Week 18—Monday Matthew 1:20-21
Week 18—MONDAY
“EMPHASIZE CHRIST . . . NOT JESUS”?
In the Acts, Luke begins the refrain of the Word become flesh: “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach” (Acts 1:1). Note the order “Jesus began to do and teach.” First “Jesus,” the Gospel begins with Jesus, not with Christ—Jesus the Incarnate, not Christ the Designate. Christ is a title—“the Messiah, the Anointed Coming One,” but Jesus is the Savior—“Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21, KJV). Jesus, the Savior—that is not a designation, it is a Deed.
Tillich, the theologian, after visiting the Far East said on return: “We should emphasize Christ, in the interest of universality, not Jesus.” That is a serious misconception. It is Christ who limits Jesus. The idea of Jesus being the Jewish Messiah has cramped Jesus—the Incarnation of the Universal God. He was the Jewish Messiah, but he was very much more—and very different from the Jewish conception. You cannot say “Christ” until you have first said “Jesus,” for Jesus puts his own character content into Christ. And breaks the Jewish mold and universalizes Christ. Paul could proclaim the universal Christ because he had hold of the universal Jesus first.
Jesus is the Universal Particular—he is what Luccock calls “the Everywhere now coming into the Here.” You cannot know the Universal unless you see it in the Particular. For apart from the particular you put your own thought particular into the universal and make it less than Universal. You limit it to your conception. But Jesus is God putting God’s own Universal into the Particular. And the Universal God is the only One who knows the Universal. Jesus is the Universal revealing that Universal in understandable terms—human terms.
O Jesus Lord, we see you and seeing you we see all that lies behind. Not “all,” but glimpses, and what we see makes our hearts dance with joy. We glimpse Eternity and that Eternity has you at its Center. We ask no more. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall be the Universal illustrated in the particular—in me.