quotations about Jesus Christ
It is the characteristic heresy of our age to deny the divinity of Christ; but in the early days of the Church the characteristic heresy was to deny his humanity. "In the second century theologians arose who maintained that Christ was a purely celestial being, and that the visible form which appeared on earth and was crucified was no man at all, but a phantom composed of fine particles of air. The first great struggle was to crush that heresy and vindicate the actual humanity of Christ. Had that humanity not been vindicated, no Church could have been formed.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
There was need of a phantastic, indestructible optimism, and one far removed from all sense of reality, in order, for example, to discover in the shameful death of Christ really the highest salvation and the redemption of the world.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Jesus Christ would have been considered just another long-haired hippie freak if he hadn't been crucified. The folks weren't impressed with healing the sick, feeding the multitudes bread and fish or anything else, except maybe the walking on water. But when he got crucified, that gave him his big start.
TED TURNER
Playboy, Aug. 1978
That Jesus Christ was not God is evident from his own words, where, speaking of the day of judgment, he says, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." This is giving up all pretention to divinity, acknowledging in the most explicit manner, that he did not know all things, but compares his understanding to that of man and angels; "of that day and hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son." Thus he ranks himself with finite beings, and with them acknowledges, that he did not know the day and hour of judgment, and at the same time ascribes a superiority of knowledge to the father, for that he knew the day and hour of judgment.
ETHAN ALLEN
Reason: The Only Oracle of Man
We are immediately struck with this peculiarity in the Author of Christianity, that, while all other men are formed in a measure by the spirit of the age, we can discover in Jesus no impression of the period in which he lived. We know, with considerable accuracy, the state of society, the modes of thinking, the hopes and expectations of the country in which Jesus was born and grew up; and he is as free from them, and as exalted above them, as if he had lived in another world, or with every sense shut on the objects around him. His character has nothing in it that is local or temporary. It can be explained by nothing around him. His history shows him to us a solitary being, living for purposes which none but himself comprehended, and enjoying not so much as the sympathy of a single mind. His apostles, his chosen companions, brought to him the spirit of the age; and nothing shows its strength more strikingly, than the slowness with which it yielded, in these honest men, to the instructions of Jesus.
WILLIAM E. CHANNING
Thoughts
Christ, who was innocent, was dealt withal as if he were faulty; that we, who are faulty, might be dealt withal as if we were innocent.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
I don't see the Father pouring out his wrath on the Son. I see the human race pouring out their wrath on the Son. So I see the only hope for the entire cosmos is what the Son chooses to accept, crawling upon the instrument of our greatest wrath. He met us at the deepest, darkest place.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
"The Love Shack", Christianity Today, Mar. 4, 2013
Jesus Christ began his ministry by attending a wedding-feast. His first miracle was wrought to prolong its festivities. He repeatedly compared the kingdom of God to a great festival. He accepted all social invitations; declined none. He declared himself that he came eating and drinking, and this was so characteristic of him that his enemies called him a glutton and wine-bibber. He compared himself to a musician piping in the street for the children to dance. Neither he nor his disciples observed the customary fasts of the church to which they belonged. He was a favorite with the children, and they clustered about him and were willing that he should take them in his arms. His last meeting with his disciples was at a social meal, and with such a social meal he asked them ever to associate his memory.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God
I win not because of my own efforts or my own goodness, but rather through the grace, love, and mercy of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He died so that I might win this game of life and live with Him forever.
ZIG ZIGLAR
The One Year Daily Insights with Zig Ziglar
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
C. S. LEWIS
Mere Christianity
Jesus is the best clue we have as to what God is like and He is consistently gracious and merciful, especially to those who are failures. He is harsh to uptight, judgmental people, but merciful and gracious to the failures. He seems to draw out the smallest kernel of faith in each person that He's with. So, I presume that that's the way God is going to judge humanity.
PHILIP YANCEY
"The High Calling of Journalism: A Candid Interview with Philip Yancey", The High Calling, Jan. 18, 2011
Men who stand on any other foundation than the rock Christ Jesus are like birds that build in trees by the side of rivers. The bird sings in the branches, and the river sings below, but all the while the waters are undermining the soil about the roots, till, in some unsuspected hour, the tree falls with a crash into the stream; and then its nest is sunk, its home is gone, and the bird is a wanderer.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!
NEAL A. MAXWELL
attributed, goodreads
Every well-doer on the face of the earth is my blood relation through Jesus Christ.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Christ is God clothed with human nature.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
By the conception of Christ as the eternal equation of the finite and the infinite, one obtains a clear notion of the grandeur of the mystery of mediation . He is not merely the regenerator of man, He is the peacemaker between man and man, man and all nature, and man and God; the link between man and man, and man and nature, and man and God.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
Where human life needs most sympathy, where usually it is the most barren, there it is that Christ is more likely to be found than anywhere else.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Men who neglect Christ, and try to win heaven through moralities, are like sailors at sea in a storm, who pull, some at the bowsprit and some at the mainmast, but never touch the helm.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Jesus Christ came not to condemn you but to save you, knowing your name, knowing all about you, knowing your weight right now, knowing your age, knowing what you do, knowing where you live, knowing what you ate for supper and what you will eat for breakfast, where you will sleep tonight, how much your clothing cost, who your parents were. He knows you individually as though there were not another person in the entire world. He died for you as certainly as if you had been the only lost one. He knows the worst about you and is the One who loves you the most.
A. W. TOZER
And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John
Faith in Christ is, first of all, this: Such as he was I want to be; his is the kind of life I want to live; his is the kind of character I want to possess; his is the kind of blessedness I desire for myself and for my children. A man may believe what creed he will, and if this is not in his heart, he has not faith in Christ He may be baptized with holy water taken from the Jordan, blessed by the priest, bishop, archbishop, and Pope; and if this desire is not in his heart, he has no faith in Christ. He may have joined in succession all the churches in Christendom, from the Quaker meeting to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and if in his heart there is not the faith that desires the lowliness of spirit which suffers long and is kind, the meekness which inherits the earth as a gift, the purity of heart which sees God, he has no faith in Christ. Faith in Christ cannot find its interpretation in any creed, however orthodox; it finds its interpretation in some hearts that do not understand nor accept any recognized orthodox creed.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Seeking After God