Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Concrete Christ
The Concrete Christ
Stanley Jones
---------------------------------------------------------------------
O Jesus, Thou dost not merely tell us of the way, Thou are the
Way, not be claim alone, but by demonstration that Thou art
the Way by the ways Thou didst act. We see the Way at
work, and what a sight. Amen.
He did not discourse on the necessity of letting one's light
shine at home among kinsfolk and friends—He announced His
program of uplift and healing at Nazareth, His own home, and
those who heard "wondered at the words of grace which
proceeded out of his mouth."
As He came among men he did not try to prove the
existence of God—He brought it. He lived in God, and men
looking upon His face could not find it within themselves to
doubt God.
He did not argue, as Socrates, the immortality of the soul
—He raised the dead.
He did not speculate on how God was a Trinity—He said,
"If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out devils, then the
kingdom of God has come upon you" (Matt. 12:28). Here the
Trinity—"I," "Spirit of God," "God"—was not something to be
speculated about, but was a working force for redemption—
the casting out of devils and the bringing in of the Kingdom.
He did not teach in a didactic way about the worth of
children—He put his hands upon them and setting one in
their midst tersely said, "Of such is the kingdomof God," and
He raised them from the dead.
He did not argue that God answers prayer—He prayed,
sometimes all night and in the morning "the power of the
Lord was present to heal."
He did not paint in glowing colors the beauties of
friendship and the need for human sympathy—He wept at the
grave of his friend Lazarus.
He did not discuss the question of the worth of personality
as we do today—He loved and saved persons.
John sent to him from prison and asked whether He was the
one who was to come or do they look for another. Jesus did
not argue the question with the disciples of John—He simply
and quietly said, "Go tell John what you see, the blind receive
sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and the poor have the
gospel preached to them." His arguments were the facts
produced.
He did not discourse on the beauty of love—He loved.
He greatly felt the pressing necesity of the physical needs
of the people around him, but he did not merely speak on
their behalf, he fed the five thousand people with five loaves
and two fish.
He did not speak only in behalf of the Gentiles—He goes
across the lake and fed the four thousand, made up largely of
Gentiles and ate with them as a kind of corporate
communion.
They bring to him a man with a double malady—sick in
body and stricken more deeply in his conscience because of
sin. Jesus attended first of all to the deeper malady and said,
"Thy sins are forgiven thee." In answer to the objections of
the religious leaders, He said, "Whether is it easier to say . . .
They sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, take up thy bed,
and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the
palsy,) " . . . take up they bed, and go they way into thy
house" (Mark 2:9-11). The outward concrete miracle was the
pledge of the inward.
He did not argue the possibility of sinlessness—He
presented Himself and said, "Which of you convinceth me of
sin?"