The daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1904-1905, 1904-12-25
"S11fCf0rC, rnrn0r BY Rev. JF.
AAAAA0s0A - WI AAOA MaffinQIy


simply asks, what are the proofs
that Christians offer for SO stupen
dous a fact? Is their witness true
The simplest argument for the di
vinity of Christ rests on the fact
that He whom the world reverences
as the most perfect of men claimed
all the powers and prerogatives OF
the Most High God.
He told the Jews, a monotheistic
people, that he was equal to the
Father, whom they adored as Jeho-
yah, the one true God in absolute
oneness Of essence, in working pow
er, in eternal being, in the right to
the worship of men: 81 and the
Father are one. My Father worketh
until now, and I work. Before Abra-
ham was made, l am. That all may
honor the Son as they honor the
Father.'
1t is unfair to say that Jesus au-
dlence understood these claims. in a
spiritual Sense Of the moral oneness
of a perfectly good man with God.
This is to read into the words a sub
jective theory born of a prejudice
which refuses to see things as they
are. The Jews would never have
been so angry as to have stoned
Jesus if He had claimed no more
than this. They stoned Him rather,
as they themselves declare, "because
that thou, being a man, maketh thy
self God.'
Would not justice demand of Jes-
us a stern reputation of their in
depreciation Of His words, if He
were merely man? Should He not
have corrected their mistake, as He
did on other occasions, when they
mistook His teachings? He never
did so. On the contrary, He declar-
ed Himself the Way, the Truth, and
the Life Of Humanity; not merely
the universal teacher Of the human
race, but, as no man dared ever
claim, its universal judge. Could
any human being bid all other men
to make himself the center of all
their thoughts and affections, as Jes-
us did? eff you love Me, keep My
commandments. He that loveth
father and mother more than Me, is
not worthy Of Me. Without Me you
can do nothing.''
We feel confident that the denier
Of the Incarnation is not influenced
so much by the arguments Of intrin-
sic impossibility as by the fact of
his evil life, which blurs his vision
Of the world of the unseen and of
the spirit. "The sensual man percei-
veth not these things that are of the
spirit of God, for it is foolishness to
him, and he cannot understand, be-
cause it is spiritually examined.
That is what John the Beloved
meant when he declared that, off
any man will do the will Of Him, he
shall know Of the doctrine, whether
it be Of God.'
AS a general thing We come to be-
lieve Christ's doctrine not so much
through the exercise of the logical
faculty as through the act of the
will, illuminated by the Grace of
God, which firmly renounces sin by
an act Of intense sorrow. If a man
goes down into the depths Of his
own life story, and realizes the need
of pardon, he has instantly started
on the road to God. It is short step
from an act Of sorrow to an act of
Faith.
Christmas day is a great revela-
ton of the manner in which God
hides the Divine behind the veil of
the human.
Does it Seem probable. Ask the
worldly man, that the immaterial De-
ity should become intimately united
TO a material body? Does it seem
likely that the infinite Creator
should deign to unite to the God
head that infinite humanity He Him
self had fashioned? Does it seem
reasonable that the Almighty should
be born helpless babe, subject to
infrmity?
eyes, answers the Christian;
"God so loved the world as to give
His only begotten Son." The APP
parent great things of the world are
nothing to God. The good, humble
mother of the crowded tenement is
nobler in His sight than the proud,
impure ruler of a mighty empire.
TIL, faitbfu Christian 1ahora,. :, tho