The Glory of the Nazarene

1910

By Rev. Wm. E. Tilroe, D.D.

And we beheld his glory. — John 1:14.

That a citizen of the earth, some nineteen centuries ago, a certain Syrian Jew, one Jesus of Nazareth, lived a life that was a life of glory, is the thing that is here said. Other things are said, but our matter of talk is this. It is not a theological vision, but a plain record. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory."

Not that to the son of Zebedee theological vision was wanting. To him the historic Jesus of his generation was an eternal, ineffable something known as the Word of God. "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God," and "The word was made flesh and dwelt among us." As speech is a revealing, a message, from the soul invisible, so the Christ was a word from God. Further, this Christ was with John the potent universal Creator. "All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that was made." This same Creator and word has also life and light. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." There may be existence without light, but existence without life there is not, and that new thrilling thing, the key of being, the light of the world, and the secret of destiny, is in the Christ.

Surely the invisible and ever-abiding Jesus shone zenith high in the eyes of John, and there was theological vision in plenty. But it was this vision become flesh and dwelling among us that was the immediate concern. One too poor for where to lay his head; barren of social prestige, without culture of the schools, writing no books, showing scant regard for organism or institutions, setting the sword into its sheath, beggaring himself deliberately of every arm of power in honor with the ages, and so mighty as to bend and rock the earth with his tread, making men suspect him nothing less than God, was a spectacle unspeakable for a Galilean fisherman. Fifty years and more he remembers what his eyes have seen, and only the greatest words under the sun and stars are able to tell his tale. "And we beheld his glory."

The glory of the Christ life may be seen earliest, possibly, in that it is the only one of its kind. It was a unique life. Jesus Christ was one, "only begotten." In all the ages he has no fellow. When Napoleon said: "Not one is like him," he had this vision. It is of the genius of greatness to carve a niche for itself, to fly in its own orbit, to evermore walk lonely. Moses, Aristotle, Caesar, Shakespeare, are memories of the forgotten, and live among the dead. So there was never another like the Son of Mary. Reverence is born of respect, and worship of the Christ may well begin by finding him among the solitary few. History can neither be written nor read without mention of His name. Jesus of Nazareth is even now Jesus of the planet.

But the glory of Christ is unique, especially, in being such a glory to the mind of God. Jesus Is the only begotten "of the Father." A compliment of benediction gathers its music and fragrance from its source. The great of earth must read their glory, always, in a revised version. The noonday light of one generation fades in another to a smoking taper. "Call no man happy until he is dead," is an ancient epitaph. Only the judgments of the immortals stand. That the life of the Christ is a glory with the Eternal, is at once a patent of worth and a call to prayer. That worship of the historic Jesus is not rank idolatry finds its one reason here; he is in time a veritable manifestation of the eternal God. Forevermore the Almighty Father exists in some fashion as a revealer, and in this fashion never repeats himself. "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God." Like the shock of earthquake or the rising of the sun this divine word breaks into human history as Jesus of Nazareth and passes on, and very rightly men tarry in reverence at his feet. That human soul which sees in Christ a unique, solitary, unshareable revealing of God alone may worship him.

This leads me naturally to say that the glory of the Christ life is seen also in its transcendence. It is a biography evermore parting from men and carried out of their vision. "The darkness comprehended it not." "The world knew him not." "His own received him not." Men face the Christ not only with mortal opposition, but with mental collapse. They reject him as surely that they are little as they are wicked. Their logic falls in a heap. They walk by faith or stagger to the dust. Unless they believe on his name, receive him, are given right and power to be sons of God, are veritably born again, they never catch the glory of the Christ. A simply human Christ, a Christ who is not transcendent, turns every Christian church into a heathen temple, baptism to an empty, wicked farce, the bread and wine to symbols of a gigantic lie, and Christian people everywhere into the most miserable of men.