Text: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”—Matt. 16.16.
Jesus asked a great question, and Peter made a great reply. No prophet, no priest, no king, no patriarch of Israel had ever been greeted in such fashion. Of nobody else in the world are these words spoken today. How pure must have been the life, how majestic the personality, how wise the utterances, how divine the deeds, that compelled this thrilling answer from the apostle’s lips. Surely something really wonderful beyond all previous Hebrew experience was necessary before Jews could bring themselves to acknowledge any man, however exalted, as divine. The miracle of winning such a confession is testimony to the sovereign greatness of Jesus.
We, too, have to answer the same question, and there are facts which lead us to the same great confession of faith.
FIVE TREMENDOUS FACTS
1. Jesus, a peasant, is hailed today as King by people speaking 750 languages and dialects, in all climes, and of all classes. People of every color raise to Him the song of praise and crown Him “Lord of all.” There is nothing like this in all history. No other has ever approached this degree of sovereignty. His kingdom pervades the world. It is a fact that challenges thought. No world conqueror has ever had such an empire. Beside this the royalty of men like Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and more modern aspirants is shadowy and ghostlike. His is an abiding and a spiritual dominion.
2. Though an unlettered peasant, Jesus has become the world’s greatest teacher. For all our best knowledge of God, for the revelation of divine Fatherly love, for our highest ideals of virtue, for man’s most glorious hope, people on all sides look to Him. Not only men of the highest rank, but men of the richest culture sit at His feet. The purest souls sit at His feet. His golden rule will never be supplanted. His name has become the synonym for all that is true and gracious. To be Christ-like must ever remain man’s highest ideal.
3. He was a Jew, and yet He founded the brotherhood of man. In His day Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. But Jesus had. Jews were fenced off from all other nations in the most exclusive way. But His heart was all-inclusive, and He broke down all walls that separated class from class as well as nation from nation. His thought was universal. His spirit was international. He founded a kingdom based, as Napoleon said, not on force but on love, and love is universal. It leaps over mountains, it spans oceans. It speaks in all tongues. The true League of Nations and the real disarmament are part of His plan for the world. He was son of Israel only incidentally. Essentially He was Son of Man—the true brother of all mankind.
4. His life was short, but it changed the world. No one ever did so much in so short a time. At the most his years numbered thirty-three years, and of these only a little less than three were devoted to public ministry, and these were spent in a conquered province of the Roman Empire. He was killed by aliens at the request of His own countrymen. And yet time is reckoned from His birth. The very terms B.C. and A.D. have great significance. He divides not only time, but also space. The nations are Christian and non-Christian, which is about equal to saying, civilized and barbarous. One has only to think of the ideals and practices of pagan people before they received the influences of Christianity to see the difference He makes everywhere. No tribe on earth was ever lifted from savagery by the influence of Socrates, no crime-soaked soul was ever saved by his name and yet Socrates was the wisest and noblest of the Greeks. He lived for seventy years and for forty years taught the young men in the most cultured age and among the most intellectual people in the world. But Jesus has lifted cannibals and washed the souls of men who were steeped in blackest vice. The rationalist Lecky said that the simple record of His three brief years of active life had done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and than all the exhortations of moralists.
5. He was crucified, and made of the cross a throne from which to rule the hearts of men. The cross was a gallows far more hideous and cruel than the hangman’s gallows. It was the symbol of crime, of shame, of degradation. He transformed it. It is today the symbol of love, of purity, of virtue. His dream came true. Once only did a man dream that by dying upon a cross would He teach men to say that God is love, that love is universal, that there is hope for sinners, and that the worship of God must be spiritual. This is the miracle of the ages. The Crucified has become the King.
Here then are five tremendous facts. They are unique. If only one were true it would make Him remarkable, but they are all true.