Christus

“ They fastened my wrists with fetters softly lined with leather, and light. I was almost free. They led me further along a stone vaulted corridor. I heard the echoes, and I heard her footsteps—a door opened, my feet rustled on straw. The gag was taken from my mouth; the bandage from my eyes—Oh, Christus! what a pitiable sight met my gaze. Virginia was kneeling on the ground, her face upraised to mine. I could see by the dim light that came from a large opening above, that she was bound as I was, but—O Sporus! thou child of Tartarus—her fetters were so heavy she could scarcely lift them unaided. ”

“ The man who plays the Christus, an inherited responsibility through many generations, is Josef Meier, who fled from Europe in 1932. For six years, with a reassembled cast, he toured the United States, performing a much trimmed-down version of the historic morality on college campuses, in civic auditoriums, and at summer encampments. It was at such a performance at the Black Hills Teachers College that the citizens of Spearfish were inspired to offer the touring company a permanent home. ”

“ They are altogether exquisite. Finally, Liszt's compositions stand the severest test of merit. They wear well. You can play them a long time and never weary of them. In short, they embrace every element except the classic, and the question is, whether these airy or intense ideas that appeal to you through their veils of shimmer and sheen are not a sort of classics in their own way!
Liszt's Christus is arranged for piano for four hands, and I wish I had it, and also Bülow's great edition of Beethoven's sonatas—Oh! you cannot conceive anything like Liszt's playing of Beethoven. ”

“ To such heavenly-mindedness, my dear brethren, we all are called; and without something of this spirit, whatever our professions and formalities, we do but belie the name of Christian. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth, on the right hand of God; set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." ”

“ Christ Jesus. In this human nature he is the perfection of beauty; the Holy Spirit formed it, the Father provided it, and the eternal Son of God appeared in it as our Day’s Man. It was filled with the Holy Ghost—it was a sacred Temple, the residence of Deity. The word was made flesh—the word was God. All things were made by him. This human nature was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separated from sinners; and such an High Priest became us. And by virtue of the Union of the Godhead; this dear God-Man is the Beloved of the whole Church. ”

“ Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every one who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye of every one who sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation. ”

“ The opening of the heart to receive Christ, and the new sense of his pardoning grace and power, give to the converted man the key to the interpretation of Scripture, for "the mystery of the gospel," the central secret of Christianity, is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He whom the Holy Spirit has first led to the knowledge of sin, and has then led to the acceptance of Christ, is prepared to enter into the meaning of Scripture, and no other man can understand it. ”

“ You cannot tell whether Christ is more Divine or human, more God or man—solidly based on earth, as this massive staircase, by His real humanity, by His thirty-three years’ engagement in all human functions and all experiences of this life, He is yet familiar with eternity, His name is “He that came down from heaven,” and if your eye follows step by step to the heights of His person, it rests at last on what you recognise as Divine. His love it is that is wide enough to embrace God on the one hand, and the lowest sinner on the other. ”

“ To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I worship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to that? I suppose you will say "A non-miraculous Christ ought not to be God to you"? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is He less loving, less merciful, less just? "No," you reply, "but He is less powerful." How is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying, loving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He less powerful in the spiritual world? "Perhaps not; but He is less powerful in the material world. ”

“ The most destructive criticism has not been able to dethrone Christ as the incarnation of perfect holiness. The waves of a tossing and restless sea of unbelief break at His feet, and He stands still the supreme model, the inspiration of great souls, the rest of the weary, the fragrance of all Christendom, the one divine flower in the garden of God. ”

“ May we have a stronger faith, a larger mind and affections, to receive Christ as he is revealed in the Word. The Bible reveals Christ to us, but the Spirit must reveal Christ in us. We are poor guilty creatures, and need pardon for all sin. He has shed his blood to make atonement—a satisfaction for sin, and having died for our sin, he is gone to heaven to present his Person and his Work to God for us. ”

“ I know that in it, the beautiful Christ-nature was portrayed; and I read with infinite longings to find Him the "unknown God;" and bright revealings come to me through this Book. I feel that it is Divine, and the light grows upon me; and sometimes like the Apostles, who awakened in the night, and saw Christ transfigured before them, I also saw a transfiguration. I lose sight of the mere material man, and I perceive an inner glory of being, a radiance of wisdom, and purity, and love, that clothe Him in a Divine light, and make His countenance brilliant with a spiritual glory. ”

“ We are mindful only of what is witnessed to by holy writ and what is otherwise well known. Christ proves His own divinity and the divine origin of His mission by miracles; He teaches the multitudes heavenly doctrine by word of mouth; and He absolutely commands that the assent of faith should be given to His teaching, promising eternal rewards to those who believe and eternal punish- ment to those who do not. ”

“ Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. The whole creation subsists in him and by him. No person is in any favour with God, but by this great Mediator. But how invisible, how unknown to all our senses is this state of things!
Christians are temples of the Holy Ghost, consecrated to God, members of Christ’s mystical body, of his flesh and his bones, receiving life, spirit and motion, from him their head. ”

“ As the Word of God, Christ is the great and only revealer of God and His revelation or revelations are the Bible, the Scriptures, the Word of God. We are exhorted therefore to see that great company which doth encompass us about and which looks down upon us, filled with God’s wisdom and power, because the word of Christ [Pg 193] dwells richly in us. We are to look to Jesus as not only the author of His own Word, but also through this word, as the author and finisher of our faith, or religion. ”

“ Note, All things are the believer's, that Christ might have honour in his great undertaking, and God in all might have the glory. God in Christ reconciling a sinful world to himself, and shedding abroad the riches of his grace on a reconciled world, is the sum and substance of the gospel. ”

“ We bow our knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus, that He would grant unto us, according to the riches of His glory, what He Himself has taught us to ask for. We ask nothing less than this, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. We long for that most blessed, permanent, conscious indwelling of the Lord Jesus in the heart, which He so distinctly promised as the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s coming. ”

“ But to call them the Word of God which they never call themselves, but by which they peculiarly denominate and call Christ and in no slight to them— which we believe to be of Divine authority, and to embrace the best of books—and allow to be as much the word of God as a book can be—they do, in duty and reason bound, attribute to Christ only. ”

“ Looking at the natural sun weakens the eye. The more you look at Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the stronger and clearer will, the eye of faith be. Look but at Christ, you will love him, and live upon him. Think on him continually,——— keep the eye, constantly upon Christ’s blood, or every blast of temptation will shake you. If you see sin’s sinfulness, to loath it and mourn, do not stand looking upon sin, but look upon Christ first, as suffering and satisfying for it. ”

“ Can it be that God’s holy ones, made holy in Christ Jesus, with the very spirit of holiness dwelling with them, on the way to meet the Holy One in His Glory and Love, can it be that they need the question? ”

“ His word is strength, because Christ dwells in His word, and if His word dwells in you, you will have the strength of Christ in you. See what Christ is, He is life and immortality, He gives repentance and remission of sins, He is the bread that cometh down from Heaven, His blood cleanseth from all sin, He saves, and He does all these things in and through His word. ”

“ Jesus is the Son of God; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth that proceeds from God. What God? 'A Great Personal First Cause, who thinks and loves, the moral and intelligent Governor of the Universe?'—to whom Jesus and the Holy Spirit are related in the way described in the Athanasian Creed, so that the operations of the three together produce what the Westminster divines call 'the Contract passed in the Council of the Trinity,' and what we, for plainness, describe as the fairy tale of the three supernatural men? ”

“ Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the son of the living God.” From these words he preached several discourses of great power showing that Jesus was the Christ, and that there was no one else to whom we could go. ”

“ Therefore Christ is goodness itself, as it is written, ‘Now the Lord is that Spirit.’ Yes, if you will believe it, Christ, the only-begotten Son, co-equal and co-eternal, is the very and essential goodness of the Father, coming out everlastingly in action and in life, in himself, and in his people, who are his mystical body, filled with the Spirit of him and his Father; who is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of goodness. From Christ, and not from any created being, comes all goodness in man or angel. ”

“ But as the shoots live the life of the seed, so, too, all Christians are to be said to live the life of Christ. But the life of Christ is according to faith, and so, too, is the life of Christians. And since this life produced, in the courses of ages, both the Church and the Sacraments, it is quite right to say that their origin is from Christ and is divine. In the same way they prove that the Scriptures and the dogmas are divine. And thus the Modernistic theology may be said to be complete. ”

“ And as you worship, listen to His voice: ‘Thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.’ It is as the Spirit strengthens us mightily in the inward man, so that Christ dwells in our heart by faith, and the Father comes and makes with Him His abode in us, that we are truly holy. ”

“ Now went I home rejoicing for the grace and love of God. Christ of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. I now lived very sweetly at peace with God through Christ. Oh! methought, Christ, Christ! There was nothing but Christ before my eyes. I was not now only looking upon this and the other benefits of Christ apart, as of His blood, burial, and resurrection, but considered Him as a whole Christ. ”

“ Christ was God’s witness to us, and we are witnesses of the freeness of his grace, and the value of his blood. Christ represents us to God and we represent Christ—he is God-Man in one. Man ruined himself in aspiring to be God, and God saves man by becoming man; the divinity is espoused to our nature, that our souls might be espoused to Christ, and to God in him. ”

“ As Christians, we profess, not only to believe and look for, but to love and long for, the appearing of Christ, and to act in our whole conversation with a regard to it. The second coming of Christ is the centre in which all the lines of our religion meet, and to which the whole of the divine life hath a constant reference and tendency. ”

“ And, first of all, we must look to Christ, the Founder of the Church and Redeemer of our race. Among the ex- ternal operations of God, the highest of all is the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, in which the splendor of the divine perfections shines forth so brightly that nothing more sublime can even be imagined, nothing else could have been more salutary to the human race. ”

“ Through Christ as the author and maintainer of this life; through Christ as the head from whom we receive vital influence; through Christ as the root by which we derive sap and nourishment, and so live. In living to God, Christ is all in all. (3.) It is to yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, v. 13. The very life and being of holiness lie in the dedication of ourselves to the Lord, giving our own selves to the Lord, 2 Cor. ”