Plain Sermons, Preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street

by James Galloway Cowan

But the question was a wide one, and had they been willing, it might have perplexed them to know how to begin to answer it. Therefore as though dealing with them as children, and considerately attempting to lead them on step by step, He immediately limits the inquiry to one particular—First tell me “whose son is He?” Ye searchers and expounders of prophecy, what have you ascertained, what do you know of the descent of the Messiah? whose son is He? They say unto Him—“The son of David.”

Now, if any of us, my brethren, were catechising Sunday School children, and they so answered such a question, we should commend the answer as true though imperfect, and we should patiently and encouragingly continue—“True; but has He not besides another Father? an elder and superior birth? Who else in Holy Scripture is called His Father?” It might be that then some would answer—“He is the son of Abraham,” or perhaps even “the seed of the woman.” We should bear with this, we should approve it; we should become more hopeful of leading them to the perfect answer, and we should therefore gently proceed—“It is so; but now you have traced back His earthly being to its source, tell me whether he had not another and previous existence, and if so from whom He derived it.”

In this way should we question children; in this way from what we know of his forbearance and condescension do we believe that Jesus would have dealt—that indeed He did deal—with Galilean fishermen or Samaritan women; but not in this way did He deal with the Pharisees. He made an objection to their answer—He seemed to reject it as wrong. He asked how can that be. “How then doth David in spirit (by inspiration) call Him Lord?” If David call Him Lord, how is He his son? and He put them to silence, and turned away from them. He was not pleased that they were so far orthodox as to say the “son of David,” instead—as so many Jews would erroneously have done—of “the son of Ephraim.” He did not lead on, “What else? whose son besides? you have but in part traced His parentage. Consider, what are you taught more?” No! He seems to contradict them—to say, He is not David’s son; He is David’s Lord—and He leaves them in apparent perplexity.

Brethren, if you are in the habit of considering what you read, this passage of Scripture must at some time have occasioned you more or less difficulty. Why should Christ have apparently repudiated His true parentage? Why should He have darkened instead of enlightening these imperfect theologians? It was because they had knowledge, but perversely abused it; because they were partial in learning and teaching the Scriptures; because they contented themselves with low thoughts respecting Him. They were not uninformed heathen: they were not tyros in the school of divinity. They were teachers of the Word of God—they possessed His whole Word (as far as then written), and they were familiarly acquainted with all the contents of that Word. Theirs was the ignorance of men enabled to be wise, and responsible for wisdom: it was the corrupt misconception of what was palpable and easy to conceive aright. Human pride, false tradition of their own invention, self-interest, wilful short-sightedness, or, at the best, culpable contentedness with low and imperfect doctrine, had caused them to utter, perhaps to conceive, only half a truth, when it was in their power to know the whole truth. It was then in accordance with that teaching of His in parables—dark sayings hard to understand—it was on the principle that “he that hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he seemeth to have,” that He who hardened Pharaoh’s hard heart, and chose not Esau for not choosing Him, now darkened the understanding of the Pharisees, and made them blind because they would not see.

And His treatment of them utters a loud warning, brethren, to us. The question, “What think ye of Christ?” is not addressed with its full force to open heretics—to Gnostics, in whose philosophy Christ is but one of many æons emanating from the hidden god of the Pleroma; to Arians, who make Him but an inferior and created god; to Docetæ, who teach that He never was more than the shadow, the ghost of a man; to Eutychians, who make Him a compound of God and man, partaking of both, yet being neither; to Unitarians, who regard Him but as a perfect and pre-eminently godlike man; to Universalists, who say that every one, righteous or unrighteous, submissive or rebellious, must be saved by Him at the last; to particular Redemptionists, who suppose that only a chosen few, themselves that is, shall be saved, and they without regard or care for their holiness or iniquity—it is not, I say, to them that this question is mainly addressed—it is to us; the orthodox, the enlightened, the receivers of the whole Word of God, the maintainers of the Three Creeds, the theoretical believers, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the seed of the woman, the Son of God, the Saviour, the Prophet, the Priest, the Vine, the Shepherd, the Lord, the King, the Judge. It is to us that the question is addressed with all its force—with how much of its rebuke—“What think ye of Christ?”

Christians! what think ye of Christ? Ask and answer this question with all earnestness, as in the presence of Him who first put it, Who is true, and demands the truth, and the whole truth—and ask it, not of your minds, which it may be supposed are ready to assent to all that Holy Scripture sets forth respecting Him, but of your hearts, your heart of hearts, the seat of your affections, out of which are the issues of life—“What think ye of Christ?” And stay for a moment, pause at the threshold of the inquiry, and honestly consider whether you think of Him at all. Do you ever feel that there was and is such a Being? Do you ever meditate on what He is, and what He has done, and is doing, and is yet to do for you? Do your affections twine themselves around what they can reach of Him, and yearn for a more perfect hold? Do your spiritual appetites crave food of Him? your spiritual understandings beg for light? In your sin, is He grasped as your Saviour? in your sorrow as your Sympathiser? in your troubles as your Helper? in your comforts as your Benefactor? in your hopes as your All? in your life, passive and active, as your Lord? Do you feel any of this about Christ, or do you only think of Him as of some historical person long since passed away, or as of some distant lord, who knows nothing, for the time, of his vineyard—some future judge, whom you need not trouble yourselves about now, and yet whom you will not have to fear then? Is it only on Sundays, at church, by your bedside, that you think of Christ? Is it only as some ideal being, some vague, distant, indifferent, easy person of the past, the present, or the future, that you think of Him; or is He more real and perceptible to you than the men and women around you—more in your thoughts than any one else—more feared than your earthly masters and rulers—more implicitly obeyed than your most revered earthly superior—more looked to than your most substantial earthly benefactor—more loved than the dearest earthly object of your affections? Is Christ in you the worship of your heart, the motive of your life, the centre and summit of your hopes? If He stood visibly before you now, and asked, “Do you think of Me;” and if your hearts, your thoughts, your lives, rather than your lips, had to answer, would you be able to say honestly, “Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I do think of Thee?”

It is well, brethren, to put this preliminary question, and try to reply to it. It is well to consider whether you do think at all of Christ, before you are further asked what you think of Him; because, if you are led to feel that you do not think of Him, you will be ready to administer reproof to yourselves, and that, by God’s grace, calling you to a better mind may spare you the rebuke of Christ; because, too, if you do think of Him righteously, though imperfectly and partially, you will be enabled to look up with humble hope of indulgent consideration from Him who was the Instructor of the simple and the unwise; and because, feeling your thought, you will be anxious to enlarge, and deepen, and direct it, and so will strive to provide yourselves with a right and full answer to the question, What think ye of Christ? To do this fully, is not the work of a mere half hour. You must take out of God’s Word, each description, each title of Christ; you must ask for the Holy Spirit’s special aid in its examination; you must survey it and search it, and survey and search yourselves, and then with earnest desire to know Him, and to know yourselves, with long meditation and much pains, you must find out your heart’s, your life’s answer to the question, What think I of this view, this title of Christ? Then, after profiting by this answer, enlarging what is right, correcting what is wrong, filling up what is wanting, you must go on to another and another description and title, keeping in mind all the while those that have been already received.

Thus, and thus only, will you come to know Christ rightly, and so to think rightly of Him, advancing step by step, growing day by day, till you reach His actual presence, and see Him as He is, and are audibly approved by Him as of the perfect stature and fulness of a man in Christ Jesus.

To help you in this most profitable, spiritual exercise, let me suggest to you how to pursue some few of its particulars.

What think you then of Christ as the son of Abraham, the seed of the woman, i.e., as the promised Saviour, in Whom whosoever would was to be blessed? Do you really appreciate the salvation which He has wrought out for you? Do you duly consider the misery of the “not saved?” and are you heartily thankful for the proffered knowledge of the saved? Do you remember that He is a Saviour from sin, that there is no hope whatever of deriving any benefit from His sacrifice, so long as you willingly yield to the temptations of the devil, or indulge the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, or the pride of life? Do you therefore resolutely come out, and become separate from sin and sinners? Do you further consider how His salvation is to be laid hold on? Do you avail yourselves very largely and eagerly of the means of salvation, wrestling in prayer, searching the Scriptures, using diligently all ordinances of grace? Is each sin carried to Him to be effaced, and laid before Him, bedewed with the tears of repentance? In every weakness and doubt do you apply to Him (in holy communion, for instance), for strength and guidance? Is it your desire, your labour, to be joined to Him, to derive grace from Him, to grow in His image, because of your duty, because of your interest, because, above all, of your grateful love? The amount of your gratitude and devotion to Him; of your abhorrence and renunciation of sin; of your attendance on means of grace; of your growth in holiness; of your joy in salvation, will furnish you with a faithful answer to the question, “What think ye of Christ as a Saviour?”