Week 48—Sunday Hebrews 4:15-16
Week 48—SUNDAY
Hebrews 4:15-16
LOOKING AT THE SO-CALLED “SPOTS” IN JESUS
This week we will gather up and look at the objections that many of the best brains of India have brought against the idea of Jesus Christ as a single and sole Incarnation for all people of all time. If this be true it cuts across the Hindu idea of the many incarnations and renders them irrelevant. Nine incarnations have come, the Spotless One—Kalki—is to come. We believe that Spotless One has come in Jesus. So from the Hindu standpoint they have to find spots in Jesus to prove that he is not the Spotless One.
Frankly, as I begin this, I feel somewhat silly. My attitude has been, and is, this: Don’t try to defend Christ—present him, Christ is his own defense. It is like organizing a society for the defense of the sun since someone throws mud at it. Let the sun be its own defense by shining. So I simply lift up Jesus and let him defend himself. But if I now inwardly consent to do this, it is on the basis that all of these so-called “spots” are beauty spots—the very opposite of what his detractors say. So I shall try to interpret these so-called “spots.”
The first is his “virgin birth.” I have often said I do not believe in Jesus because of his virgin birth. I believe in the virgin birth because of Jesus. His virgin life makes it possible to believe in his virgin birth. An unconverted Jew asked a converted Jew, “Suppose a son were born among us and it was said that he was born of the Holy Ghost, would you believe it?” The converted Jew quietly replied, “I would if he were such a son.” If the person were ordinary, then the birth must be presumed to be ordinary. But the life of Jesus was not ordinary. No other person has left such an extraordinary influence upon humanity. So if his life was extraordinary, I can accept it when it says his birth was extraordinary. He carries the miracle, for he was a miracle.
O Jesus, I look into your face and I know that anything good and right is possible. For you are that good and right made flesh. I cannot argue about it. I see it and the seeing is believing. And the believing lifts one. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The spots in Jesus are “so-called”; the spots in me are called spots—and rightly.