Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The nominal Christian, then, will see Jesus as a name, a representative, a symbol, a personification, a prototype, a figure, a model, an exemplar for something else. The nominal Christian pays homage to something about Jesus, rather than worshiping the man himself. For this reason, nominal Christians will extol the moral teachings of Jesus, the faith of Jesus, the personality of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the world view of Jesus, the self-understanding of Jesus, etc. None of these worships Jesus as the Christ, but only something about him, something peripheral to the actual flesh-and-blood man. This is why when the almighty God came into the world in Jesus, he came as the lowest of the low, as weakness itself, as a complete and utter nothing, in order that men would be forced into the crucial decision about him alone and would not be able to worship anything about him.

... Robert L. Short (1932-2009), The Parables of Peanuts [1968], New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 166-167 (see the book; see also 2 Cor. 13:4; Luke 2:6-7; 22:43-44; Rom. 6:8-11; 1 Cor. 15:43; 2 Cor. 4:7-11; 12:9-10; Phil. 2:5-8; Heb. 5:2; more at Compassion, Example, God, Jesus, Morality, Weakness, Worship)

 
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Last updated: 04/14/16

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