‘I AM’
‘Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have heard the blasphemy: what thing ye?’
Christ Himself asserted His Godhead in a manner which could not possibly be misunderstood. He allowed Himself to be put to death on a charge of blasphemy. The conclusion is inevitable. A denial of the Godhead of Christ involves consequences from which we should most of us shrink—consequences which affect the nature and the character of Deity itself.
I. On the supposition that Christ was a mere man, or a created being, who allied Himself with human nature, the further supposition becomes inevitable, that in the bygone eternity God dwelt in a lonely and uncompanionable isolation.
II. The denial of the Godhead of Christ limits and impairs the Divine capability of manifesting love to man. If Jesus Christ were just a perfect man, and not the eternal Son of the Father, what did it cost God to part with Him? Nothing, that I can see. The self-sacrifice consisted in the surrender of His Son.
III. If Christ be not God, I cannot avoid the inference that God has done everything in His power to transfer my affection from the Creator to the creature.
The heart must be chilled towards God which does not recognise in Jesus Christ the eternal Son of the eternal Father.
Rev. Prebendary Gordon Calthrop.
ST.