What think ye of Christ?
I. There are some who never think of Christ at all.
II. There are some who deem it unnecessary to have fixed thoughts about Christ.
III. There are some who have many thoughts about Christ.
IV. There are some who have right thoughts about Christ, but wrong feelings.
V. There are some who have right thoughts about Christ, and right feelings. (Various.)
What think ye of His-
I. Person?
II. Mission?
III. Condescension and grace?
IV. Work?
V. Ability and willingness to save? (T. Raffles, D. D., LL. D.)
A testing question
1. It recognizes in man a mighty power, the power to think.
2. It indicates that all right-thinking of Christ must have respect to Him as He is revealed in Holy Scriptures.
3. That to think of Christ is a personal and individual duty.
4. To think right of Christ is a matter of transcendent importance. (J. Williams.)
Revelation not to supersede thought
The Book of God is not a book for the mentally indolent. An amount of mental digging is needful to discover much of the precious ore that lies hidden under the poetry, parables, proverbs, figures, symbols, and the “many things hard to be understood” in Holy Writ. “The telescope, we know,” says Archbishop Whately, “brings within the sphere of our vision much that would be undiscoverable by the naked eye; but we must not the less employ our eyes in making use of it, and we must watch and calculate the motions, and reason on the appearances of the heavenly bodies which are visible only through the telescope, with the same care we employ in respect of those seen by the naked eye. And an analogous procedure is requisite if we would derive the intended benefit from the pages of inspiration, which were designed not to save us the trouble of inquiring and reflecting, but to enable us in some points to inquire and reflect to better purpose; not to supersede the use of reason, but to supply its dificiences.” (J. Williams.)
I. What think ye of Christ? For the religion of the Bible extends to the very thoughts. Our conduct towards Him must always be regulated by our views.
II. What esteem have you for him? He is esteemed by all most worthy of our regard: Abraham. What regard have you for His greatness?
III. What are you willing to part with for his sake? With your sins-the world-with learning-self-righteousness.
IV. What Is it that keeps you from him?
1. Is it ignorance?
2. Prejudice?
3. Insensibility?
V. What wilt, you do without him?
1. In the conviction of conscience.
2. In prosperity.
3. In adversity.
4. In death.
5. In the great day of account. (W. Jay.)
All doctrines equally true, but not equally important
There is a difference between the railing of the bridge and the keystone. The one is indeed ornamental, but the other is essential to the structure. Take from man an eye, or a hand, or a foot, and you injure him; but take away the head, or heart, or lungs, and you demolish him. The doctrines concerning Christ are of supreme importance. (W. Jay.)
What think ye of Christ?
This question is not an appeal to the faith of the Pharisees, but to their opinion.
I. I commend the question. You should think of Christ-
1. Because you cannot help yourself.
2. Because you cannot escape the consequences of the question.
3. As a man thinks of Christ so is he at the hour of his death.
II. Knowledge of Christ is necessary before answering this question.
1. Who is He? “Whose Son is He?”
2. Why did Christ come?
3. Whither is Christ gone?
4. Wherefore will He return?
III. Now what think ye of Christ?
1. Not what will you think to-morrow, but what do you think?
2. Improve the thought.
3. Strengthen the thought.
4. Express the thought. (C. Molyneux, B. A.)
The question of questions
On my own part, and on the part of those among us who are desirous to have expressed in a compendious form the primary grounds of that belief which makes them not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, I shall give (beginning for the most part in modern and non-theological language) an answer to that question of questions for every age, “What think ye of Christ?” That answer will land us at last on the highest summit of theological speculation.
I. “What think ye of Christ?” That he is exceptional in the spiritual world.
1. The holiest men are ever most conscious of their own sinfulness. Sublime dissatisfaction with self is the peculiarity of the Christian saint.
2. Jesus is the solitary exception to this rule. Besides the testimony both of enemies and of friends to the fact of His perfect innocence and sinlessness, we have His own witness. No utterance of conscious sin, no half-hid confession. He never includes Himself among sinners. We think, then, that Christ is unique and without parallel.
II. We “think” that the exceptional man has endowed us with exceptional fruits, with benefits unparalleled. Not merely fruits of thought, art, literature.
1. Christ’s living influence is yearly sending forth missionaries to the most abject tribes upon the earth.
2. Christ’s teaching and example furnish a perpetual motive for tending the sick-perpetuating His miracles of healing.
3. Christ did not merely preach a doctrine: He founded a Church, to be the home of charity. Is she not, with her ministries for the poor, like the mother whom we have seen on Alpine or Pyrenean ridges, as she passes some razor-like edge, knitting for her little ones while she goes, though her heart and eye are up among the clouds?
4. Who shall say what Christ gives daily to those who receive Him?
(a) Elevation above sordid selfishness.
(b) Resignation.
(c) Joy.
III. We “think” of Christ that he is “first-born from the dead.”
1. The resurrection of Christ is not a fraud-not a singular recovery of a lacerated and tortured man, awakened from a death-like swoon by the coolness of the rocky chamber, or by the pungency of the spices l We have to account for cowards turned into heroes; for the faith that overcame the world.
2. Nor is the resurrection of Christ the projection of creative enthusiasm. The Church is too real for a foundation of mist. Faith did not create the resurrection: the resurrection created faith. We think, then, that as Christ was exceptional in His life, and in the benefits He conferred on humanity, so was He in His victory over the grave.
IV. This exceptional man must have had an exceptional origin. He is the Son of God (Luke 1:35). He is the Word of God (John 1:1). “And the Word was God.”
V. Christ is the wisdom ofGod.
VI. He is very man. His delights are with the sons of Adam. (Bishop William Alexander.)
The ideal Christ
I. Some people do not think much about him any way. Their minds are preoccupied. They think of something else.
1. These Pharisees were evidently stunned by our Lord’s inquiry.
2. We meet those in our time who have reached no convictions worth recording.
3. It is not the part of a wise man to miss such a question as this.
II. Some do thine; and now it is of much importance that we inquire what they thine.
1. There is a historic ideal of Christ. This admits the facts of His life.
2. There is a theologic ideal of Christ. A cold dogmatism is the result.
3. There is a poetic ideal of Christ. One imagines a Jesus to suit himself; the result is mystic or emotional.
4. There is an evangelic ideal of Christ. A sacrifice for sin. It holds all the history; receives the theology; accepts the poetry; it recognizes the atonement.
III. Let us ask what this will do for us?
1. Observe, then, how thinking affects the character; ideals control life. Observe also that one may study his ideal through his personal experience and character; and that is the safest way. What is your notion of Christ doing for you?
3. Observe that the only safety for a young believer is found in accepting the scriptural Christ for his all in all.
4. Observe how pitifully the the world’s hero-worship contrasts with the Christian’s love.
5. Observe that in after ages the question will be reversed; then it will be of the highest moment to ask, What does Christ think of me? (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Christ not thought about
I once asked a man what he thought, and he replied frankly, “I suppose I never do think of Jesus Christ.” Then I inquired when he was born. He gave the date-1843. “B.C. or A.D.?” I kept on. He smiled, as if he conjectured I might deem him an antediluvian. But I asked soberly, “Before Christ or after Christ?” He was silent, and I continued, “Have you been dating letters for twenty intelligent years without even reflecting that you were daily commemorating the nativity of Jesus Christ? Have you actually formed no opinion concerning that personage whose advent among men changed the reckoning of time, whose birthday shook the race into a new era, as His crucifixion shook the planet with a new earthquake?” (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Christ’s origin.
Who a man’s parents were ordinarily makes very little difference to us. We gauge the man according to his own ability and efficiency, without reference to his origin. Our estimate of Shakespeare or of Bacon is no greater because we know their ancestry. But the case is otherwise with Christ. His practical relation to the world is bound up with His origin. His life suggests, and words lay claim to, a superhuman lineage; and it bears very directly upon the living and thinking of all of us, whether He be indeed born Lord of men and angels, co-equal with God, or whether He be no more than a man like unto ourselves. It makes the difference between worship and admiration; between allegiance and partial adherence; between implicit trust and critical discrimination; between passionate enthusiasm and cool respect. So it behoves us to press the question in this direction; “What think ye of Christ? Is He the Son of God or not?” (Marvin R. Vincent, D. D.)
The test question
I. Look at some things about Christ it is well for you to think of.
1. Think of Him as a Prophet.
2. Think of Him as Priest.
3. Think of Him as King, the immortal, the invisible.
4. Think of Him as qualified for these offices by uniting in Himself the nature of the Deity and the nature of man.
II. Reasons why you should think of Christ.
1. That you may know God.
2. That we may think rightly of ourselves.
3. That you may have faith. Faith comes through thinking. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
The responsibility of thought
He holds all responsible for their thoughts. The question is not how do you act, how do you treat Christ, but what think ye of Christ? The seed is held responsible for the harvest, the child for the man, the thought for the act, the character. Christ declared that he who lusted and bated was an adulterer, a murderer. A thought to the mind of God is a thing. The first requirement of education is that the man shall regulate his thoughts. Says the Apostle: “Whatsoever things are true” (Philippians 4:8). The thought is of first importance. Every harmony that moves the heart of men first swayed the soul of some one as an unexpressed thought. So it is of sculpture and of painting. The thought went before the creation of the universe. The philosopher strives to find out the things which do not appear from those which do appear. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
What think ye of Christ?-
I. That Christianity challenges human thought. It is a system of thought; its first impulse is to set the mind at work. You will find in all systems of error a tendency to prevent men from thinking. Tyrants do not wish their people to think. Man is not only to think of things on earth, but of things in heaven. How elevating the character of the thought; it travels to the spiritual and invisible.
II. The effect which the thoughts he. Gives has upon literature. The thoughts of Christ are the thoughts that give power to the world. The people who worship Christ are the great inventors and law-givers to our earth.
III. Where Christ is received as divine, humanity becomes dignified and ennobled; for if Christ was Divine, the human nature may be nearly joined to God. Man is lifted up from grovelling appetites, and becomes the prospective inhabitant of eternity; heir to a throne. Christ connected with human nature sanctifies it.
IV. Note one prophecy. Isaiah saw Him as a child that was born, a son given, called Wonderful, etc. These characteristics of Christ are all fulfilled in Christianity. Christianity was small at first. The cry of a child was heard; then it grew strong like a son, coming to grasp the government; and then it was wonderful. Then as the everlasting Father it is full of pity. “What think ye of Christ?” When we look at Him personally He is our Saviour. Whatever we think I know what others think; the angels, “Glory to God in the highest,” etc. What do the host of the departed think: “Unto Him that loved us,” etc. (Bishop Simpson.)
The God-man-Jesus Christ
That Christ was lineally descended from David, and that as such, He had the body and the mind and the heart of a man, is a historical fact. That body, first natural, then spiritual, became at His ascension a glorified body; but none the less it was the identical body. Christ is now in heaven. “The son of David”-a man-what is the result of that.
I. Whatever He came to this earth to do is finished and accepted, else He would not be resting there.
II. His presence there in manhood shows what manhood is capable of, what human nature may become.
III. There-in that man Christ, David’s son-we have a brother. What a possession-brotherhood in heaven.
1. He is there as a representative man. On the cross He was our substitute, not a representative. Now He is not a substitute, but a representative man.
2. He is pledged as the forerunner of us all.
3. So on earth and in heaven He is David’s son and David’s Lord. If Christ be man in heaven, no less He is God.
4. And now all that this man died to purchase, He now lives as God to give. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Christ’s solution of David’s assertion
I. The Jews had not the slightest difficulty in answering that Christ was David’s son. They had learned that all their lives. Natural that He should come from the nation’s greatest man. We all have our pictures for the future, and they correspond to Israel’s Christ in the part they perform in our lives. Whose sons are they to be? They are to be born of human exertion. The force of human exertion is all around us, and most of us owe all we have to it. It is the parent of great results in the world.
II. Human exertion is not all. David called Christ his “Lord.” “The Lord said unto my Lord.” They had magnified David and his greatness and his power so highly, that the thought of somebody being over him and having a right to command him did not form a very prominent feature in their conception of him; and yet they would have acknowledged that he had a Lord. For that, after all, is an essential of our thought in connection with everything. We all want God for a finish to our ideas, even if we do not want Him practically. If we are thinkers, we like God as representing to us the oneness of our system of thought. He forms a sort of easy transition from one line of thought-to another. The scientific man calls his God law or nature or some such vague term, and he magnifies it very much in all his thoughts and expressions. His Christ, his great ideal, is a lord to him-it is above all that he does. Another man makes his God the summary of all that is beautiful: he loves music or art, and the idea of God represents to him the perfection of that feeling of which he just catches a glimpse when he is wrapped up in one or other those pursuits. God stands to him for that wonderful effect which he cannot explain. Another man is busy with commonplace things; perhaps he sees much of the wickedness of the world, and he likes to think that there is a place where everything is better-that there is one who is not assailed, or even reached, with all that troubles him. He likes to think that there is one who realizes all that is good and pure, which he is sure exists, but in which his circumstances do not allow him to have a very great share. He holds to Christ as his Lord. He has one Christ whom he is to produce who is to be his son: he is working for that every day in the rush of life’s battles: he has another Christ who is his Lord-a pure, a high, a noble ideal, far above him: his Lord. Religion supplies just that element of romance to life which we feel the want of, for there is little enough of romance in human exertion, after the novelty of some new effort is over. To many men that thought of God as the great mysterious Lord of life-that thought of a coming power, a Christ as one above and beyond us-is just what they need and hold to, because their life is so busy. It is the dreamers who generally supply the infidels; they do not feel the want of a thought superior to this world so much as the men of affairs who will not let this idea of God the Lord depart from their creed, but hold to it because their thought needs it, little as their lives may use it. We have seen that men do hold these two thoughts of the power that is in the world, and that is to save it. Now, Christ’s question is seen in all its importance. It was, Can you hold these two together? David did; he called the same person Son and Lord; he worked to bring forth the Messiah by his great and powerful life, and yet all the time he knew that Messiah was his Lord. Whatever can combine these two ideas is the true Christ: that, and that only, can save the world. We separate these things. The things we work for, in our best moments, we will not acknowledge to be our Lord; She things we worship, the things we acknowledge to be great and pure, we forget when we get out at our work. Our sons are not our lords; our lords are not our sons. Hence, we have no true idea of Christ. Till our practical life, our life of human energy, and our thoughtful, our spiritual life, our life of aspiration, are at one, there is no hope of a real salvation for us. The flesh and the spirit are warring against each other, and that contest is wearing us out. Go tell that man who it working so hard to make a fortune, that that is all he is good for, that he has no thought above money, and he will say you insult him; he will tell you that all that work is only a means-he wants to make the fortune, but he has higher motives: and he will talk vaguely of doing good with it. He is the father of one thing, but he acknowledges another thing as lord. Who shall unite these two in our life? Who is our Christ? That is our Saviour’s pointed question. Have we the right idea in searching for a great Deliverer? Only God, in connection with earth, can supply such a want. We shall appreciate that as soon as we see the demand. For, let our object come from the earth, from ourselves, from our fellow-men, and it may stimulate our exertions-it may make us work hard. But we are lords of this earth, we are equal to our fellow-men, and so such an object cannot be our lord-and the best part of us, the cry for something higher, remains unsatisfied. It cannot be the pure thought of God as above us, as apart from us, God the pure and holy One: for, then, how can it be the son of any man, however great and high; how can it call upon our exertions for their assistance in its appearance upon the earth? We are almost driven to give up this idea of a Christ, so difficult does it seem to be to satisfy it; and we go to asking little unimportant questions, and erecting smaller tests as the Pharisees did, or letting the thing drift along unsettled. Jesus claims to be the one that fills this important requirement, and tells us that we must get back to that idea of a Christ before We can appreciate Him; we must answer that old difficulty of David’s. He is the Son of David, and the Son of every high and noble character who looks for Him. He came of David’s line; He was the fruit of the kingdom which David planted; He carried out into fulness all the character and acts of David’s life; He fulfilled all the prophecies and aspirations of David’s Psalms. We all know that, if we understand the facts of our Bible at all. But that line of historical facts is but the expression of the fact that He is the Son of all high devoted energy. Christ is to succeed in the world by our energy consecrated to Him. He calls on us to labour for and with Him. Christian character is produced-not by being forced upon us from without, but by the quickening of our own being-that it may bring forth more of Christ in the world. Christ is among us; His life was earthly in all its development; it was His life on earth and among men that made Him Christ. He was David’s Lord-far above David in every respect. We read the story of the two lives of David and Jesus, and we never think of doubting which was the life of the Master. (A. Brooks, D. D.)