An extended excerpt from the book, The Word Became Flesh, by E.

Stanley Jones

This excerpt is from copyrighted material, and it is recommended that

you purchase this book to read it in its entirety.

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HE IS THE CONCRETE CHRIST

E. Stanley Jones

Jesus the mystic, was amazingly concrete and practical. Into

an atmosphere filled with speculation and wordy disputation,
where men "where drunk with the wine of their own
wordiness", He brings a refreshing sense of practical reality.
He taught, but He did not speculate. He never used such
words as "perhaps," "maybe," I think so." Even His words
have a concrete feeling about them. They fell the soul with
the authority of certainty—self-verifying.
He did not discourse on the sacredness of motherhood—He
suckled as a babe at His mother's breast, and that scene has
forever consecrated motherhood.
He did not argue that life was a growth and character was
an attainment. He "increased in wisdom and in stature, and
in favour with God and men" (Luke 2:52).
He did not speculate on why temptation should be in the
world—He met it, and after forty days' struggle in the
wilderness He conquered, and returned in the power of the
Spirit into Galilee.
He did not discourse on the dignity of labour—He worked
at a carpenters's bench and this makes the toil of the hands
honorable

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.

O Jesus, Lord and Friend, we watch Thee in action and we see

how to live. Teach us Thy secret, for if we do not know how to
live we miss the one thing in life. So we watch Thee with
breathless interest and our deepest devotion. Amen
Jesus did not discourse on the equal worth of personality—he
went to the poor and outcast and ate with them.
He did not argue the worth of womanhood and the
necessity of giving the equal rights—He treated them with
infinite respect, gave to them His most sublime teaching, as
to the woman at the well, and when He rose from the dead,
He appeared first to a woman.
He did not teach in the schoolroom manner the necessity
of humility—he girded himself with a towel and washed the
disciples' feet.
He did not prove how pain and sorrow in the universe
could be compatible with the love of God—He took on Himself
at the cross everything that spoke against the love of God,
and through that pain and tragedy and sin showed the very
love of God.
He did not discourse on how the weakest human material
can be transformed and med to contribute to the welfare of
the world—He called to Him a set of weak men, as the
Galilean fishermen, tranformed them, and sent them out to
begin the mightiest movement for uplift and redemption the
world has ever seen.
He wrote no books—only once are we told that the wrote
and that was in the sand—but He wrote upon the hearts and
consciences of people about Him and it has become the
world's most precious writing.
He did not point to a utopia, far off and unrealizable—He
announced that the kingdom of heaven is within us, and is "at
hand" and can be realized here and now.
We do not find Him arguing that the spiritual life would
conquer matter—he walked on the water.

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?"

O Jesus, Lord of all, we thank Thee that Thy method was

different—Thou didst no declare so much as demonstrate.
And the demonstration is more convincing than any
declaration could ever be. We thank Thee. Amen.

Jesus has been called the Son of Fact. We find striking

illustrations of his concreteness at the judgment seat. To
those on the right He does not say, "You believed in me and
my doctrines, therefore, come, be welcome in my Kingdom."
Instead He said, "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me
meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger,
and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and
ye visited med: I was in prison and ye came unto me." These
"sons of fact," true followers of His, were unwilling to obtain
heaven through a possible mistake and so they objected and
said, "When saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or
thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger,
and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw
we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?" And the
Master answered, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me"
(Matt. 25:35-40). He was not only concrete Himself, He
demanded a concrete life from these who were His followers.
He told us that a human soul was worth more than the
whole material universe, and when He had crossed a storm-
tossed lake to find a storm-tossed soul, ridden with devils, He
did not hesitate to sacrifice the two thousand swine to save
this one lost man.
He did not merely ask men to turn the other cheek when
smitten on the one, to go the second mile when compelled to
go the one, to give the cloak also when sued at law and the
coat was taken away, to love our enemies and to bless them
—He Himself did that very thing. The servants struck him on
one cheek, He turned the other cheek, and the soldiers struck
Him on that; they compelled Him to go one mile from
Gethsemane to the judgement hall—He went two, even to
Calvary. They took away His coat at the judgement hall and
He gave His seamless robe at the cross and in agony on the
cross he prayed, "Father, forgive them."

O Blessed Illustration of all Thy saying, going even beyond all

Thou hast said, teach me Thy secret, and more, give me
Thyself to live within me so that I can do what Thou didst so
graciously do—do it by Thy grace. Amen.
He did not merely tell us that death need have no terrors for
us—He rose from the dead, and lo, now the tombs glows with
light.
Many teachers of the world have tried to explain
everything—they changed little or nothing. Jesus explained
little and changed everything.
Many teachers have told us why the patient is suffering
and that he should bear it with fortitude—Jesus tells him to
take up his bed and walk.
Many philosophers speculate on how evil entered the
world—Jesus presents Himself as the way by which it shall
leave.
He did not go into long discussions about the way to God
and the possibility of finding Him—He quietly said to men, "I
am the Way."
Many speculate with Pilate and ask "What is truth?" Jesus
shows Himself and says, "I am the Truth."
Spencer defined physical life for us as response to
environment—Jesus defines life itself by presenting himself
and saying, "I am the Life." Anyone who looks upon Him
knows in the inmost depths of his soul that he is looking on
Life itself.
Jesus said, "But ye shall be baptised with the Holy Ghost
not many days hence" (Acts 2:5), and not many days hence
Peter could rapturously say, "This Jesus God raised up, and of
that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right
hand of God, and having received from the Father the
promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you
see and hear" (Acts 2:32-33).
Everything He said He did—and more. For His life was
greater than His words. Words never have had such weight of
meaning.

Jesus did not try to prove heaven to his disciples—He went

up into heaven before their eyes.
He said to His disciples that the rulers of the Gentiles lord
it over their subjects but among them it shall not be so. He
that would be great among them should be the servant of all.
And when He came into Jerusalem announcing His
messiahship He came riding on an ass's colt. He rode into the
kingdom on the lowliest of beasts.
He did not say anything about being Lord of nature—He
spoke to the wind and the seas and they obeyed Him.
He said to His disciples that in the New Order revenge
should be abolished—the OT limited revenge—one eye for
one eye—He abolished it. When the Samaritans would not
receive Him because His face was set to go to Jerusalem and
the disciples wanted to call down fire upon them—He
rebuked the "and went to another village."
When His disciples asked, "Who did sin, this man or his
parents that he should be born blind?" Jesus dismissed both
hypotheses—He showed them how "The works of Gd could be
made manifest" even through suffering and disability. Then
He proceeded to illustrate in His own life the principle of
using suffering, turning the worst into the best—He took the
worst thing that could happen to Him, namely His death, and
turned it into the best thing that could happen to the world,
namely its redemption.
Jesus was the Concrete, for He was the Word become
flesh. Had He been the Word become word He would have
spun theories about life, but since He was the Word become
flesh He puts shoes on all His theories and made them walk.

O Lord and Saviour, I hear Thee speak and when I do hear

more than I hear—I see—see the meaning of Thy words in
what Thou art. Theory and practice were one in Thee. And
thy practice makes luminous Thy theory. I thank Thee. Amen.

from The Word Became Flesh, E. Stanley Jones