deed is not OF value without the motive:
not what the lips speak and the hands
perform, but what the heart feels is the
all important fact.
Listen to the thunder cries of the
prophets. They upbraid the people and
the age for idolatries and imoralities.
The world of Jewish law, compressed in
the decaAgue, is intended for earth and
time. Siu was an external act, to be
rebuked and repented of now. The
thought of God in sympathy with the
sinner never entered Jewish philosophy.
Sin and the sinner were confounded into
one. Christ drew the profound distinc-
ton between man and sin. God loved
sinful man-not his sin, but man. The
sinner must forsake his sin, was the
Jewish command.
God helping sinful man to repent was
the new doctrine. The Jew placed God
there in the distance; let the sinner come
and bow before that august presence!
Christ unfolded the wondrous doctrine.
in the parable of the lost sheep.-God,
the loving shepherd, searching for the
lost one. This is the genius of Christian
ity. Pagan philosophy and Jewish
prophecy never reached that hight of
sublimity. God suffering for sin was to
the Greek foolishness and to the Jew a
stumbling block. Paganism Knocked and