Christmas is a season which almost all Christians observe in one way or
another. Some keep it as a religious season. Some keep it as a holiday. But
all over the world, wherever there are Christians, in one way or another
Christmas is kept. Perhaps there is no country in which Christmas is so much observed as it
is in England. Christmas holidays, Christmas parties, Christmas
family-gatherings, Christmas services in churches, Christmas hymns and
carols, Christmas holly and mistletoe,—who has not heard of these things?
They are as familiar to English people as anything in their lives. They are
among the first things we remember when we were children. Our grandfathers
and grandmothers were used to them long before we were born. They have been
going on in England for many hundred years. They seem likely to go on as
long as the world stands. But, reader, how many of those who keep Christmas ever consider why
Christmas is kept? How many, in their Christmas plans and arrangements,
give a thought to Him, without whom there would have been no Christmas at
all? How many ever remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is the cause of
Christmas ? How many ever reflect that the first intention of Christmas was
to remind Christians of Christ's birth and coming into the world? Reader,
how is it with you? What do you think of at Christmas? Bear with me a few minutes, while I try to press upon you the question
which heads this tract. I do not want to make your Christmas merriment less.
I do not wish to spoil your Christmas cheer. I only wish to put things in
their right places. I want Christ Himself to be remembered at Christmas!
Give me your attention while I unfold the question—"What think ye of
Christ?" I. Let us consider, firstly, why all men ought to think of Christ. II. Let us examine, secondly, the common thoughts of many about
Christ. III. Let us count up, lastly, the thoughts of true Christians
about Christ. Reader, I dare say the demands upon your time this Christmas are
many. Your holidays are short. You have friends to see. You have much to
talk about. But still, in the midst of all your hurry and excitement, give a
little time to your soul. There will be a Christmas some year, when your
place will be empty. Before that time comes, suffer me as a friend to press
home on your conscience the inquiry,—"What think ye of Christ?" I. First, then, let us consider why all men ought to think of Christ. This is a question which needs to be answered, at the very outset of this
tract. I know the minds of some people when they are asked about such things
as I am handling today. I know that many are ready to say, "Why should we
think about Christ at all ? We want meat, and drink, and money, and clothes,
and amusements. We have no time to think about these high subjects. We do
not understand them. Let parsons, and old women, and Sunday-school children
mind such things if they like. We have no time in a world like this to be
thinking of Christ." Such is the talk of thousands in this country. They never go either to
church or chapel. They never read their Bibles. The world is their god. They
think themselves very wise and clever. They despise those whom they call
"religious people." But whether they like it or not, they will all have to
die one day. They have all souls to be lost or saved in a world to come.
They will all have to rise again from their graves, and to have a reckoning
with God. And shall their scoffing and contempt stop our mouths, and make us
ashamed? No, indeed! not for a moment! Listen to me and I will tell you why. All men ought to think of Christ, because of the office Christ fills
between God and man. He is the eternal Son of God, through whom alone
the Father can be known, approached, and served. He is the appointed
Mediator between God and man, through whom alone we can be reconciled with
God, pardoned, justified, and saved. He is the Divine Person whom God the
Father has sealed to be the giver of everything that man requires for his
soul. To Him are committed the keys of death and hell. In His favour is
life. In Him alone there is hope of salvation for mankind. Without Him no
child of Adam can be saved. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid, which is Jesus Christ." "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that
hath not the Son of God hath not life." (I Cor. iii. 11; 1 John v.12.) And
ought not man to think of Christ? Shall God the Father honour Him, and shall
not man? I tell every reader of this tract that there is no person, living
or dead, of such immense importance to all men as Christ. There is no person
that men ought to think about so much as Christ. All men ought to think of Christ, because of what Christ has done for
all men. He thought upon man, when man was lost, bankrupt, and helpless
by the fall, and undertook to come into the world to save sinners. In the
fullness of time He was born of the Virgin Mary, and lived for man
thirty-three years in this evil world. At the end of that time He suffered
for sin on the cross, as man's substitute. He bore man's sins in His own
body, and shed His own lifeblood to pay man's debt to God. He was made a
curse for man, that man might be blessed. He died for man that man might
live. He was counted a sinner for man that man might be counted righteous.
And ought not man to think of Christ? I tell every reader of this tract that
if Christ had not died for us, we might all of us, for anything we know, be
lying at this moment in hell. All men ought to think of Christ, because of what Christ will yet do
to all men. He shall come again one day to this earth with power and
glory, and raise the dead from their graves. All shall come forth at His
bidding. Those who would not move when they heard the church-going bell,
shall obey the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God. He shall set up
His judgment-seat, and summon all mankind to stand before it. To Him every
knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord. Not one
shall be able to escape that solemn assize. Not one but shall receive at the
mouth of Christ an eternal sentence. Every one shall receive according to
what he has done in the body, whether it be good or bad. And ought not men
to think of Christ? I tell every reader of this tract, that whatever he may
choose to think now, a day is soon coming when his eternal condition will
hinge entirely on his relations to Christ. But why should I say more on this subject? The time would fail me if I
were to set down all the reasons why all men ought to think of Christ.
Christ is the grand subject of the Bible. The Scriptures testify of
Him.—Christ is the great object to whom all the Churches in Christendom
profess to give honour. Even the worst and most corrupt branches of it will
tell you that they are built on Christ.—Christ is the end and substance of
all sacraments and ordinances.—Christ is the grand subject which every
faithful minister exalts in the pulpit.—Christ is the object that every true
pastor sets before dying people on their deathbeds.—Christ is the great
source of light and peace and hope. There is not a spark of spiritual
comfort that has ever illumined a sinner's heart, that has not come from
Christ. Surely it never can be a small matter whether we have any thoughts
about Christ. Reader, I leave this part of my subject here. There are many things which
swallow up men's thoughts while they live, which they will think little of
when they are dying. Hundreds are wholly absorbed in political schemes, and
seem to care for nothing but the advancement of their own party.—Myriads are
buried in business and money matters, and seem to neglect everything else
but this world.—Thousands are always wrangling about the forms and
ceremonies of religion, and are ready to cry down everybody who does not use
their shibboleths, and worship in their way. But an hour is fast coming when
only one subject will be minded, and that subject will be Christ! We shall
all find—and many perhaps too late—that it mattered little what we thought
about other things, so long as we did not think about Christ. Reader, I tell you this Christmas, that all men ought to think about
Christ. There is no one in whom all the world has such a deep interest.
There is no one to whom all the world owes so much. High and low, rich and
poor, old and young, gentle and simple,—all ought to think about Christ. II. Let us examine, secondly, the common thoughts of many about
Christ. To set down the whole list of thoughts about Christ, would indeed be
thankless labour. It must content us to range them under a few general
heads. This will save us both time and trouble. There were many strange
thoughts about Christ when He was on earth. There are many strange and wrong
thoughts about Christ now, when He is in heaven. The thoughts of some people about Christ are simply blasphemous.
They are not ashamed to deny His Divinity. They refuse to believe the
miracles recorded of Him. They pretend to find fault with not a few of His
sayings and doings. They even question the perfect honesty and sincerity of
some things that He did. They tell us that He ought to be ranked with great
Reformers and Philosophers, like Socrates, Seneca, and Confucius, but no
higher.—Thoughts like these are purely ridiculous and absurd. They utterly
fail to explain the enormous influence which Christ and Christianity have
had for eighteen hundred years in this world. There is not the slightest
comparison to be made between Christ and any other teacher of mankind that
ever lived. The difference between Him and others is a gulf that cannot be
spanned, and a height that cannot be measured. It is the difference between
gold and clay,—between the sun and a candle. Nothing can account for Christ
and Christianity, but the old belief that Christ is very God. Reader, are
the thoughts I have just described your own? If they are, take care! The thoughts of some people about Christ are vague, dim, misty,
and indistinct. That there was such a Person they do not for a moment
deny. That He was the Founder of Christianity, and the object of Christian
worship, they are quite aware. That they hear of Him every time they go to
public worship, and ought to have some opinion or belief about Him, they
will fully admit. But they could not tell you what it is they believe. They
could not accurately describe and define it. They have not thoroughly
considered the subject They have not made up their minds! —Thoughts such as
these are foolish, silly, and unreasonable. To be a dying sinner with an
immortal soul, and to go on living without making up one's mind about the
only Person who can save us, the Person who will at last judge us, is the
conduct of a lunatic or an idiot, and not of a rational man. Reader, are the
thoughts I have just described your own? If any are, take care! The thoughts of some men about Christ are mean and low.
They have, no doubt, a distinct opinion about His position in their system
of Christianity. They consider that if they do their best, and live moral
lives, and go to church pretty regularly, and use the ordinances of
religion, Christ will deal mercifully with them at last, and make up any
deficiencies.—Thoughts such as these utterly fail to explain why Christ died
on the cross. They take the crown off Christ's head, and degrade Him into a
kind of make-weight to man's soul. They overthrow the whole system of the
Gospel, and pull up all its leading doctrines by the roots. They exalt man
to an absurdly high position; as if he could pay some part of the price of
his soul!—They rob man of all the comfort of the Gospel; as if he must needs
do something and perform some work to justify his own soul!—They make Christ
a sort of Judge far more than a Saviour, and place the cross and the
atonement in a degraded and inferior position! Reader, are the thoughts I
have just described your own? If they are, take care ! The thoughts of some men about Christ are dishonouring and libellous.
They seem to think that we need a mediator between ourselves and our
Saviour! They appear to suppose that Christ is so high, and awful, and
exalted a Person, that poor, sinful man may not approach Him! They say that
we must employ an Episcopacy ordained minister as a kind of go-between, to
stand between us and Jesus, and manage for our souls! They send us to
saints, or angels, or the Virgin Mary, as if they were more kind and
accessible than Christ!—Thoughts such as these are a practical denial of
Christ's priestly office. They overthrow the whole doctrine of His peculiar
business, as man's Intercessor. They hide and bury out of sight His especial
love to sinners and His boundless willingness to receive them. Instead of a
gracious Saviour, they make Him out an austere and hard King. Reader, are
the thoughts I have just described your own? If they are, take care! The thoughts of some men about Christ are wicked and unholy. They
seem to think that they may live as they please, because Christ died for
sinners! They will indulge every kind of wickedness, and yet flatter
themselves that they are not blameworthy for it, because Christ is a
merciful Saviour! They will talk complacently of God's election, and the
necessity of grace, and the impossibility of being justified by works and
the fullness of Christ, and then make these glorious doctrines an excuse for
lying, cheating, drunkenness, fornication, and every kind of
immorality.—Thoughts such as these are as blasphemous and profane as
downright infidelity. They actually make Christ the patron of sin. Reader,
are these thoughts I have described your own? If they are, take care! Reader, two general remarks apply to all these thoughts about Christ of
which I have just been speaking. They all show a deplorable ignorance of
Scripture. I defy any one to read the Bible honestly and find any warrant
for them in that blessed Book. Men cannot know their Bibles when they hold
such opinions.—They all help to prove the corruption and darkness of human
nature. Man is ready to believe anything about Christ except the simple
truth. He loves to set up an idol of his own, and bow down to it, rather
than accept the Saviour whom God puts before him. I leave this part of my subject here. It is a sorrowful and painful one,
but not without its use. It is necessary to study morbid anatomy, if we
would understand health. The ground must be cleared of rubbish before
we build. III. Let us now count up, lastly, the thoughts of true Christians
about Christ. The thoughts I am going to describe are not the thoughts of many. I admit
this most fully. It would be vain to deny it. The number of right thinkers
about Christ in every age has been small. The true Christians among
professing Christians have always been few. If it were not so, the Bible
would have told an untruth. "Strait is the gate," says the Lord Jesus, "and
narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find
it.—Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and
many there be which go in thereat." "Many walk," says Paul, "of whom I tell
you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose
end is destruction." (Matt vii. 13, 14. Phil. iii. 18, 19.) True Christians have high thoughts of Christ. They see in Him a
wondrous Person, far above all other beings in His nature,—a Person who is
at one and the same time perfect God, mighty to save, and perfect Man, able
to feel.—They see in Him an All-powerful Redeemer, who has paid their
countless debts to God, and delivered their souls from guilt and hell.—They
see in Him an Almighty Friend, who left heaven for them, lived for them,
died for them, rose again for them,—that He might save them for
evermore.—They see in Him an Almighty Physician, who washed away their sins
in His own blood, put His own Spirit in their hearts, delivered them from
the power of sin, and gave them power to become God's children.—Happy are
they who have such thoughts! Reader, have you? True Christians have trustful thoughts of
Christ. They daily lean the weight of their souls upon Him by
faith, for pardon and peace. They daily commit the care of their souls to
Him, as a man commits a treasure to a safe keeper. They daily cling to Him
by faith, as a child in a crowd clings to its mother's hand. They look to
Him daily for mercy, grace, comfort, help, and strength, as Israel looked to
the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness for guidance. Christ is the
Rock under their feet, and the staff in their hands, their ark and their
city of refuge, their sun and their shield, their bread and their medicine,
their health and their light, their fountain and their shelter, their
portion and their home, their door and their ladder, their root and their
head, their advocate and their physician, their captain and their elder
brother, their life, their hope, and their all. Happy are they who have such
thoughts! Reader, have you? True Christians have experimental thoughts of Christ. The things
that they think of Him, they do not merely think with their heads. They have
not learned them from schools, or picked them up from others. They think
them because they have found them true by their own heart's
experience. They have proved them, and tasted them, and tried them. They
think out for themselves what they have felt . There is all the difference
in the world between knowing that a man is a doctor or a lawyer, while we
never have occasion to employ him, and knowing him as "our own," because we
have gone to him for medicine or law. Just in the same way there is a wide
difference between head knowledge and experimental thoughts of Christ. Happy
are they who have such thoughts? Reader, have you? True Christians have loving and reverent thoughts of Christ. They
love to do the things that please Him. They like, in their poor weak way, to
show their affection to Him by keeping His words. They love everything
belonging to Him,—His day, His house, His ordinances, His people, His
Book. They never find His yoke heavy, or His burden painful to bear, or His
Commandments grievous. Love lightens all. They know something of the mind of
Mr. Standfast, in "Pilgrim's Progress," when he said, as he stood in the
river,—"I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and whenever I have seen the
print of His shoe in the earth, then I have coveted to set my foot over it."
Happy are they who have such thoughts? Reader, have you? True Christians have hopeful thoughts of Christ. They
expect to receive far more from Him one day than they have ever received
yet. They hope that they shall be kept to the end, and never perish. But
this is not all. They look forward to Christ's second coming and expect that
then they shall see far more than they have seen, and enjoy far more than
they have yet enjoyed. They have the earnest of an inheritance now in the
Spirit dwelling in their heart. But they hope for a far fuller possession
when this world has passed away. They have hopeful thoughts of Christ's
second Advent, of their own resurrection from the grave of their reunion
with all the saints who have gone before them, of eternal blessedness in
Christ's kingdom. Happy are they who have such thoughts! They sweeten life,
and lift men over many cares. Reader, have you such thoughts ? Reader, thoughts such as these are the property of all true Christians.
Some of them know more of them and some of them know less. But all know
something about them. They do not always feel them equally at all time! They
do not always find such thoughts equally fresh and green in their minds.
They have their winter as well as their summer, and their low tide as well
as their high water. But all true Christians are, more or less, acquainted
with these thoughts. In this matter churchmen and dissenters, rich and poor,
all are agreed, if they are true Christians. In other things they may be
unable to agree and see alike. But they all agree in their thoughts about
Christ. One word they can all say, which is the same in every tongue. That
word is "Hallelujah," praise to the Lord Christ! One answer they can all
make, which in every tongue is equally the same. That word is, "Amen," so be
it! And now, reader, I shall wind up my Christmas tract, by simply bringing
before your conscience the question which forms its title. I ask you this
day, —"What think ye of Christ?" What others think about Him is not the question now. Their mistakes are
no excuse for you.—Their correct views will not save your soul. The point
you have before you is simply this,—"What do you think yourself?" Reader, this Christmas may possibly be your last. Who can tell but you
may never live to see another December come round? Who can tell but your
place may be empty, when the family party next Christmas is gathered
together? Do not, I entreat you, put off my question or turn away from it.
It can do you no harm to look at it and consider it. What do you think of
Christ? Begin, I beseech you, this day to have right thoughts of Christ, if you
never had them before. Let the time past suffice you to have lived without
real and heartfelt religion.—Let this present Christmas be a starting point
in your soul's history. Awake to see the value of your soul, and the immense
importance of being saved. Break off sharp from sin and the world. Get down
your Bible and begin to read it. Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer,
and beseech Him to save your soul. Rest not, rest not till you have
trustful, loving, experimental, hopeful thoughts of Christ. Reader, mark my words! If you will only take the advice I have now given
you, you will never repent it. Your life in future will be happier. Your
heart will be lighter. Your Christmas gatherings will be more truly joyful.
Nothing makes Christmas meetings so happy as to feel that we are all
travelling on towards an eternal gathering in heaven. Reader, I say for the last time, if you would have a happy Christmas,
have right thoughts about Christ.
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