Sympathiser or saviour? - Chambers, Oswald
Isaiah 61:1
(see also luke 4:1819, rv mg)
In some ages, as with some people, the tendency is strong to make an essential out of what is a mere accompaniment. In our day this tendency is marked in the emphasising of our lord as a sympathiser, and the direct practical effect of this is to turn spirituality into sentimentality, and to make our lord simply a kind brother-man. To picture Jesus christ, never so beauti- fully, as one who sits down beside the brokenhearted and by expression of fellow-feeling and overflowing tenderness, enables him to be resigned and submissive to his lot, is not only thoroughly to misunderstand our lord, but to prevent his doing what he came to do. He does come to the brokenhearted, to the captives bound by a cursed hereditary tendency, to the blind who grope for light, to the man bruised and crushed by his surroundings, but he does not come as a sympathi- serhe binds up the brokenhearted, gives release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind; he sets at liberty them that are bruised. Jesus Christ is not a mere sympathiser, he is a saviour, and the only one,
For neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved (RV). His sympathy is the accompaniment of the work he alone can do. Again, in Hebrews 4:1516 (for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities . . . ), the sympathy and fellow-feeling is merely the accompaniment of the deliverance wrought by coming to the throne of grace, and finding help in time of need.
Another accompaniment which is apt to be made an essential, and which even more fatally prevents men from finding Jesus Christ as saviour, is the idea that he came to give us better social surroundings, to extend and improve our civilisations. That is a gross misreading of the gospel our lord said he was anointed to preach, and of the work he came to do. He did come to get things done but what things? The things we cannot do! Social reform, political purity, progressive civilisation, is our work, not gods, and we must do it. If we don’t, it will never be done. The reason we are so sluggish in the matter is because the work our lord came to do has never been done in us. God has ordained that our work we must do, in the sweat of our brow, and through struggle and sacrifice we must work; and when the sanctified saints do the work god appoints them, then do gods work and mans work fit, and the mighty evo- lution with god at its heart moves on to all eternity.
The spirit of the lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . (RV mg). Thank god for the deep profound note of the glorious gospel of god, that Jesus Christ as saviour can justify ungodly men, can set them free from their sin; and as sanctifier he can make them into sons and daughters of god, able to love others as god has loved them, able to show others the same unconditioned mercy he has showed them.
Jesus Christ is not a sympathiser, neither is he a social reformer, he is uniquethe saviour of the world. The atonement is god speaking to men in heart-breaking agony and long-suffering patience that they might be reconciled to his way of salvation. Beware of dragging down the atonement into the socialistic arena. The church is called to deliver gods message and to be for the praise of his glory, not to be a socialistic institution under the patron- age of god. Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; . . . That he might present the church to himself a glorious church, . . . Holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25, 27 RV)