On the Threshold of Sunday

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18900, 22 December 1923, Page 3

On the Threshold of Sunday

(Column contributed by the Wanganui Ministers’ Association). VERSE FOR THE WEEK. “Herein was the love o£ God manifested in our case, that God hath sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” 1 John, 4.9. THE VIRGIN BIRTH. It is futile to say that belief in the Virgin Birth is due to Jewish ideas, while at the same time the one Ohl Testament text that looks in that direction (Isaiah 7.14.) is denied. Il’ that passage is not to be used in sup port of the doctrine, then there is no Old Testament anticipation whatever, and certainly nothing in Jewish literature of the time of Christ to account for the doctrine. Nor is there any proof that any such expectation prevailed among Alexandrian Jews as represented by Philo. Again, there is no trace of Oriental influence upon Christianity which would account for a belief in the Virgin Britli. The chapters in the Gospels are essentially Jewish in characteristics, and not only is there no trace of any such contract of Oriental ideas with primitive Christianity as would suffice for the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, but still more, the hostility of early Christianity to other forms of thought would almost certainly have prevented any such influence had it been forthcoming. The argument from incarnations as believed in India to-day is not to the point, because there is no real trace of any early contract between Christianity and India, and also because the Indian incarnations have no virgin birth associated with them. They are witnesses to the doctrine of a Divine Immanence, but nothing more. The one rock on which all these non-miraculous theores are shattered is the historic Person of the Man Christ Jesus. He has to be accounted for. The effect demands a sufficient cause, and the Virgin Birth alone gives this adequate explanation of the mode of entrance upon His earthly life.—Dr. W. H. Griffith Thomas. THE BIRTH IN A STABLE. Nor was it by chance that Jesus was born in a stable. Is the world anything else than a huge stable wherein nian devours and emits? The most beautiful, the purest and most divine things—does not man by some infernal alchemy transform them into what is loathsome? And when he has done this he stretches himself upon the remains of his own creation, and calls that "enjoying life.” In this temporary pig-sty of a world whose dirt no trimmings and perfumes can conceal, Jesus appeared one night, born of a stainless Virgin, armed with nought but His innocence. —Giovanni Papini in “The Story of Christ.” THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT. “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable Gift.” There is one gift of God which is above the light of the sun in preciousness, for He is the Light of the world; above the joy of springtime, because He is the source of the new life; above the glow and pulse of health, for He is the Healer and Physician of the sou’. Jesus Christ is all this to those who have true faith in His name. And therefore “unto them that believe, He is precious.” It is a matter of constant wonder to me that so many religious souls fail to appreciate the place that Jesus Christ ought to hold in their spiritual affections The efficient cause of faith and hope and love in the Christian religion is to b-j found in the historical Be: son who embodied in Himself the Divine light, love and power, and who poured out His life even unto death for the salvation of the world The unspeakable gift of God is not the Bible, nor the Sacraments, the Creed —these are but the vesture of the truth. “The unspeakable gift of God” to the world is the historical Jesus, who is also the Eternal Christ.—E. Griffith Jones, 8.A., D.D. “LOVE ALL LOVELY.” CHRISTMAS. • (Luke 2, 8-20.). This is the wonder of Immanuel—■ God with us; God Who loft heaven and the throne behind Him, Who has passed by the shining ranks of angels and princedoms and powers, and Who lays Himself down in the cradle of a helpless child. What an unparalleled descent is here! I take the marvels, the mys-1 t cries, the magnificences of Christianity too readily for granted; I ami not astonished by them as I ought to I be. If the King should cross my threshold and sit at my table, it would be a condescension never to be forgotten. But this is what He has done Who is King of Kings, Who in the beginning was with God, and Who is God over all blessed for ever. Wha*a surpassing love is here! The Holy Child is father of the obedient and dying Man, who will keep God's precept and endure God’s curse for me. He is passing through Bethlehem with His face steadfastly set towards Calvary. He is accepting my nature, that in it He may offer Himself a sacrifice for my sins. The manger is prelude to the cross, and its love is preeminent and solitary. What a pregnant lesson is here! Am Itobe a child of God 7 I must make myself of no reputation. I must cease to claim His favour as a right, and receive it as an undeserved gift. The significance of the Incarnation is hidden from me, and its blessedness is lost, until I go and take the lowest room. —Dr. Alexander Smellic.