The deity of Christ is proven in many ways; some offering one line of proof and some another. Some are convinced by the prophecies that found their fulfillment in Christ; some give greatest weight to the manner of His birth and His resurrection. Still others lay special emphasis upon the miracles performed by Him. There is no need of comparison; all the proofs stand together and bear joint testimony to His supernatural character, but I find myself inclined to use the method of reasoning adopted by Carnegie Simpson in his book entitled, "The Fact of Christ." Those who reject Christ reject also the miraculous proofs offered in support of His divine character, but the fact of Christ cannot be denied. Christ lived; that is admitted. He taught; we have His words. He died upon the cross; that we know; and we can trace His blood by its cleansing power as it flows through the centuries. Judged by His life, His teachings, and His death, and the impression they have made upon the human race, we conclude that He was divine and that He has justified the titles bestowed upon Him. No other explanations can account for Him. Born in a manger; reared in a carpenter shop; with no access to sages living and no knowledge of the wisdom of sages dead, except as that wisdom was recorded in the Old Testament, and yet when only about thirty years of age He gave to the world a code of morality the like of which the world had never known before and has not known since. He preached a short time, gathered around Him a few disciples and was crucified; His followers were scattered and nearly all of the conspicuous ones put to death—and yet from this beginning His religion spread until thousands of millions have taken His name upon them and millions have been ready to die rather than surrender the faith that He put into their hearts. How can you explain Christ? It is easier to believe Him to be the Christ whose coming was foretold, the Jesus who was to save the people from their sins—the Son of God and Saviour of the World—than to account for Him in any other way.
To those who try to measure Him by the rules that apply to man He is incomprehensible; but take Him out of the man class and put Him in the God class and you can understand Him. He also can be measured by the work He came to perform; it was more than a man's task. No man aspiring to be a God could have done what He did; it required a God condescending to be a man.
When once His divine character is admitted we have an explanation that clears away all the perplexities. We can believe that He was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary. We can believe that He opened the eyes of the blind when among men—we see Him to-day giving a spiritual vision of life to those who have known only the flesh and the pleasures that come through the flesh. We can believe that He wrought miracles when upon earth—we see Him so changing hearts to-day that they love the things they used to hate and hate the things they used to love. We can even believe that at His touch life was called back to the body from which it had taken its flight—we have seen Him take men who had fallen so low that their own flesh and blood had deserted them, lift them up, wash them and fill their hearts with a passion for service. A Christ who can do that now could have broken the bonds of the tomb.
Volumes innumerable have been written on theological distinctions, some of which have been made the basis of sects. The doctrine of the Trinity has been one of the storm centers of discussion for centuries. It is not difficult for me to believe in the Trinity when I see three distinct entities in each human being—a physical man, a mental man and a moral man. They are so inseparable that one cannot exist here without the other, and yet they are so separate and distinct that one can be developed and the others left undeveloped. Who has not seen a splendidly developed body with an ignorant brain to think for it and a puny spiritual life within? A weak body and an impoverished soul are sometimes linked to a highly trained mind: and an exalted character is sometimes found in a frail body, and even associated with a neglected intellect. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three in one, present no problem that need perplex either the learned or the unlearned. We have the evidence of the Father on every hand; the proof of the Son's growing influence is indisputable; the witness of the Holy Ghost is to be found in the heart of every believer. The three act in unison.
The fall of man is disputed by some who seem to find more satisfaction in the belief that they have risen from the brute and, therefore, are superior to their ancestors, than they do in the thought that man has fallen from a higher estate. But the facts do not support the brute theory. Even if the "missing links" could be found, it would be as reasonable—though not so flattering to man's pride—to believe that the monkey is a degenerate man as that man is an improved monkey.
It has often been pointed out as evidence of man's fall that he is the only created thing that does not live up to his possibilities. In plant and bird and beast there is no disobedience—all fulfill the purpose of their creation, from the flower, that puts forth its bloom as perfectly when it "wastes its sweetness on the desert air" as when in the garden its beauty calls forth expressions of delight, to the bird that wakes the echoes of trackless forests with its melody. Man, only man, mocks his Maker by prostituting to evil the powers that might lift him within sight of the throne of God.
If so many men and women fall now, in spite of light and love and all the incentives to noble living, is it incredible that the first pair should have fallen when the race was young? Possibility becomes probability when we remember that the conflict that rages between the mind and the heart is the one real conflict in every life. Reason versus faith is the great issue to-day as in Eden. Faith says obey; reason asks, Why? The one looks up confidingly to a Power above; the other relies on self and rejects even the authority of Jehovah unless the finite mind can comprehend the plan of the Infinite.
No one will doubt the doctrine of original sin if he will study nature and then analyze himself. In the plant, in the animal and in the physical man, the invisible thing which we call life is the only sustaining force; when it takes its flight, that which remains falls back to the earth and becomes dust. And so the spiritual in man is the only force that can give him a moral nature and preserve it from decay; when his spiritual life departs the mind as well as the body rots.
Some find a stumbling block in the doctrine of the Atonement. That one should suffer for others, shocks their sense of justice, they say, and yet that is the law of life. Each generation borrows from generations past and pays the debt to the generations that follow. A certain percentage of the mothers die in childbirth—evidence that they are God's handiwork is found in the fact they so willingly enter the valley of the shadow of death to attain to motherhood. Many a boy has been won back to rectitude by the sorrows of a parent; we are not infrequently healed by the stripes that fall on others. In fact, great wrongs are seldom righted without the shedding of innocent blood—one dies and a multitude are saved. These do not always illustrate the voluntary laying down of life but there are enough cases of noble surrender of self for a friend or for the public to make it easy for any one to understand how Christ could take upon Himself the sins of the world and become man's intercessor with the Father. Winning hearts through love expressed in sacrifice, is that strange? On the contrary, it is the only way. It is because the story of Jesus is a natural one that it has touched mankind. Hearts understand each other. The heart, says Pascal, has reasons that the mind does not understand because the heart is of an infinitely higher character.
The sacrificial character of Christ's death and the atoning power of His blood are the basis of the New Testament. To discard this doctrine is to reject the plainest teachings of the Apostles and the words of Christ Himself.