THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF RELIGION
‘We beheld His glory … full of grace and truth.’
In what does the attractiveness of our religion consist? There are multitudes to whom the Christian religion has no attractiveness whatever. There are others to whom it is the supremest attraction of their lives.
I. The religion of Jesus Christ is bound up in the Person of Christ, the Babe of Bethlehem. He is the attraction. For Who is He? He is God. He is the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father. He Who was from all eternity in the bosom of the Father, and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Ghost, and was born of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; He Who all along the ages had been creating, inspiring, directing all that had ever made for truth and love in the world, became flesh and dwelt among us. Then what conviction should this lead us to but that He in Himself is worthy of our deepest consideration, of our deepest love?
II. But the attraction lies not only in the fact of our Lord’s personality.—The attraction lies in what John, for instance, and the others beheld and experienced, as being bound up with and demanding from the Person of Christ. Now, what did that Personality contain? In the Babe of Bethlehem there resided, John tells us, a fullness—full of grace and truth.
(a) What is grace that our Lord offers to the world? It means favour. God entertains favour towards His creatures if they are His. But grace is more than mere favour. If God entertains favour towards a creature, then He blesses that creature, and God’s grace becomes, not simply a passing feeling, but a gift; and what gift can it be except such a gift as can enable man to be filled with the fullness of the Divine life? And such a gift it is in Jesus Christ, the free gift of love towards mankind, which enables man to fulfil what God demands.
(b) And He bestows truth as well as grace. If man is to serve God, a true idea of God is necessary. That is why people do not serve God. They do not know God. They have no true idea of God; and once they get a true idea of God they will serve God as intelligent beings should. And Jesus Christ gives us that idea. He is God. All truth is summed up in Him. Truth, as seen in Christ, is no abstract speculation. It is living; it is personal. As grace can help the change, so truth can free.
Rev. H. G. Daniell-Bainbridge.