Where Jesus Christ tells - Chambers, Oswald
1. In the domain of struggle and sin
If Jesus Christ does not mean anything to you it is because you have not entered into the domain where he tells; you may have to enter that domain through a ruthless doorway. Immediately you go through the bottom board of self-complacency and come to the elemental you enter the domain of struggle and sin, and Jesus Christ begins to tell at once. Men are alive physically and intellectually apart from Jesus Christ, and as long as they are satisfied with that attitude to life Jesus Christ is not a necessity; the wholesome- minded type is totally oblivious to Jesus Christ. I did not come for the whole, said Jesus, but for they that are sick (see Luke 5:3132). There are numbers of men and women who are materially satisfied, their reach does not exceed heir grasp; they are not moral renegades, but they remain outside the domain in which Jesus Christ figures. They have no disrespect for Jesus Christ, but they have no use for him, he seems to be untouched by the reality of things. It is quite possible to live in that domain and never come across the need for jesus christ; in fact you can work out a better philosophy of life without him because he comes in as an interruption. But when once a man realises that his actual life spits at his creed, then begins the struggle. A boy in his teens thinks higher and nobler than at any other time, then he begins to find that his actual life comes nowhere near his ideal i cant begin to be actually what i see i ought to be. The struggle represented by that type of mind is an agony, and that is the first domain where Jesus Christ begins to tell. If a man has got this struggle on there is only one way outcome unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and i will give you rest. If you are not struggling, you don’t need to bother your head; but if it is a struggle worthy of the name, remember the only way out is by coming to Jesus. So long as i have no struggle, no sense of sin, i can do well enough without him.
2. In the domain of suffering and sorrow
Another domain in which Jesus Christ tells is the domain of suffering and sorrow. You cannot think of a home to-day that is without suffering. The war has knocked on the head the stupid temperamental idea that every cloud has a silver lining; there are clouds in countless lives with an inkier lining inside than outside. It is an insult to tell such people to cheer up and look on the bright side; their lives are blasted for all time from every standpoint saving Jesus Christs. The remarkable thing is that it is rarely the one who suffers who turns against god; it is the lookers-on who turn against god because they do not see the one fact more in the life which gives god room to work. Those who look on are apt to come to the con- clusion either that the one who suffers is a sinner, or that god is cruel; they take the line of jobs comforters. Why there should be suffering we do not know; but we have to remain loyal to the character of god as revealed by Jesus Christ in the face of it. There is a type of suffering caused because we do not see the way out. A man may say that the basis of things is rational get to the bottom of things and you will find it all simple and easy of explanation well, that simply is not true. The basis of things is not rational, but tragic, and when you enter the domain of suffering and sorrow you find that reason and logic are your guide amongst things as they are, but nothing more. Is it rational that i should be born with an heredity over which i have no control? Is it rational that nations that are nominally christian should be at war? The basis of things is tragic, and the only way out is through the redemption. Many a man in mental stress of weather is driven to utter what sounds like blasphemy, and yet he may be nearer god than in his complacent acceptance of beliefs that have never been tried. Never be afraid of the man who seems to you to talk blasphemously, he is up against problems you may never have met with; instead of being wrathful, be patient with him. The man to be afraid of is the one who is indifferent, what morality he has got is well within his own grasp, and Jesus Christ is of no account at all.
3. In the domain of spirit and sublimity
It is in the implicit domains that Jesus Christ tells. By implicit is meant the thing you cant put into words but which makes you you. It is in the moments when the implicit is awakened that Jesus Christ becomes the only one who does tell. You cannot get there when you like, there are moral conditions. Jesus Christ makes himself the great decider of human destiny but who say ye that i am? Beware of the subtlety that likes to listen to the teaching of Jesus but says, there is no need for all this talk about the atonement and the cross, all that is necessary is to live out the sermon on the mount, to follow in the steps of Jesus. If Jesus Christ came to teach a man to be what he never can be, would he had never come! He is the greatest tantaliser of mankind if all he came to do was to tell us to be pure in heart, to be so holy that when god scrutinises us he can see nothing to censure. But what he came to do was to make it possible for any man to receive the disposition that ruled him, viz. , the holy spirit. When a man is born again what happens is that he receives the heredity of Jesus Christ. That is the meaning of regeneration. There is only one disposition that can live out the teaching of Jesus, and that is his own disposition. When i have received the disposition of Jesus Christ, god does not shield me from any requirements of a son; i have the opportunity of proving actually worthy of his great redemption. If the son . . . Shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed, said Jesus free from the inside, free in essence; there will be no pretence, no putting yourself on a pedestal and saying this is what god has done for me, you will be free, the thing will be there ostensibly.